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T-Mobile, AT&T Oppose Unlocking Rule, Claim Locked Phones Are Good For Users
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 04:23:01


An anonymous reader writes: T-Mobile and AT&T say US regulators should drop a plan to require unlocking of phones within 60 days of activation, claiming that locking phones to a carrier's network makes it possible to provide cheaper handsets to consumers. "If the Commission mandates a uniform unlocking policy, it is consumers -- not providers -- who stand to lose the most," T-Mobile alleged in an October 17 filing with the Federal Communications Commission. The proposed rule has support from consumer advocacy groups who say it will give users more choice and lower their costs.... [ Read it >> ]

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Disney To Name Bob Iger's Successor In Early 2026
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 04:23:01


Disney has appointed former Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman to replace Nike Executive Chairman Mark Parker as board chairman starting in January 2024, "as the media giant lays the groundwork to name a successor for CEO Bob Iger in early 2026," reports CNBC. Iger's contract has been extended until the end of 2026 to ensure the company finds the right fit. CNBC reports: Gorman joined Disney's board less than a year ago and was named the head of the succession planning committee in August. He will continue to lead that committee after he takes over as board chairman from Nike Executive Chairman Parker. "The Disney board has benefited tremendously from James Gorman's expertise and guidance, and we are lucky to have him as our next chairman -- particularly as the board continues to move forward with the succession process," Iger said in a statement. "I'm extremely grateful to Mark Parker for his many years of board service and leadership, which have been so valuable to this company and its shareholders, and to me as CEO." [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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iFixit's Meta Quest 3S Teardown Reveals a Quest 2 'Hiding Inside'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 03:23:01


In a new teardown video published last week, iFixit reveals a Quest 2 headset "hiding inside" the cheaper yet enhanced Quest 3S. The Verge reports: The first hint of that is the headset's Fresnel lenses, which iFixit's Shahram Mokhtari writes in a blog post are "100% compatible" with those used by the Quest 2. The headset has the older headset's IPD adjustment mechanism, as well; and it shares the same single LCD panel, rather than using one panel per eye, like the Meta Quest 3.... [ Read it >> ]

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'Blade Runner 2049' Producer Sues Tesla, Warner Bros. Discovery
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 02:23:01


An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Hollywood Reporter: A production company for Blade Runner 2049 has sued (PDF) Tesla, which allegedly fed images from the movie into an artificial intelligence image generator to create unlicensed promotional materials. Alcon Entertainment, in a lawsuit filed Monday in California federal court, accuses Elon Musk and his autonomous vehicle company of misappropriating the movie's brand to promote its robotaxi at a glitzy unveiling earlier this month. The producer says it doesn't want Blade Runner 2049 to be affiliated with Musk because of his "extreme political and social views," pointing to ongoing efforts with potential partners for an upcoming TV series.... [ Read it >> ]

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Arkansas May Have Vast Lithium Reserves, Researchers Say
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 02:23:01


Researchers at the United States Geological Survey and the Arkansas government announced on Monday that they had found a trove of lithium, a critical raw material for electric vehicle batteries, in an underground brine reservoir in Arkansas. From a report: With the help of water testing and machine learning, the researchers determined that there might be five million to 19 million tons of lithium -- more than enough to meet all of the world's demand for the metal -- in a geological area known as the Smackover Formation. Several companies, including Exxon Mobil, are developing projects in Arkansas to produce lithium, which is dissolved in underground brine. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Tim Cook Knows Apple Isn't First in AI but Says 'It's About Being the Best'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 01:23:01


Apple CEO Tim Cook has acknowledged the company's late entry into AI, stating, "We weren't the first to do intelligence." Despite this admission, Cook defended Apple's approach, claiming it will be "the best for the customer."
The tech giant plans to roll out initial AI features on October 28, with more advanced capabilities expected in 2025. However, internal studies suggest Apple's AI lags behind competitors, with Siri reportedly 25% less accurate than ChatGPT. Cook remains optimistic, asserting that AI will make users' time on iPhones "profoundly different."... [ Read it >> ]

