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Cleaner air in United States and Europe is brewing more Atlantic hurricanes, a new U.S. government study found. The Associated Press reports: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration study links changes in regionalized air pollution across the globe to storm activity going both up and down. A 50% decrease in pollution particles and droplets in Europe and the U.S. is linked to a 33% increase in Atlantic storm formation in the past couple decades, while the opposite is happening in the Pacific with more pollution and fewer typhoons, according to the study published in Wednesday's Science Advances. NOAA hurricane scientist Hiroyuki Murakami ran numerous climate computer simulations to explain change in storm activity in different parts of the globe that can't be explained by natural climate cycles and found a link to aerosol pollution from industry and cars -- sulfur particles and droplets in the air that make it hard to breathe and see. Scientists had long known that aerosol pollution cools the air, at times reducing the larger effects of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuel and earlier studies mentioned it as a possibility in increase in Atlantic storms, but Murakami found it a factor around the world and a more direct link. Hurricanes need warm water -- which is warmed by the air -- for fuel and are harmed by wind shear, which changes in upper level winds that can decapitate storm tops. Cleaner air in the Atlantic and dirtier air in the Pacific, from pollution in China and India, mess with both of those, Murakami said. In the Atlantic, aerosol pollution peaked around 1980 and has been dropping steadily since. That means the cooling that masked some of the greenhouse gas warming is going away, so sea surface temperatures are increasing even more, Murakami said. On top of that the lack of cooling aerosols has helped push the jet stream -- the river of air that moves weather from west to east on a roller-coaster like path -- further north, reducing the shear that had been dampening hurricane formation.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: It's not every day that someone comes across a new state of matter in quantum physics, the scientific field devoted to describing the behavior of atomic and subatomic particles in order to elucidate their properties. Yet this is exactly what an international team of researchers that includes Andrea Bianchi, University of Montreal physics professor and researcher at the Regroupement quebecois sur les materiaux de pointe, and his students Avner Fitterman and Jeremi Dudemaine has done. In a recent article published in the scientific journalPhysical Review X, the researchers document a "quantum spin liquid ground state" in a magnetic material created in Bianchi's lab: Ce2Zr2O7, a compound composed of cerium, zirconium and oxygen. In quantum physics, spin is an internal property of electrons linked to their rotation. It is spin that gives the material in a magnet its magnetic properties.[...]Ce2Zr2O7 is a cerium-based material with magnetic properties. "The existence of this compound was known," said Bianchi. "Our breakthrough was creating it in a uniquely pure form. We used samples melted in an optical furnace to produce a near-perfect triangular arrangement of atoms and then checked the quantum state." It was this near-perfect triangle that enabled Bianchi and his team at UdeM to create magnetic frustration in Ce2Zr2O7. Working with researchers at McMaster and Colorado State universities, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex System in Dresden, Germany, they measured the compound's magnetic diffusion. "Our measurements showed an overlapping particle function -- therefore no Bragg peaks -- a clear sign of the absence of classical magnetic order," said Bianchi. "We also observed a distribution of spins with continuously fluctuating directions, which is characteristic of spin liquids and magnetic frustration. This indicates that the material we created behaves like a true spin liquid at low temperatures." After corroborating these observations with computer simulations, the team concluded that they were indeed witnessing a never-before-seen quantum state.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science.org: Two minutes after the world's biggest tectonic plate shuddered off the coast of Japan, the country's meteorological agency issued its final warning to about 50 million residents: A magnitude 8.1 earthquake had generated a tsunami that was headed for shore. But it wasn't until hours after the waves arrived that experts gauged the true size of the 11 March 2011 Tohoku quake. Ultimately, it rang in at a magnitude 9 -- releasing more than 22 times the energy experts predicted and leaving at least 18,000 dead, some in areas that never received the alert. Now, scientists have found a way to get more accurate size estimates faster, by using computer algorithms to identify the wake from gravitational waves that shoot from the fault at the speed of light. Recently, researchers involved in the hunt for gravitational waves -- ripples in space-time created by the movement of massive objects -- realized that those gravity signals, traveling at the speed of light, might also be used to monitor earthquakes. "The idea is that as soon as mass moves anywhere, the gravitational field changes, and ... everything feels it," says Bernard Whiting, a physicist at the University of Florida who worked on the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory. "What was amazing was that the signal would be present even in seismometers." Sure enough, in 2016, Whiting and his colleagues reported that regular seismometers could detect these gravity signals. Earthquakes result in large shifts in mass; those shifts give off gravitational effects that deform both existing gravitational fields and the ground beneath seismometers. By measuring the difference between these two, the scientists concluded they could create a new kind of earthquake early warning system. Gravitational signals show up on seismometers before the arrival of the first seismic waves, in a portion of the seismogram that's traditionally ignored. By combining signals from dozens of seismometers on top of one another, scientists can identify patterns to interpret the size and location of large events, Whiting says. Now, Andrea Licciardi, a postdoc at Cote d'Azur University, and his colleagues have built a machine-learning algorithm to do that pattern recognition. They trained the model on hundreds of thousands of simulated earthquakes before testing it on the real data set from Tohoku. The model accurately predicted the earthquake's magnitude in about 50 seconds -- faster than other state-of-the-art early warning systems, researchers report today in Nature. "It's more than the seed of an idea -- they've shown that it can be done," Whiting says. "What we showed was a proof of principle. What they're showing is a proof of implementation."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A three-person panel of federal appeals court judges is letting a Texas law aimed at punishing social media companies for alleged anti-conservative bias go into effect for now. From a report: In a ruling late Wednesday, the panel stayed a district court injunction that had paused the law while the judges consider an appeal of the lower court's move. The decision, which was supported by two unnamed judges and was not immediately published with the court's reasoning, comes after a Monday hearing in which the jurists appeared to struggle with basic tech concepts, including whether Twitter counts as a website. The decision is a win for conservative critics of the current interpretation of tech law, which underlies the operations of social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Two tech trade groups that count the Big Tech companies as members had sued Texas over the law. Until this week, industry observers widely expected the court to uphold a block on the law, which allows for lawsuits against social media services if they "censor" users. A different federal court also paused a similar Florida law, finding that it sought to punish private companies for their views and treatment of content in violation of the First Amendment. In court, Texas argued that it is merely trying to force platforms to carry all content the way phone companies are expected to carry all calls.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google has signed deals to pay more than 300 publishers in Germany, France and four other EU countries for their news and will roll out a tool to make it easier for others to sign up too, the company told Reuters. From the report: The move to be announced publicly later on Wednesday followed the adoption of landmark EU copyright rules three years ago that require Google and other online platforms to pay musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists for using their work. News publishers, among Google's fiercest critics, have long urged governments to ensure online platforms pay fair remuneration for their content. Australia last year made such payments mandatory while Canada introduced similar legislation last month. The blog did not say how much publishers were being paid. Two-thirds of this group are German publishers including Der Spiegel, Die Zeit and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "So far, we have agreements which cover more than 300 national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland, with many more discussions ongoing," Sulina Connal, director for news and publishing partnerships, said in blog post. "We are now announcing the launch of a new tool to make offers to thousands more news publishers, starting in Germany and Hungary, and rolling out to other EU countries over the coming months," Connal said in the blogpost.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google is expanding end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to include group texts in the Messages app. The feature will be available as an open beta later this year. Engadget reports: Google hasn't revealed more details about E2EE in group chats, but it will surely be similar to how the option works in one-on-one conversations. Everyone in the group will need to have RCS chat functions switched on to use the feature. You'll be able to tell if a message you're about to share with the group is encrypted if there's a lock icon on the send button. The Messages app now has more than 500 million monthly active users with RCS. So, there's already a large number of people who'd be able to take advantage of E2EE in group chats.