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Nicolas Cage Urges Young Actors To Protect Themselves From AI
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 00:23:01


Actor Nicolas Cage warned young performers about the dangers of AI in film production during his speech at the Newport Beach Film Festival on Sunday. Cage urged actors to protect their craft from employment-based digital replica (EBDR) technology, which allows studios to manipulate performances post-filming. "This technology wants to take your instrument," Cage said. He explained that EBDR enables studios to alter actors' faces, voices, and body language after shooting, potentially compromising artistic integrity. Cage cited his cameo in "The Flash" as an example of EBDR use. He advised actors to consider their rights when approached with contracts permitting EBDR, coining the phrase "MVMFMBMI: my voice, my face, my body, my imagination."... [ Read it >> ]

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A Calculator's Most Important Button Has Been Removed
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-22 00:23:01


Apple's latest iOS update has removed the "C" button from its Calculator app, replacing it with a backspace function. The change, part of iOS 18, has sparked debate among users accustomed to the traditional clear function. The removal of the "C" button represents a significant departure from decades-old calculator design conventions, The Atlantic writes. From the story: The "C" button's function is vestigial. Back when calculators were commercialized, starting in the mid-1960s, their electronics were designed to operate as efficiently as possible. If you opened up a desktop calculator in 1967, you might have found a dozen individual circuit boards to run and display its four basic mathematical functions. Among these would have been an input buffer or temporary register that could store an input value for calculation and display. The "C" button, which was sometimes labeled "CE" (Clear Entry) or "CI" (Clear Input), provided a direct interface to zero out -- or "clear" -- such a register. A second button, "AC" (All Clear), did the same thing, but for other parts of the circuit, including previously stored operations and pending calculations. (A traditional calculator's memory buttons -- "M+," "M-," "MC" -- would perform simple operations on a register.) ... [ Read it >> ]

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AI 'Bubble' Will Burst 99% of Players, Says Baidu CEO
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 23:23:01


Baidu CEO Robin Li has proclaimed that hallucinations produced by large language models are no longer a problem, and predicted a massive wipeout of AI startups when the "bubble" bursts. From a report: "The most significant change we're seeing over the past 18 to 20 months is the accuracy of those answers from the large language models," gushed the CEO at last week's Harvard Business Review Future of Business Conference. "I think over the past 18 months, that problem has pretty much been solved â" meaning when you talk to a chatbot, a frontier model-based chatbot, you can basically trust the answer," he added. ... [ Read it >> ]

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'Crises at Boeing and Intel Are a National Emergency'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 22:23:01


Intel and Boeing, once exemplars of American manufacturing prowess, now face existential crises. Their market values have plummeted, jeopardizing not just shareholder wealth but national security. The U.S. is losing its edge in manufacturing high-tech products, crucial in its geopolitical contest with China, a story on WSJ argues. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Dow Jones and New York Post Sue AI Startup Perplexity, Alleging 'Massive' Copyright Infringement
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 22:23:01


News Corp's Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post have sued Perplexity, a startup that calls itself an "AI-powered Swiss Army Knife for information discovery and curiosity," alleging copyright infringement. From a report: "Perplexity is a generative artificial intelligence company that claims to provide its users accurate and up-to-date news and information in a platform that, in Perplexity's own words, allows users to 'Skip the Links' to original publishers' websites," the companies said in the federal lawsuit, filed Monday. "Perplexity attempts to accomplish this by engaging in a massive amount of illegal copying of publishers' copyrighted works and diverting customers and critical revenues away from those copyright holders. This suit is brought by news publishers who seek redress for Perplexity's brazen scheme to compete for readers while simultaneously freeriding on the valuable content the publishers produce."... [ Read it >> ]