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Windows' Sound Recorder app has gone through a few iterations since its initial release in Windows 3.0 back in 1990, when it launched as a simple app that could only record 60 seconds of audio at a time. But the app vanished altogether in Windows 10, replaced by a totally new app called Voice Recorder, which can record and trim basic sound recordings and save them as m4a files. Sound Recorder is now making a comeback, and Microsoft is currently testing a revamped version for Windows Insiders in the Dev channel. The company announced the redesign in a blog post summarizing Windows 11's updates to built-in Windows apps. The new Sound Recorder uses a two-column layout similar to Voice Recorder's, with playback and trimming controls to the right and a list of all the files you've recorded on the left. But it adds some old Sound Recorder features that disappeared from the app years ago, when it was boiled down to almost nothing in Windows Vista. The app has a waveform visualizer that appears during recording and playback, and you can once again choose to save or open files in multiple formats (including the default m4a, as well as mp3, wma, FLAC, and WAV). The new Sound Recorder can also adjust audio playback speed from 0.25x to 4 and set markers so you can easily jump from place to place within a large audio recording.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nvidia is publishing their Linux GPU kernel modules as open-source and will be maintaining it moving forward. Phoronix's Michael Larabel reports: To much excitement and a sign of the times, the embargo has just expired on this super-exciting milestone that many of us have been hoping to see for many years. Over the past two decades NVIDIA has offered great Linux driver support with their proprietary driver stack, but with the success of AMD's open-source driver effort going on for more than a decade, many have been calling for NVIDIA to open up their drivers. Their user-space software is remaining closed-source but as of today they have formally opened up their Linux GPU kernel modules and will be maintaining it moving forward. [...] This isn't limited to just Tegra or so but spans not only their desktop graphics but is already production-ready for data center GPU usage.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At its I/O developer conference, Google today launched Google Wallet, a new Android and Wear OS app that will allow users to store things like credit cards, loyalty cards, digital IDs, transit passes, concert tickets, vaccination cards and more. TechCrunch reports: That's pretty straightforward, but from here on out, it gets a bit confusing. [...] [Back in 2018, Google Wallet was folded into Google Pay.] Currently, Google Pay is available in 42 markets, Google says. Because in 39 of those markets, Google Pay is still primarily a wallet, those users will simply see the Google Pay app update to the new Google Wallet app. But in the U.S. and Singapore, Google Pay will remain the payments-focused app while the Wallet app will exist in parallel to focus on storing your digital cards. Meanwhile, in India, Google says that "people will continue to use their Google Pay app they are familiar with today." "The Google Pay app will be a companion app to the Wallet," said Arnold Goldberg, the VP and GM of Payments at Google, who joined the company earlier this year after a long stint at PayPal. "Think of [the Google Pay app] as this higher value app that will be a place for you to make payments and manage money, whereas the wallet will really be this container for you to store your payment assets and your non-payment assets." Goldberg noted that Google decided to go this route because of the rapid digitization we've been seeing during the last two years of the pandemic.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Senate has voted to confirm privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya to the Federal Trade Commission. The confirmation secures a Democratic voting majority at the agency tasked by the Biden administration with investigating big tech companies like Facebook and Google over potential data privacy and competition violations. The Verge adds: Vice President Kamala Harris voted to break a 50-50 tie on the Senate floor to finalize Bedoya's confirmation. Bedoya will replace former Commissioner Rohit Chopra who left the FTC last year to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Before his confirmation, Bedoya was a Georgetown law professor with a focus on privacy law, founding the university's Center on Privacy and Technology in 2014. In his academic career, Bedoya explored the disproportionate effects of surveillance on minority groups, particularly regarding facial recognition technology.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: President Nayib Bukele's Bitcoin gambit is becoming onerous for cash-strapped El Salvador but that isn't stopping him from adding to his stockpile. Bukele's bought 2,301 Bitcoins for the government since making them legal tender back in September, based on his announcements on Twitter. That includes a purchase of 500 coins yesterday as their price plunged below $31,000, extending a wild six-month sell-off. Those tokens are worth $74 million today. That's 28% less than the $103 million Bukele paid for them, according to calculations by Bloomberg. Bukele has shown himself to be a true believer in crypto, winning attention and admirers from around the world in the process, and says he trades the nation's stockpile of coins on his phone. The 40-year-old has said he will push ahead with plans to issue a $1 billion blockchain bond to fund the construction of Bitcoin City, an income and capital gains tax-free jurisdiction he hopes to create on the country's coast. Bukele tweeted pictures on Monday of a mockup for the planned city, which includes an international airport. It would use geothermal energy from a nearby volcano. According to JPMorgan's emerging market bond index, El Salvador's dollar bonds have pluged 24% this year, "as concern mounts that the government will fail to pay back $800 million of notes that come due in January," notes Bloomberg. "Moody's cut the government's credit rating to Caa3 last week, citing an increased risk of default."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Google, which failed to find a consumer audience for its internet-connected glasses about a decade ago, on Wednesday presented a prototype of augmented reality glasses aimed at the general public. Bloomberg: In a brief demonstration at its annual I/O developer conference, the company showed glasses using an AR version of Google Translate. The company didn't say when the glasses would be ready for consumers, but Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai indicated Google has a "long way to go" before releasing them. "It's important we design in a way that's built for the real world and doesn't take away from it," Pichai said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google announced several new gadgets during its I/O developer conference on Wednesday, including its long-awaited Pixel Watch, a new budget Pixel 6a phone and headphones. It also teased its flagship Pixel 7 phone, which is coming this fall. From a report: The Google Pixel Watch offers features similar to the Apple Watch's and sports a refined and sleek look that could appeal to customers who use Android instead of the iPhone, which it doesn't work with. It will integrate Fitbit's technology, allowing it to pull on years of research and development from the fitness startup it acquired last year. The Fitbit tech will let users track their sleep, heart rate and workouts. The watch runs Google's Wear OS software that lets users do things such as check messages and download music. Users can also get directions with Google Maps or connect it with their smart home devices, so they can, for example, change their thermostat temperature or make sure the lights are turned off. Google will release its latest budget Pixel phone this summer. The Pixel 6a has mostly the same design as the Pixel 6, but will be slightly smaller and cost $449. Google promised an all-day battery that can last up to 72 hours when in the Extreme Battery Saver mode, which it said is a first for Pixel phones. It also uses Google Tensor, so the budget phone will have the same power as the more expensive Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. [...] Google teased the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro flagship phones. They'll use the next generation of the Google Tensor chip and will ship with Android 13. The company didn't provide pricing, but the Pixel 6 had been targeted at the midrange market with a $599 starting price, while the 6 Pro started at $899.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Offering a sneak preview of the Pixel 7 wasn't enough, so Google's really leaning in. Today at I/O, the company announced that it's returning to the tablet business with a new device set for, get this, a 2023 launch. From a report: "Normally we wouldn't tease a new product before it's ready," said Google's hardware chief Rick Osterloh, "but there's so much amazing energy around tablets in the developer community that we wanted to bring you all into the loop." The Pixel Tablet is going to be something of a spiritual successor to 2018's Pixel Slate, which the company quietly discontinued last year. Like the Pixel Book, the hardware was nice, but in a world full of super cheap Chromebooks, Google never really nailed the "why."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alphabet's Google unveiled a series of planned upgrades to its search and maps services revealing the company's augmented reality ambitions -- and its appeal to a generation of internet users drifting away from the company. From a report: The new features include ways for people to search for nearby items using images and identify physical objects with their smartphone cameras. On Google Maps, the company promised a way for people to explore detailed 3D digital models of landmarks and neighborhoods before setting foot in person. Google shared the plans on Wednesday for the first day of its annual I/O developer conference held near its Mountain View, California headquarters. Google is working to keep its products relevant and growing as users' needs evolve beyond text. "Search should be something that you can do anywhere, in any way you want, using any of your senses," Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's senior vice president and product chief, said in an interview. Google's core search advertising business has continued to grow steadily during the pandemic, despite recent middling financial results. Yet the I/O announcements underscored nascent threats Google sees to its flagship services. People in emerging markets are more likely to search with voice features than typing, which has driven Google to invest more in its voice assistant feature.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Do Kwon, the CEO of Terra creator Terraform Labs, was one of the pseudonymous co-founders behind the failed algorithmic stablecoin Basis Cash, CoinDesk reported Wednesday. From the report: Basis Cash (BAC) was a closely watched revival in decentralized finance (DeFi) circles when it launched on Ethereum in late 2020, just before the launch of terraUSD (UST), Terra's flagship stablecoin. Like UST, BAC sought to maintain a $1 peg through code, not collateral. But it failed: The token of this long-abandoned project never achieved its target of dollar parity, sank below $1 in early 2021 and was trading well below 1 cent on Wednesday.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The European Commission has proposed controversial new regulation that would require chat apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to selectively scan users' private messages for child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and "grooming" behavior. The proposal is similar to plans mooted by Apple last year but, say critics, much more invasive. From a report: After a draft of the regulation leaked earlier this week, privacy experts condemned it in the strongest terms. "This document is the most terrifying thing I've ever seen," tweeted cryptography professor Matthew Green. "It describes the most sophisticated mass surveillance machinery ever deployed outside of China and the USSR. Not an exaggeration." Jan Penfrat of digital advocacy group European Digital Rights (EDRi) echoed the concern, saying, "This looks like a shameful general #surveillance law entirely unfitting for any free democracy." (A comparison of the PDFs shows differences between the leaked draft and final proposal are cosmetic only.) The regulation would establish a number of new obligations for "online service providers" -- a broad category that includes app stores, hosting companies, and any provider of "interpersonal communications service."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Hidden away in Coinbase Global's disappointing first-quarter earnings report -- in which the U.S.'s largest cryptocurrency exchange reported a quarterly loss of $430 million and a 19% drop in monthly users -- is an update on the risks of using Coinbase's service that may come as a surprise to its millions of users. In the event the crypto exchange goes bankrupt, Coinbase says, its users might lose all the cryptocurrency stored in their accounts too. Coinbase said in its earnings report Tuesday that it holds $256 billion in both fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies on behalf of its customers. Yet the exchange noted that in the event it ever declared bankruptcy, "the crypto assets we hold in custody on behalf of our customers could be subject to bankruptcy proceedings." Coinbase users would become "general unsecured creditors," meaning they have no right to claim any specific property from the exchange in proceedings. Their funds would become inaccessible.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following a day in which teetering stablecoin TerraUST (UST) bounced around $.90, it resumed its free-fall overnight to approach $0.30 before recovering partly to $.43 this morning. From a report: However, this performance could be considered downright bullish when compared to LUNA, the token designed to maintain its $1 peg, which has now fallen below $2. LUNA is down a staggering 98% in the past five days, which has seen its market capitalization lose $25 billion this week. Today attention will focus on whether the Luna Foundation Guard, led by founder Do Kwon, will be about to recover from this downward spiral. The Block reported yesterday that the team was in talks to obtain $1 billion in additional collateral from unnamed hedge funds and market makers. However, that has not come to fruition.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coinbase halted trading service in India because of "informal pressure" from the Reserve Bank of India, the crypto exchange's chief executive said on Tuesday, addressing the notable Indian episode for the first time in a month. From a report: The Nasdaq-listed firm launched its eponymous crypto trading service in India to much fanfare on April 7. The app allowed users in the world's second largest internet market to buy crypto tokens using UPI, a highly popular Indian payments infrastructure built by a coalition of retail banks. But just three days after the launch, the firm rolled back the service without an explanation. The move followed a strange statement made by the National Payments Corporation of India, the governing body that oversees UPI in the country, in which it refused to acknowledge UPI support on Coinbase's app. Asked about the Indian episode on the company's earnings call, Coinbase co-founder and chief executive Brian Armstrong said Coinbase disabled UPI "because of some informal pressure from the Reserve Bank of India." Armstrong pointed out that cryptocurrency trading is not illegal in India -- in fact, the South Asian nation just recently started to tax it -- but there are "elements in the government there, including at Reserve Bank of India, who don't seem to be as positive on it. And so they -- in the press, it's been called a 'shadow ban,' basically, they're applying soft pressure behind the scenes to try to disable some of these payments, which might be going through UPI," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Scientists have discovered evidence that a key rare resource, called helium-3, is potentially ten times more common on Earth than previously known -- though the source of all this extra supply remains mysterious, reports a new study. The finding is important because helium-3 could serve as a foundation of limitless clean power for our civilization, but has been seen as inaccessible since it is largely found in outer space locations, especially the Moon. Helium-3 is an isotope of helium, which means it contains the same number of protons as this common element but a different number of neutrons. This isotope is considered a potentially powerful energy source for future fusion reactors, making it a star of science fiction as well as a sought-out resource in the real world. However, while small amounts of the substance are produced by geological processes and from the fallout of nuclear weapons testing, there is thought to be very little helium-3 available on Earth. Now, scientists led by Benjamin Birner, a postdoctoral scholar in geosciences at the University of California San Diego, have captured evidence for a previously unknown abundance of helium-3 in the atmosphere, which "presents a major puzzle in the helium-3 budget" and "motivates a search for missing helium-3 sources on Earth, especially since helium-3 is considered an important, yet scarce, resource," according to a study published on Monday in Nature Geoscience. Known sources of helium-3 on Earth only account for 10 percent of the surplus, the researchers said. Birner and his colleagues serendipitously uncovered this inferred surplus of helium-3 (3He) while tackling another challenging problem: measuring the overall rise in atmospheric helium as a result of human consumption of fossil fuels. The team pioneered a first-of-its-kind technique for estimating these anthropogenic helium emissions by examining another isotope, helium-4 (4He), which in turn led to the perplexing conclusion that there is some unknown source of helium-3 on our planet. "We only measured the change in atmospheric 4He," Birner said in an email. "However, previous work by other researchers indicates that the helium isotopic ratio of the atmosphere (3He/4He) is roughly stable. Together these observations imply an increase in atmospheric 3He that matches the rise in 4He or we would see a change in the atmospheric isotope ratio." Helium-3 could be the ideal fuel for nuclear fusion, a potential energy source that mimics the same process that powers stars. Though nuclear fusion may not materialize as a practical power source for decades, assuming it is feasible at all, its potential to provide clean and limitless energy to the global human population makes it a tantalizing area of study. To that end, scientists across fields are likely to be interested in locating this unexplained surplus of helium-3 on Earth that has been implied by the new research. "That increase of 3He is quite puzzling because we don't have a good explanation for the source of this 3He so far," Birner noted. "It's quite an important puzzle to solve also because 3He is an important and scarce resource for nuclear fusion reactors. Based on the reported uncertainties in previous studies of the atmospheric 3He/4He trend, the buildup of 3He looks significant, but our study clearly motivates a closer look at the atmospheric 3He/4He trend."