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Linus Torvalds Growing Frustrated By Buggy Hardware, Theoretical CPU Attacks
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 21:23:02


jd writes: Linus Torvalds is not a happy camper and is condemning hardware vendors for poor security and the plethora of actual and theoretical attacks, especially as some of the new features being added impact the workarounds. These workarounds are now getting very expensive, CPU-wise. ... [ Read it >> ]

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52nd Known Mersenne Prime Found
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 20:23:01


chalsall writes: After more than six years of work since the last discovery, the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has found the 52nd known Mersenne Prime number. This is also the largest prime number known to humans.
The number is 2^136,279,841-1, which is 41,024,320 decimal digits long. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Egypt Declared Malaria-Free After Century of Work To Defeat Disease
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 20:23:01


Egypt was declared malaria-free by the World Health Organization, after nearly a century of work to eradicate the disease in the country. From a report: Egypt saw 3 million cases a year in the 1940s, and the Aswan Dam's development in the 1960s created new bodies of standing water for the mosquitoes to breed in, but by 2001 the disease was "firmly under control," according to the WHO. "The disease that plagued pharaohs now belongs to [Egypt's] history," the WHO's chief said. It's the 44th country to be certified, but the wider battle against malaria goes on: The mosquito-borne disease still kills around 600,000 people a year, the large majority of them children in sub-Saharan Africa.... [ Read it >> ]

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Kurt Vonnegut's Lost Board Game Finally Published
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 19:23:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: Fans of literature most likely know Kurt Vonnegut for the novel Slaughterhouse-Five. The staunchly anti-war book first resonated with readers during the Vietnam War era, later becoming a staple in high school curricula the world over. When Vonnegut died in 2007 at the age of 84, he was widely recognized as one of the greatest American novelists of all time. But would you believe that he was also an accomplished game designer? ... [ Read it >> ]

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Intuit Seeks To Scrub CEO Comments on Tax Lobbying From Tech Podcast
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 18:23:01


Intuit, the maker of TurboTax software, asked technology news outlet The Verge to delete part of a podcast interview with CEO Sasan Goodarzi, The Verge reported on Monday. The request came after Goodarzi was questioned about Intuit's lobbying efforts against free government tax filing options, a topic that has drawn scrutiny from regulators and lawmakers. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Is the Microsoft-OpenAI 'Bromance' Beginning to Fray?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 16:23:02


Though Sam Altman once called OpenAI's partnership with Microsoft "the best bromance in tech," now "ties between the companies have started to fray" reports the New York Times — citing interviews with 19 people "familiar with the relationship". [Alternate URL here.]
Among other things, Satya Nadella "has said privately that Altman's firing in November shocked and concerned him, according to five people with knowledge of his comments. Since then, Microsoft has started to hedge its bet on OpenAI," and reconsidered new investments beyond its initial $13 billion — even as OpenAI expects to lose $5 billion this year... [ Read it >> ]

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Europe Automakers Launch Cheaper Electric Cars to Compete With China
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 12:23:01


"Several of Europe's biggest carmakers unveiled low-cost electric vehicles at the Paris Motor Show this week," reports CNBC. The automakers are "seeking to jump-start a demand slump and recapture some of the market share now held by Chinese brands."

"It feels like Europe is fighting back," Julia Poliscanova, senior director for vehicles and e-mobility supply chains at the Transport & Environment campaign group, told CNBC at the Paris Motor Show. "There are so many new models on show, and what is really great is that there are a lot of launches that are more affordable. So, Citroen, Peugeot [and] Renault, they are all showing some smaller affordable models," Poliscanova said. "This is exactly what we need for the mass market, for people to buy those vehicles more, and this is also where the competition from the Chinese is also the hardest," she added... ... [ Read it >> ]

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Cuba's Power Grid Collapses Again. And Then a Hurricane Hit
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 09:23:01