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The world is creeping closer to the warming threshold international agreements are trying to prevent, with nearly a 50-50 chance that Earth will temporarily hit that temperature mark within the next five years, teams of meteorologists across the globe predicted. NPR reports: With human-made climate change continuing, there's a 48% chance that the globe will reach a yearly average of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels of the late 1800s at least once between now and 2026, a bright red signal in climate change negotiations and science, a team of 11 different forecast centers predicted for the World Meteorological Organization late Monday. The odds are inching up along with the thermometer. Last year, the same forecasters put the odds at closer to 40% and a decade ago it was only 10%. The team, coordinated by the United Kingdom's Meteorological Office, in their five-year general outlook said there is a 93% chance that the world will set a record for hottest year by the end of 2026. They also said there's a 93% chance that the five years from 2022 to 2026 will be the hottest on record. Forecasters also predict the devastating fire-prone megadrought in the U.S. Southwest will keep going. "We're going to see continued warming in line with what is expected with climate change," said UK Met Office senior scientist Leon Hermanson, who coordinated the report.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ellithligraw writes: Analytics company Pixalate found that there are over 1.5 million abandoned iOS and Android apps. This analysis comes after Apple's announcement of changes to their App Store for abandoned apps, prompting a discussion on the Web. "Pixalate claims they crawled the App Store and Play Store to analyze all apps available for download based on their last update to determine their degree of 'abandonment,'" reports InfoQ. "Based on the previous definitions, Pixalate found over 650k iOS apps and about 870k Android apps to qualify as abandoned apps (haven't been updated in over two years). Of those, just about 180k iOS apps and 130k Android apps qualify as super-abandoned (haven't been updated in at least five years)." Note that according to Statista there are 4 million iOS apps, and 3 million Android apps available.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: The oceans that surround us are transforming. As our climate changes, the world's waters are shifting too, with abnormalities evident not only in the ocean's temperature, but also its structure, currents, and even its color. As these changes manifest, the usually stable environment of the ocean is becoming more unpredictable and erratic, and in some ways the phenomenon is akin to the ocean losing its memory, scientists suggest. "Ocean memory, the persistence of ocean conditions, is a major source of predictability in the climate system beyond weather time scales," researchers explain in a new paper led by first author and climate researcher Hui Shi from the Farallon Institute in Petaluma, California. "We show that ocean memory, as measured by the year-to-year persistence of sea surface temperature anomalies, is projected to steadily decline in the coming decades over much of the globe." In the research, the team studied sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the shallow top layer of the ocean, called the upper-ocean mixed layer (MLD). Despite the MLD's relative shallowness -- extending only to a depth of about 50 meters down from the ocean's surface -- this upper layer of water exhibits a lot of persistence over time in terms of thermal inertia, especially compared to the variations seen in the atmosphere above. In the future, however, modeling suggests that this 'memory' effect of thermal inertia in the upper ocean is set to decline globally over the rest of the century, with dramatically greater variations in temperature predicted over coming decades. According to the researchers, shoaling effects in the MLD will introduce greater levels of water-mixing in the upper ocean, effectively thinning out the top layer. This is expected to lower the ocean's capacity for thermal inertia, rendering the upper ocean more susceptible to random temperature anomalies. Just what that means for marine wildlife is unclear, but the researchers note that "consequential impacts on populations are likely," although some species are expected to fare better than others in terms of adaptation. On another note, the ocean memory decline is expected to make it significantly harder for scientists to forecast upcoming ocean dynamics, reducing reliable lead times for all sorts of predictions related to SSTs. This will hinder our ability to project monsoons, marine heatwaves (MHWs), and periods of extreme weather, among other things. The findings have been published in the journal Science Advances.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) on Tuesday introduced a bill to regulate the volume of commercials shown on streaming platforms. The Hill reports: The bill is known as the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation (CALM) Modernization Act. It would modernize policies regarding ads on streaming services, saying that "the volume of commercials on streaming services cannot be louder than regular programming," according to Eshoo. It would also ramp up the Federal Communications Commission's ability to investigate and enforce violations of the original CALM Act and require a study into its effectiveness. Eshoo added that since she and Whitehouse created the original CALM Act, streaming service providers have "recreated the problem of loud ads because the old law doesn't apply to them." "Today, we're updating the legislation for the benefit of consumers who are tired of diving for the mute button at every commercial break," Eshoo added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PowerShell inventor Jeffrey Snover has aired some grievances about how his indispensable tool once got him demoted. The Register reports: The Microsoft Technical Fellow discussed the incident in a weekend Twitter thread that started when controversial investor Peter Thiel discussed the virtues of courage. "Courage is a key characteristic of future leaders and previous employees," Snover joked in response to Thiel's musings. He also asserted that "many people focus on getting their boss to pat them on the head rather than address problems." Snover said he was urged by friend Kevin Kean -- who served as director of the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) in the mid 2000s -- not to reveal PowerShell, as it may not well be received. This is not the first time Snover has revealed his demotion, but he hasn't previously discussed his profound embarrassment -- or that he kept it secret from everyone other than his wife. "I never mentioned it to anyone for over a decade until I got promoted to Distinguished Engineer," tweeted Snover, who was given the honor in March 2009. Snover then contrasted Microsoft's policy for company-related passion projects to Google's famous 20 percent rule.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Although it's supposed to be restricted by surveillance rules at local, state and federal levels, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has built up a mass surveillance system that includes details on almost all US residents, according to a report from a major think tank. Engadget reports: Researchers from Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology said ICE "now operates as a domestic surveillance agency" and that it was able to bypass regulations in part by purchasing databases from private companies. "Since its founding in 2003, ICE has not only been building its own capacity to use surveillance to carry out deportations but has also played a key role in the federal government's larger push to amass as much information as possible about all of our lives," the report's authors state. "By reaching into the digital records of state and local governments and buying databases with billions of data points from private companies, ICE has created a surveillance infrastructure that enables it to pull detailed dossiers on nearly anyone, seemingly at any time." The researchers spent two years looking into ICE to put together the extensive report, which is called "American Dragnet: Data-Driven Deportation in the 21st Century." They obtained information by filing hundreds of freedom of information requests and scouring more than 100,000 contracts and procurement records. The agency is said to be using data from the Department of Motor Vehicles and utility companies, along with the likes of call records, child welfare records, phone location data, healthcare records and social media posts. ICE is now said to hold driver's license data for 74 percent of adults and can track the movement of cars in cities that are home to 70 percent of the adult population in the US. The study shows that ICE, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has already used facial recognition technology to search through driver's license photos of a third of adults in the US. In 2020, the agency signed a deal with Clearview AI to use that company's controversial technology. In addition, the report states that when 74 percent of adults hook up gas, electricity, phone or internet utilities in a new residence, ICE was able to automatically find out their updated address. The authors wrote that ICE is able to carry out these actions in secret and without warrants. Along with the data it acquired from other government departments, utilities, private companies and third-party data brokers, "the power of algorithmic tools for sorting, matching, searching and analysis has dramatically expanded the scope and regularity of ICE surveillance," the report states. The agency spent around $2.8 billion on "new surveillance, data collection and data-sharing initiatives," according to the report. Approximately $569 million was spent on data analsys, including $186.6 million in contracts with Plantir Technologies. "ICE also spent more than $1.3 billion on geolocation tech during that timeframe and $389 million on telecom interception, which includes tech that helps the agency track someone's phone calls, emails, social media activity and real-time internet use," adds Engadget.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Sky News: The UK, US and EU have formally accused Russia of being behind a cyber attack targeting a satellite communications network used in Ukraine. Businesses and individuals using routers made by Viasat, an American business that provides broadband-speed satellite internet connections, were knocked offline just before tanks began to roll into the country. "The cyberattack took place one hour before Russia's unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, thus facilitating the military aggression," the EU said in its statement. "Although the primary target is believed to have been the Ukrainian military, other customers were affected, including personal and commercial internet users," the Foreign Office added. As a result of the attack 5,800 wind turbines in Germany were knocked offline as they depended upon Viasat routers for remote monitoring and control. The company said in total tens of thousands of its terminals were effectively destroyed and needed to be replaced. UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said: "This is clear and shocking evidence of a deliberate and malicious attack by Russia against Ukraine which had significant consequences on ordinary people and businesses in Ukraine and across Europe. We will continue to call out Russia's malign behavior and unprovoked aggression across land, sea and cyberspace, and ensure it faces severe consequences." The attack was described as "yet another example of Russia's continued pattern of irresponsible behavior in cyberspace, which also formed an integral part of its illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine," in the EU's statement. "Such behavior is contrary to the expectations set by all UN member states, including the Russian Federation, of responsible state behavior and the intentions of states in cyberspace. Russia must stop this war and bring an end to the senseless human suffering immediately," the EU added.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

According to figures from trade group IAB and PwC, the podcast advertising business in the United States is expected to grow to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024. Variety reports: The sector hit $1.45 billion in 2021, representing 72% annual growth, according to the report. In 2021, U.S. podcast advertising revenue grew twice as fast as the total internet advertising market, which was up 35% last year, according to the 2021 PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report. Still, U.S. podcast advertising revenue is poised to continue double-digit growth, growing more than 100% over the next two years to an estimated $4.2 billion in 2024, per the report. According to the latest IAB/PwC podcast report, three key factors are driving podcast ad revenue growth: the ongoing increase in listeners and content; increased use of automated ad tech, as ad revenue served via dynamic ad insertion (DAI) has almost doubled in two years to take 84% share in 2021 (versus ads embedded in podcast audio); and growth of ad spending in categories that historically had lower spend volumes like sports and true crime. "Everything right now is aligned to drive growth," said Chris Bruderle, IAB's VP of research and insights. "There's more engaging and diverse podcast content than ever, and that is translating into larger, more attractive audiences. But more than anything, podcasting has proven that it can deliver beyond direct-to-consumer advertising to support brand-building and drive business outcomes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Matter is a new open-source, interoperability smart home standard that's been created by over 200 companies to allow all of your devices to communicate with each other locally, without the need for a cloud. The Verge sat down with Michele Turner, the senior director of Google Smart Home Ecosystem, to hear how the company plans to implement Matter when it finally arrives later this year. Here's an excerpt from the interview: Matter has evolved substantially from that first meeting, and there have been delays and setbacks. Do you still feel confident in that original vision, that it's being carried through and is on track to achieve what you set out to do at that Woodside dinner three years ago? Michele Turner: I do. And, in fact, I think it's exceeding our original vision in some ways. It's been incredibly heartening to see the enthusiasm and the adoption and the number of companies that have joined the CSA and the Matter workgroup. We're at 200 companies -- it's amazing. How is Matter going to change the smart home experience for the Google Home user? Michele Turner: "For the Google Home user, I think the bigger areas of Matter where they'll see change first is in getting your devices set up. I just set up some lights at my mother-in-law's house, and it still took me 45 minutes to set up four lights. It shouldn't have been so hard. The first thing is going to be that significantly simpler setup. The second piece is the speed and the reliability of the local network. This has been a big pain point for users. My team spent a lot of time working with partners on improving reliability and reducing latency. Because in our mind, if it's not as fast as a light switch, what's the point? We believe Matter's going to drive down those latency numbers significantly and improve the overall reliability of devices in the home. Then, I think interoperability for users is going to be a big piece. As much as we love having everybody using the Google Assistant, the reality is people have iPhones and Android phones in their homes. Some of them want to use HomeKit. We just don't have that kind of compatibility today for users. And I think that's hard. Being able to have multi-admin really work well between these ecosystems is going to be a big benefit for users. Then, our long-term goal is to build out what we call the proactive home. Instead of having a whole bunch of connected devices, how do we build that truly proactive home that works for the benefit of users? ... Matter is going to be absolutely foundational to that. It's the architecture behind the proactive home. If we don't have a home that's reliable, if we don't have things running locally, if it doesn't work consistently, we cannot deliver on that promise. The proactive home is really that intelligence layer, whether it's being able to predict that I'm going upstairs, it's 10 at night, and I always go into my bedroom at that time, so turn on the lights for me; or, I'm watching TV, it's 9:30PM, the kids are in bed, and I get a notification on my phone that the lights just went on in the kid's bedroom. Is somebody sick? Are they watching YouTube? Being able to do anomaly detection. Now, Matter doesn't do that. But it's foundational to be able to enable the rest of that. Because if that core foundation of the home -- of the smart home -- isn't solid, the rest of it just doesn't work." As you've said, Matter is complicated. And there's a lot of expectation that's been placed on its shoulders. What would you say is the biggest misconception right now with Matter? Michele Turner: "I think the biggest misconception is that Matter is going to solve every problem in IoT. It doesn't have a native intelligence layer that's going to automatically give you the proactive home. In my mind, it's solving three very foundational things. It's solving making setup easier for the majority of the devices that people put in their homes. Not the majority of device types, necessarily, but the majority of devices people put in their homes. It's making the IoT more reliable and faster. And then it's going to solve this multi-admin problem. It's going to provide that device interconnectivity that we don't have today that is really great for users. While it's going to be a lot more than that, it's not today. But it's solving what we believe are really the core problems that have challenged adoption by mainstream users in the past." The report notes that all of Google's existing Nest branded smart speakers and displays will be upgraded to support Matter, "allowing you to use Google's voice assistant to control any Matter-enabled device in your home, no matter who made it."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg Law: Valve must face antitrust litigation over claims that "most favored nation" policies for its Steam distribution platform have driven up video game prices across the industry, a federal judge in Seattle ruled. Judge John C. Coughenour let part of the case move forward in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, saying it's plausible Valve exploits its market dominance to threaten and retaliate against developers that sell games for less through other retailers or platforms. The company "allegedly enforces this regime through a combination of written and unwritten rules" imposing its own conditions on how even "non-Steam-enabled games are sold and priced," Coughenour wrote. "These allegations are sufficient to plausibly allege unlawful conduct." The May 6 decision hands a win to the consumers and game publishers leading the proposed class action after the judge twice issued preliminary rulings in Valve's favor. Coughenour first ordered Steam subscribers to arbitrate their consumer claims in October, then tentatively dismissed the developer lawsuit the following month. Consumers who don't subscribe to Steam -- and never signed its arbitration agreement -- are still involved in the case. [...] Coughenour trimmed the Valve case May 6, rejecting claims that the Steam store and gaming platform operate in separate markets the company ties together. There are no plausible allegations of any consumer demand for "fully functional gaming platforms distinct from game stores," he said. But the judge let the most-favored-nation claims move forward, walking back his earlier skepticism about the idea that Steam commissions are "supracompetitive." He had previously found that their stability over time shows Valve didn't raise prices as it gained market share. In fact, when the company competed only against brick-and-mortar retailers, it "did not need market power to charge a fee well above its cost structure because those brick-and-mortar competitors had a far higher cost structure," Coughenour wrote. That makes the analysis apples-to-oranges, he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A coalition of tech giants, including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, have pledged support for a New York bill that would ban the use of controversial search warrants that can identify people based on their location data and internet search keywords. From a report: In a brief statement, the coalition known as Reform Government Surveillance said it "supports the adoption of New York Assembly Bill A84A, the Reverse Location Search Prohibition Act, which would prohibit the use of reverse location and reverse keyword searches." The bill, if passed, would become the first state law to ban so-called geofence warrants and keyword search warrants, which rely on demanding tech companies turn over data about users who were near the scene of a crime or searched for particular keywords at a specific point in time. But the bill hasn't moved since it was referred to a committee for discussion in January, the first major hurdle before it can be considered for a floor vote.