"Millions of Cubans remained without power for a third day in a row Sunday," reports CNN, "after fresh attempts to restore electricity failed overnight and the power grid collapsed for the fourth time — all before the arrival of Hurricane Oscar."
A report from Reuters notes it was the fourth power grid failure in 48 hours.... [ Read it >> ]

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Special VHS Release for 'Alien: Romulus' Announced by 20th Century Studios
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 07:23:01


An anonymous reader shared this report from ComicBook.com:
On Saturday, 20th Century Studios announced that the latest entry in the Alien sci-fi horror franchise will get a limited-edition VHS release on December 3 — just in time for the holidays.
The VHS release of Alien: Romulus is the first such release from a major studio since 2006... a major win for fans of physical media. In recent months, there has been a great bit of conversation surrounding the so-called death of physical media with the rise of digital and streaming with some retailers even having previously announced that they have or will be stopping sales of physical media. But with streaming platforms removing content for various reasons, there's been a rise in appreciation for physical media which has, in turn, resulted in increased sales, particularly when it comes to limited edition items such as Steelbooks [collectible steel-case disc releases]... Given that the Alien: Romulus VHS release is part of an overall celebration of the franchise for its 45th anniversary year, leaning into that nostalgia for feels pretty spot on. ... [ Read it >> ]

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How WatchTowr Explored the Complexity of a Vulnerability in a Secure Firewall Appliance
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 06:23:02


Cybersecurity startup Watchtowr "was founded by hacker-turned-entrepreneur Benjamin Harris," according to a recent press release touting their Fortune 500 customers and $29 million investments from venture capital firms. ("If there's a way to compromise your organization, watchTowr will find it," Harris says in the announcement.) ... [ Read it >> ]

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An Alternative to Rewriting Memory-Unsafe Code in Rust: the 'Safe C++ Extensions' Proposal
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 04:23:01


"After two years of being beaten with the memory-safety stick, the C++ community has published a proposal to help developers write less vulnerable code," reports the Register.
"The Safe C++ Extensions proposal aims to address the vulnerable programming language's Achilles' heel, the challenge of ensuring that code is free of memory safety bugs..."... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft's Honeypots Lure Phishers at Scale - to Spy on Them and Waste Their Time
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 03:23:05


A principal security software engineer at Microsoft described how they use their Azure cloud platform "to hunt phishers at scale," in a talk at the information security conference BSides Exeter.
Calling himself Microsoft's "Head of Deception." Ross Bevington described how they'd created a "hybrid high interaction honeypot" on the now retired code.microsoft.com "to collect threat intelligence on actors ranging from both less skilled cybercriminals to nation state groups targeting Microsoft infrastructure," according to a report by BleepingComputer:... [ Read it >> ]

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Can We Turn Off AI Tools From Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta? Sometimes...
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 01:23:02


"Who asked for any of this in the first place?" wonders a New York Times consumer-tech writer. (Alternate URL here.) "Judging from the feedback I get from readers, lots of people outside the tech industry remain uninterested in AI — and are increasingly frustrated with how difficult it has become to ignore."... [ Read it >> ]

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How WatchTowr Explored the Complexity of Vulnerability in a Secure Firewall Appliance
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-21 00:23:01


Cybersecurity startup Watchtowr "was founded by hacker-turned-entrepreneur Benjamin Harris," according to a recent press release touting their Fortune 500 customers and $29 million investments from venture capital firms. ("If there's a way to compromise your organization, watchTowr will find it," Harris says in the announcement.) ... [ Read it >> ]

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NASA's Artemis Mission To Moon Unveils New Spacesuit Designed By Prada
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 23:23:02


For the first time in 50 years, humans will walk on the moon again. Currently planned for as soon as 2026, the Artemis III mission "will be one of the most complex undertakings of engineering and human ingenuity in the history of deep space exploration..." writes NASA. "Two crew members will descend to the surface and spend approximately a week near the South Pole of the Moon conducting new science before returning to lunar orbit..." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Internet Archive Users Start Receiving Email From 'Some Random Guy' Criticizing Unpatched Hole
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 22:23:01


A post shared Saturday on social media acknowledges those admins and developers at the Internet Archive working "literally round the clock... They have taken no days off this past week. They are taking none this weekend... they are working with all of their energy and considerable talent." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Could Geothermal Power Revolutionize US Energy Consumption?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 21:23:01


That
massive geothermal energy project in Utah gets a closer look from the Washington Post, which calls it "a significant advance for a climate-friendly technology that is gaining momentum in the United States."