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sony and Nintendo said their flagship videogame machines are likely to be in short supply all year owing to component shortages, extending a problem that has plagued both companies. From a report: "There's no end in sight to the semiconductor shortage at this point," said Nintendo's president, Shuntaro Furukawa. Sony's chief financial officer, Hiroki Totoki, said the company aimed to sell 18 million units of its PlayStation 5 videogame console in the current fiscal year, which ends in March 2023, down from a previous projection of 22.6 million. Demand is greater than what Sony can supply, he said. Among other problems, Mr. Totoki cited Covid-19 restrictions in China, including a lockdown in Shanghai, that have made it hard for companies there to manufacture and ship parts used in game machines. "It would be likely to affect our production if the pandemic situation in China worsens, or if the lockdown expands further," he said. The PlayStation 5 has been notoriously hard to get hold of since its introduction in 2020. In the fiscal year ended March 2022, Sony said it sold 11.5 million units of the machine, falling short of the previous target of 14.8 million.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thieves are targeting digital currency investors on the street in a wave of "crypto muggings," police have warned, with victims reporting that thousands of pounds have been stolen after their mobile phones were seized. From a report: Anonymised crime reports provided to the Guardian by City of London police, as part of a freedom of information request, reveal criminals are combining physical muscle with digital knowhow to part people from their cryptocurrency. One victim reported they had been trying to order an Uber near Londonâ(TM)s Liverpool Street station when muggers forced them to hand over their phone. While the gang eventually gave the phone back, the victim later realised that $6,150-worth of ethereum digital currency was missing from their account with the crypto investing platform Coinbase. In another case, a man was approached by a group of people offering to sell him cocaine and agreed to go down an alley with them to do the deal. The men offered to type a number into his phone but instead accessed his cryptocurrency account, holding him against a wall and forcing him to unlock a smartphone app with facial verification. They transferred $7,400-worth of ripple, another digital currency, out of his account. A third victim said he had been vomiting under a bridge when a mugger forced him to unlock his phone using a fingerprint, then changed his security settings and stole $35,300, including cryptocurrency.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes: Former NASA engineer Mark Rober builds some awesome stuff on his YouTube channel, like devious squirrel mazes, but his most popular video series is the annual glitter bomb, a beautifully over-engineered fake package that douses porch pirates with a shower of glitter and fart spray. In an unexpected twist, last year's glitter bomb video also helped police catch and arrest someone involved in a phone scam scheme, and Rober's spent the subsequent year digging into just how these phone scam operations work. In a new video he shows off the extensive results of that effort, including hiring double agents to infiltrate several phone centers in India and hacking their security camera footage. And of course he got off a stink bomb, too. For Rober, this crusade started when he teamed up with another YouTuber, Jim Browning, to try to send a glitter bomb to a scammer operation. Browning's whole channel, which has 3.7 million followers, is devoted to identifying the call centers behind tech support scams and refund scams. These scams typically target the elderly and less computer-savvy folks and usually rely on the scammers gaining remote access to your computer and then tricking them into giving up personal information like their bank account login. 'Refund' scams make people believe they've been overcompensated with some bogus refund and trick them into sending cash in the mail to the scammers. The people who receive those cash packages in the United States are essentially underlings in these scam operations, so after getting a glitter bomb in their hands last year, Rober set his sights on the call centers themselves. With Browning's help, they were able to gain access to the CCTV of the infiltrated call centers, while another YouTube pair, Trilogy Media, traveled to Kolkata, India to run operations on the ground. Also worth checking out: Kitboga's YouTube channel.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel announced seven new mobile processors for the 12th Gen Intel Core mobile family at its Intel Vision event today. From a report: The 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors use desktop-caliber silicon in a mobile package to deliver high levels of performance for professional workflows like CAD, animation and visual effects. The HX processors are unlocked out of the box and available in Core i5, Core i7 and Core i9 models. The 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors enable mobile workstation platforms by providing 65% more performance in multithreaded workloads with more cores, more memory and more I/O while utilizing Intel Thread Director technology to leverage high-power Performance-cores and Efficient-cores so pros can create, program, render and work with maximum efficiency in the office, at home or on the go. In addition to being a commercial workhorse, 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors provide a gaming powerhouse platform that will give enthusiast gamers higher frame rates. The processors have up to 16 cores (8 Performance-cores and 8 Efficient-cores) and 24 threads running at a processor base power of 55 watts. More than 10 workstation and gaming designs powered by 12th Gen Intel Core HX processors are expected to be launched by major computer makers this year, including systems from Dell, HP, Lenovo and others.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twitter was "foolish in the extreme" in kicking former US President Donald Trump off its service, and permanent bans should be extremely rare, said Elon Musk, who has agreed to acquire the social media company. From a report: "I would reverse the permanent ban," Musk said Tuesday at a Financial Times conference. "Perma bans just fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion." Booting the former president off the site "didn't end Trump's voice," Musk said. "It will amplify it among the right. This is why it is morally wrong and flat-out stupid. My opinion, and Jack Dorsey I want to be clear shares this opinion, is that we should not have permanent bans," Musk said, referring to the Twitter co-founder and former chief executive officer.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EA Sports will rename their popular FIFA game series after they failed to extend their partnership with world football's governing body. From a report: The Athletic revealed in October that EA Sports were considering renaming their gaming series and it has now been revealed it will be called EA Sports FC from 2023. EA Sports said in a statement: "After nearly 30 years of creating genre-defining interactive football experiences, we will soon begin an exciting new era. Next year, EA SPORTS FC will become the future of football from EA SPORTS. Alongside our 300+ licence partners across the sport, we're ready to take global football experiences to new heights, on behalf of all football fans around the world. Everything you love about our games will be part of EA SPORTS FC -- the same great experiences, modes, leagues, tournaments, clubs and athletes will be there. Ultimate Team, Career Mode, Pro Clubs and VOLTA Football will all be there." EA Sports have been producing an annual version of the football video game since 1993, along with various spin-off editions. It is one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Last October marked 20 years of the iPod. It's a remarkable run in the cutthroat, always-iterating world of consumer electronics. And while it's undoubtedly true that life hasn't been particularly fruitful for the music player in a product lineup that includes various iPhones and iPads, the beloved music player has somehow managed to hang on. That is, until today. Apple this morning announced that the iPod is dead. That is, as much as a particular gadget can ever be dead. Rather, it will shuffle off this mortal coil slowly, remaining for sale while supplies last. So if you were considering purchasing one for any reason, buy now or forever hold your peace. The iPod's death has been a protracted one. I can hear those "the iPod was still around?" posts clogging up the comments section as I type this. The iconic clickwheel model, which later gave rise to the Classic, was discontinued back in 2014. The Shuffle and Nano, meanwhile, were killed off three years later. Until today, the seventh-generation iPod Touch stubbornly clung to life, three years after its debut.