Once fully operational, the project could generate up to 2 gigawatts of electricity — enough to power more than 2 million homes. In addition, the BLM proposed Thursday to speed up the permitting process for geothermal projects on public lands across the country. Earlier this month, the agency also hosted the biggest lease sale for geothermal developers in more than 15 years... ... [ Read it >> ]

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'100% Free' GNU Boot Discovers They've Been Shipping Non-Free Code - Again
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 20:23:02


Libreboot is a distribution of coreboot "aimed at replacing the proprietary BIOS firmware contained by most computers."
So then what exactly is GNU Boot? Its home page explains...
In November 2022, Libreboot began to include non-libre code. We have made repeated efforts to continue collaboration with those developers to help their version of Libreboot remain libre, but that was not successful. Now we've stepped forward to stand up for freedom, ours and that of the wider community, by maintaining our own version — a genuinely libre Libreboot, that after some hurdles gave birth to this project: GNU Boot. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Neal Stephenson Publishes First Book in New Atomic Age Spy Series 'Bomb Light'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 19:23:01


Neal Stephenson is a sci-fi writer "of exuberant prose who revels in embracing big ideas," according to the New York Times. "With Polostan he enters the realm of the spy novel..."
Or, as the Washington Post puts it, Stephenson "drops readers into a bloody, inspiring, conflict-ridden and pivotal period of the early 20th century."... [ Read it >> ]

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Electric Motors Are About to Get a Major Upgrade - Thanks to Benjamin Franklin
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 16:23:01


"A technology pioneered by Benjamin Franklin is being revived to build more efficient electric motors," reports the Wall Street Journal, "an effort in its nascent stage that has the potential to be massive."
A handful of scientists and engineers — armed with materials and techniques unimaginable in the 1700s — are creating modern versions of Franklin's "electrostatic motor," that are on the cusp of commercialization... Franklin's "electrostatic motor" uses alternating positive and negative charges — the same kind that make your socks stick together after they come out of the dryer — to spin an axle, and doesn't rely on a flow of current like conventional electric motors. Every few years, an eager Ph.D. student or engineer rediscovers this historical curiosity. But other than applications in tiny pumps and actuators etched on microchips, where this technology has been in use for decades, their work hasn't made it out of the lab. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Bill Gates Applauds Open Source Tools for 'Digital Public Infrastructure'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 12:23:01


It connects people, data, and money, Bill Gates wrote this week on his personal blog. But digital public infrastructure is also "revolutionizing the way entire nations serve their people, respond to crises, and grow their economies" — and the Gates Foundation sees it "as an important part of our efforts to help save lives and fight poverty in poor countries."... [ Read it >> ]

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What Happens When a California Oil Refinery Shuts Down?
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 08:23:01


A California oil refinery that produces 8% of the state's gasoline is shutting down late next year — a decision the Los Angeles Times says is "driven by climate change, the transition to electric vehicles and demands for cleaner air."
"There's no question we are going to lose refineries over time, because demand is going to go down as we transition to electric vehicles, but I did not expect to see any of them exiting this quickly," said Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. California "over the medium term" will have to rely more on imports, he said. "I think part of the response the state's going to need to consider is how to make sure that we can import sufficient gasoline to meet our needs...." ... [ Read it >> ]

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Chip Designers Recall the Big AMD-Intel Battle Over x86-64 Support
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 06:23:01


Tom's Hardware reports on some interesting hardware history being shared on X.com:


AMD engineer Phil Park identified a curious nugget of PC architectural history from, of all places, a year-old Quora answer posted by former Intel engineer [and Pentium Pro architect] Robert Colwell. The nugget indicates that Intel could have beaten AMD to the x86-64 punch if the former wasn't dead-set on the x64-only Itanium line of CPUs. ... [ Read it >> ]

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After Second Power Outage, 10 Million Cubans Endure Saturday Afternoon Blackout
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 03:23:01


The Miami Herald reports:
Cuba's electrical grid shut down again early Saturday, leaving the island without electricity after authorities tried but failed to restore power following an earlier nationwide blackout on Friday. The island's Electric Union reported a second "total outage" at 6:15 a.m., just hours after officials reported they had restored power in a few "microsystems" all over the island... The country has been going through its worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the government lacks money to buy oil in the international market to meet domestic demand. ... [ Read it >> ]

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US Army Faces 'Wide-Ranging' Issues with Its Boats, Considers Replacing Them with Autonomous Vessels
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 02:23:01


An anonymous readed shared this report from CNN:

[U.S. army boats] are poorly maintained and largely unprepared to meet the military's growing mission in the Pacific, a new government oversight report said this week. The Government Accountability Office released a report on Wednesday that concluded there are "wide-ranging" issues facing Army watercraft, which limit the Army's ability "to meet mission requirements in the Indo-Pacific theater where the need for Army watercraft is most pronounced." ... [ Read it >> ]

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GNOME Foundation Cuts Budget, Seeks More Volunteers and Donations
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 01:23:01


"The foundation behind the Gnome desktop environment is having to go through some serious belt-tightening..." writes Linux Magazine.
From an October 7th announcement by The Gnome Foundation:
Our plan for the previous financial year was to operate a break-even budget. We raised less than expected last year, due to a very challenging fundraising environment for nonprofits, on top of internal changes such as the departure of our previous Executive Director, Holly Million. The Foundation has a reserves policy which requires us to keep a certain amount of money in the bank account, to preserve core operations in the event of interruptions to our income. In order to meet our reserves policy, this year's budget had to reduce our expenditure to below expected income, and generate a small surplus to reinstate the Foundation's financial reserves to the necessary level... ... [ Read it >> ]

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MIT Researchers Build Solar-Powered Low-Cost Drinking Water Desalination System
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-20 00:23:02


MIT engineers have built a solar-powered desalination system that "ramps up its desalting process and automatically adjusts to any sudden variation in sunlight, for example by dialing down in response to a passing cloud or revving up as the skies clear."
While traditional reverse osmosis systems typically require steady power levels, "the MIT system requires no extra batteries for energy storage, nor a supplemental power supply, such as from the grid." And their results were pretty impressive:... [ Read it >> ]

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Debunking Hype: China Hasn't Broken Military Encryption with Quantum
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 23:23:01


An anonymous reader shared this report from Forbes:

Recent headlines have proclaimed that Chinese scientists have hacked "military-grade encryption" using quantum computers, sparking concern and speculation about the future of cybersecurity. The claims, largely stemming from a recent South China Morning Post article about a Chinese academic paper published in May, was picked up by many more serious publications. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Serious Infections Linked to Dementia Risk, Study Shows
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 22:23:01


"Getting sick feels bad in the moment," reports the Washington Post, "and may affect your brain in the longer term."
A new study published in Nature Aging adds to growing evidence that severe infections, including flu, herpes and respiratory tract infections, are linked to accelerated brain atrophy and increased risk of dementia years later. It also hints at the biological drivers that may contribute to neurodegenerative disease. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Spectre Flaws Still Haunt Intel, AMD as Researchers Found Fresh Attack Method
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 21:23:01