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The start-up has had a meteoric rise, thanks to its charismatic co-founder, Ryan Breslow. But he sometimes stretched the truth to get there. From a report: In just over three years, Bolt has soared in valuation to $11 billion from $250 million, making it a Valley success story. But Bolt's meteoric rise has been fueled at least in part by a pattern of stretching the truth, according to interviews with over 50 former and current employees, clients, investors and others with whom Bolt discussed partnerships and fund-raising, as well as a lawsuit filed recently by a big customer. Most of them sought anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly. In a rush to show growth, Bolt often overstated its technological capability and misrepresented the number of merchants using its service, some of the people said. In presentations to investors, it included the names of customers before verifying whether those merchants were able to use its technology. For a time, a fraud detection product it was pitching to merchants was more dependent on manual review than Mr. Breslow implied, according to a former employee. Mr. Breslow, 27, abruptly stepped down as chief executive in January, blindsiding some investors who, just weeks earlier, had put money into Bolt at an $11 billion valuation. Now, Bolt's troubles are mounting. Some investors are looking to sell their stakes, while customers are questioning Bolt's technology. One of Bolt's biggest customers, Authentic Brands Group, which owns and licenses brands like Brooks Brothers, is suing the company for having "utterly failed to deliver on the technological capabilities that it held itself out as possessing." At an all-hands staff meeting last month, Bolt -- which has around 800 employees -- announced a three-month hiring freeze. Although it has cash to keep operating for a while, Bolt has talked to prospective investors about raising more funds, according to people with knowledge of the outreach. The implosion last month of Fast, a direct competitor, has only heightened investor scrutiny. [...] The race to add merchants often meant that Bolt's sales team signed deals without always verifying that the merchant's payments technology would be able to integrate with Bolt. Ms. Neve said it was standard industry practice to include both prospective clients and those who had signed, even if they weren't using the service. Guess, for instance, was listed on Bolt's website as a "won" customer but never went live and was later removed, she said. An internal document viewed by The Times laid out what to do if a merchant asked whether Bolt's technology could integrate with its e-commerce platform. "If it's a big merchant, you probably want to act like our integration is already underway, not lie about it being done, but act as if it's close," the document said. "If it's a smaller merchant, gauge how much we want them vs how excited they are. If we want them a lot and they're not absolutely ecstatic, then act as if we'll build it." Ms. Neve said the company couldn't locate the document, but that it does not reflect "the practices or policies of Bolt." Bolt's business tactics raised questions from at least one big potential investor. As part of its due diligence, Tiger Global, a fund known for investing in hundreds of young start-ups, had talked to clients that Bolt said it had signed on. Based on those conversations, Tiger executives weren't so sure those merchants would use Bolt beyond a trial, according to two people involved in the conversations. To Tiger, Bolt's revenue projections seemed overly bullish and exaggerated, the people said. Tiger passed.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Forty years after it first began to dabble in quantum computing, IBM is ready to expand the technology out of the lab and into more practical applications -- like supercomputing! The company has already hit a number of development milestones since it released its previous quantum roadmap in 2020, including the 127-qubit Eagle processor that uses quantum circuits and the Qiskit Runtime API. IBM announced on Wednesday that it plans to further scale its quantum ambitions and has revised the 2020 roadmap with an even loftier goal of operating a 4,000-qubit system by 2025. Before it sets about building the biggest quantum computer to date, IBM plans release its 433-qubit Osprey chip later this year and migrate the Qiskit Runtime to the cloud in 2023, "bringing a serverless approach into the core quantum software stack," per Wednesday's release. Those products will be followed later that year by Condor, a quantum chip IBM is billing as "the world's first universal quantum processor with over 1,000 qubits." This rapid four-fold jump in quantum volume (the number of qubits packed into a processor) will enable users to run increasingly longer quantum circuits, while increasing the processing speed -- measured in CLOPS (circuit layer operations per second) -- from a maximum of 2,900 OPS to over 10,000. Then it's just a simple matter of quadrupaling that capacity in the span of less than 24 months.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Netflix could introduce its lower-priced ad-supported tier by the end of the year, a more accelerated timeline than originally indicated, the company told employees in a recent note. From a report: In the note, Netflix executives said that they were aiming to introduce the ad tier in the final three months of the year, according to two people who shared details of the communication, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe internal company discussions. The note also said that they were planning to begin cracking down on password sharing among its subscriber base around the same time, the people said. Last month, Netflix stunned the media industry and Madison Avenue when it revealed that it would begin offering a lower-priced subscription featuring ads, after years of publicly stating that commercials would never be seen on the streaming platform. But Netflix is facing significant business challenges. In announcing first quarter earnings last month, Netflix said that it lost 200,000 subscribers in the first three months of the year -- the first time that has happened in a decade -- and expected to lose two million more in the months to come. Since the subscriber announcement, Netflix's share price has dropped sharply, wiping away roughly $70 billion in the company's market capitalization.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A House subcommittee is scheduled to hold next week the first open congressional hearing on unidentified aerial vehicles in more than half a century, with testimony from two top defense intelligence officials. From a report: The hearing comes after the release last June of a report requested by Congress on "unidentified aerial phenomena." The nine-page "Preliminary Assessment" from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence focused on 144 incidents dating back to 2004 and was able to explain only one. The report declined to draw inferences, saying that the available reporting was "largely inconclusive" and noting that limited and inconsistent data created a challenge in evaluating the phenomena. But it said most of the phenomena reported "do represent physical objects." The assessment concluded that the objects were not secret U.S. technology and that "we currently lack data to indicate any UAP are part of a foreign collection program or indicative of a major technological advancement by a potential adversary."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The U.S. Copyright Office has launched a public consultation to evaluate whether it's wise to make certain technical protection measures mandatory under the DMCA. The Office hopes to hear all relevant stakeholders and the public at large in what may become a de facto review of the recently introduced SMART Copyright Act. [...] Following repeated nudges from Senators Thom Tillis and Patrick Leahy, the Copyright Office started looking into automated tools that online services can use to ensure that pirated content can't be easily reuploaded. This "takedown and staydown' approach relies on technical protection tools, which include upload filters. This is a sensitive subject that previously generated quite a bit of pushback when the EU drafted its Copyright Directive. To gauge the various options and viewpoints, the Copyright Office launched a consultation last year, which triggered a wave of objections and opposition. Last week, the Office followed up with yet another consultation, asking for input on shortcomings in the current DMCA legislation and what alternatives could help to improve things. As things stand, online services are allowed to implement their own upload filters, which many do. Scanning uploads for potentially copyright-infringing content isn't mandatory but that could change in the future. The consultation outline mentions several potential changes to the DMCA's Section 512, such as online services losing their safe harbor protection if they fail to implement specific "standard technical measures" (STMs). "Is the loss of the section 512 safe harbors an appropriate remedy for interfering with or failing to accommodate STMs?" the Copyright Office asks. "Are there other obligations concerning STMs that ought to be required of internet service providers?" the list of questions continues. Stakeholders are asked to share their views on these matters. While it is uncertain whether any measures will be made mandatory, the Copyright Office is already looking ahead. For example, who gets to decide what STMs will be mandatory, and how would the rulemaking process work? "What entity or entities would be best positioned to administer such a rulemaking? What should be the frequency of such a rulemaking? What would be the benefits of such a rulemaking? What would be the drawbacks of such a rulemaking?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Back in March, Google halted Android app and subscription purchases in Russia due to sanctions. Google Play is now "blocking the downloading of paid apps and updates to paid apps in Russia starting May 5, 2022.â 9to5Google reports: The company cites "compliance efforts" as being responsible for this latest policy. There are no changes to free applications as Google says in the Q&A of its support article on the matter: "Can I publish new apps or update existing apps during this pause? You can still publish new free apps, and update existing free apps. Updates to paid apps are blocked for compliance reasons." Google has recommended developers defer payment renewals (which is possible for up to one year). Another given possibility for developers was making apps free or removing the paid subscription "during this pause." That was advised for applications that provide a "critical service to users that keeps them safe and provides access to information."Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During a press conference Monday morning, NASA provided an update on the status of the Webb Space Telescope and released images from the telescope that put Webb's progress on dazzling display. Gizmodo reports: "I'm delighted to report that the telescope alignment has been completed with performance even better than we had anticipated," said Michael McElwain, a Webb observatory project scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a NASA press conference. "This is an extraordinary milestone for humanity." Webb sits at an observational point called L2 nearly 1 million miles from Earth, where it will look further back in time than the Hubble Space Telescope. (Hubble will continue to operate alongside Webb once the latter is operational). [...] The preparation and testing of the telescope's science instruments (a process called commissioning) will take about two months to complete. Only once the commissioning is complete can Webb begin taking the scientific images that will define its tenure in space. But some images are already being collected, to make sure the telescope is functioning properly. Webb's coldest instrument -- the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) -- recently took a test image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way that was previously imaged by the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope's Infrared Array Camera. Webb's image of the same region makes Spitzer's look like a finger painting, showing interstellar gas clearly distributed across the star field. The stars -- blots, in Spitzer's view -- are seven-pointed beacons of light in the MIRI test. Webb's next steps will focus on taking images of its science targets, known as early release observations. These will not only be the first images of Webb science targets, but they will be the first images processed into full color. (Webb sees the cosmos in the infrared and near-infrared wavelengths, but the images will be translated into visible light.) Klaus Pontoppidan, a Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said in the briefing that the chief differences between the most recent images and the ones to come are that the former were taken to test the telescope's ability to see clearly, whereas the latter will test the telescope's ability to image science targets. Pontoppidan wouldn't elaborate on what Webb team will capture in the early release observations -- the targets are a "surprise," he said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists are developing magnetically guided microscopic projectiles that can be injected into patients' blood to attack breast, prostate and other tumors. The project -- led by researchers at Sheffield University -- builds on progress in two key medical fields. The first involves viruses that specifically attack tumors. The second focuses on soil bacteria that manufacture magnets which they use to align themselves in the Earth's magnetic field. The anti-cancer viruses that are being exploited by the Sheffield group -- who have been funded by Cancer Research UK -- are known as oncolytic viruses. They occur naturally but can also be modified to improve their efficacy and to limit the chances of them infecting healthy cells. [...] "The problem is that oncolytic viruses attract the attention of the body's immune defenses and only skin-deep tumors can be tackled this way before the viruses are blocked fairly quickly by our cell defenses," said Dr Faith Howard, another project leader. A solution, the scientists say, is to coat the viruses in magnetic particles. Injected into the blood, these microscopic projectiles could then be directed quickly to a tumor -- by using magnets placed over a patient's body -- before their progress can be blocked by immune defenses. An oncolytic virus had a diameter of about 180 nanometers while the magnets needed to be about 50 nanometers in size, added Howard. (A nanometre is a billionth of a meter.) "These tiny magnets could be made in the laboratory but we have found bacteria do a better job of manufacturing them than we could," she added. Some species of soil bacteria synthesize iron oxide nanoparticles that are called magnetosomes. These are used as compasses that allow the microbes to navigate in Earth's magnetic field and help them find optimum conditions for their growth and survival. "These microscopic magnets they make are perfectly shaped and ideally suited to the microscopic packages we need to target deep cancers," Howard said.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), has published guidelines that aim to stop minors from giving tips or other forms of payment to livestreamers, watching after 10pm, or livestreaming themselves. The Register reports: "Website platforms must not develop functional applications that attract minors to tip or induce minors to give 'gifts.' If it is found that the website platform violates the aforementioned requirements, measures such as suspending the tipping function and shutting down the live broadcast business will be implemented," said the recently published Opinions on Regulating Online Live Rewards and Strengthening the Protection of Minors (in Chinese). The opinions were issued jointly by China's Central Civilization Office, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and State Internet Information Office. The focus was to "persist in taking the socialist core values as the guide." If minors try to circumvent the rules and use adult accounts, the platforms may be responsible for providing refunds. [...] Beijing's qualm with livestreaming and its tech is that the practice can result in physical and mental health issues, as well as create "social problems." [...] There is also concern that teenagers will spend their evenings staying up late online and therefore not have sufficient rest time, hence the 10pm curfew.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DrunkenTerror shares a report from ExtremeTech: Microsoft is advising Windows 11 users to uninstall a recent update. Reports indicated the optional update KB5012643 is causing various apps to crash. The problem involves an interaction between the update and the .Net Framework that's part of Windows. At this time it's unclear which apps are affected by the issue, leaving uninstallation as the "only" viable solution. "Affected apps are using certain optional components in .NET Framework 3.5, such as Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Workflow (WWF) components." This update also broke Safe Mode. Microsoft says when users booted into 'Safe Mode without networking' users might see the screen flicker. Per MS, "Components that rely on explorer.exe, such as File Explorer, the Start menu, and the taskbar, can be affected and appear unstable." Microsoft issued a Known Issue Rollback (KiR) for this already so it should be fixed. If you encounter it, you should be able to resolve it by enabling network support in Safe Mode.Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The new free trade agreement between Australia and the UK includes a site blocking paragraph. The text requires the countries to provide injunctive relief to require ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing pirate sites. While this doesn't change much for the two countries, rightsholders are already eying similar requirements for trade deals with other nations. TorrentFreak reports: The inclusion of a blocking paragraph in the copyright chapter of the trade deal was high on the agenda of various copyright holder groups. Following a series of hearings and consultations, both countries settled on the following text: 1. Each Party shall provide that its civil judicial authorities have the authority to grant an injunction against an ISP within its territory, ordering the ISP to take action to block access to a specific online location, in cases where:(a) that online location is located outside the territory of that Party; and(b) the services of the ISP are used by a third party to infringe copyright or related rights in the territory of that Party. 2. For greater certainty, nothing in this Article precludes a Party from providing that its judicial authorities may grant an injunction to take action to block access to online locations used to infringe intellectual property rights in circumstances other than those specified in paragraph 1. This hasn't gone unnoticed by the Alliance for Intellectual Property, which represents rightsholder organizations such as the MPA, BPI, and the Premier League. The group repeatedly urged the UK Government to include site-blocking powers in the agreement. In a recent submission to the UK Government, the Alliance once again stresses the importance of site blocking, while also hinting at broadening the current anti-piracy toolbox. "It has become a hugely valuable tool in the armory of rights holders looking to protect their IP. It is vital that the UK Government ensures the preservation of the no-fault injunctive relief regime," the Alliance writes. "We would also encourage the opening of dialogue, wherever possible, to share experience around UK practices and to encourage faster, more efficient website blocking procedures, whether through civil, criminal, administrative or voluntary means." The site-blocking language is already included in the latest trade deal draft but the Alliance is also looking ahead at future agreements with other countries. In this context, the blocking paragraph will send a clear message. "We would therefore urge the UK Government to include reference to the site blocking legislation in the FTA with Australia as it will send an important message to future countries that we might chose [sic] to negotiate trade agreements with." The Alliance for Intellectual Property doesn't mention any other countries by name. However, it specifically references a report from the U.S. Copyright Office where site blocking was mentioned as a potential future anti-piracy option. In the same report, the Copyright Office also stressed that further research would be required on the effect and impact of a U.S. site-blocking scheme, but the idea wasn't dismissed outright.Read more of this story at Slashdot.