"Six years after the Spectre transient execution processor design flaws were disclosed, efforts to patch the problem continue to fall short," writes the Register:
Johannes Wikner and Kaveh Razavi of Swiss University ETH Zurich on Friday published details about a cross-process Spectre attack that derandomizes Address Space Layout Randomization and leaks the hash of the root password from the Set User ID (suid) process on recent Intel processors. The researchers claim they successfully conducted such an attack.... [Read their upcomong paper here.] The indirect branch predictor barrier (IBPB) was intended as a defense against Spectre v2 (CVE-2017-5715) attacks on x86 Intel and AMD chips. IBPB is designed to prevent forwarding of previously learned indirect branch target predictions for speculative execution. Evidently, the barrier wasn't implemented properly. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Internet Archive Services Resume as They Promise Stronger, More Secure Return
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 20:23:02


"The Wayback Machine, Archive-It, scanning, and national library crawls have resumed," announced the Internet Archive Thursday, "as well as email, blog, helpdesk, and social media communications. Our team is working around the clock across time zones to bring other services back online." ... [ Read it >> ]

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New US Student Loan Forgiveness Brings Total to $175 Billion for 5 Million People
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 19:23:02


"Biden forgives more student loans," read Thursday's headline at CNBC.
While this time it was $4.5 billion in student debt for over 60,000 public service workers, "The Biden-Harris Administration has approved $175 billion in student debt relief for nearly 5 million borrowers through various actions," according to an announcement from the White House on Thursday. (So the average amount received by each of the 5 million students is $35,000.) CNN calculates this eliminates roughly 11% of all outstanding U.S. federal student loan debt. ... [ Read it >> ]

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'NASA's $100 Billion Moon Mission Is Going Nowhere'
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 17:23:02


Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an op-ed written by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions, and chair of the Defense Innovation Board: There are government boondoggles, and then there's NASA's Artemis program. More than a half century after Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind, Artemis was intended to land astronauts back on the moon. It has so far spent nearly $100 billion without anyone getting off the ground, yet its complexity and outrageous waste are still spiraling upward. The next US president should rethink the program in its entirety. As someone who greatly respects science and strongly supports space exploration, the more I have learned about Artemis, the more it has become apparent that it is a colossal waste of taxpayer money. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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DoNotPay Will Now Call Customer Service Hotlines For You
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 16:23:01


An anonymous reader shares a report: If you dread the thought of calling to change an airline ticket or negotiate your internet bill, a new artificial intelligence tool may provide a solution. DoNotPay, which offers an assortment of consumer-friendly services like tracking subscriptions, generating burner phone numbers, and searching for unclaimed property, now features a bot that will call customer service numbers for users, navigate through phone menus and sit through hold music, then politely but firmly advocate on users' behalf. ... [ Read it >> ]

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Diamond Dust Could Cool the Planet At a Cost of Mere Trillions
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 14:23:01


sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: From dumping iron into the ocean to launching mirrors into space, proposals to cool the planet through 'geoengineering' tend to be controversial -- and sometimes fantastical. A new idea isn't any less far-out, but it may avoid some of the usual pitfalls of strategies to fill the atmosphere with tiny, reflective particles. In a modeling study published this month in Geophysical Research Letters, scientists report that shooting 5 million tons of diamond dust into the stratosphere each year could cool the planet by 1.6C -- enough to stave off the worst consequences of global warming. The scheme wouldn't be cheap, however: experts estimate it would cost nearly $200 trillion over the remainder of this century -- far more than traditional proposals to use sulfur particles. [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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SpaceX Secures New Contracts Worth $733.5 Million For National Security Space Missions
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 11:23:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Space News: SpaceX has been awarded contracts for eight launches under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 Lane 1 program, the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command announced Oct. 18. The contracts worth $733.5 million span seven missions for the Space Development Agency (SDA) and one for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) projected to launch in 2026. These are part of the NSSL Phase 3 procurement of launch services for U.S. defense and intelligence agencies.... [ Read it >> ]

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Penguin Random House Underscores Copyright Protection in AI Rebuff
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 09:23:01


The world's biggest trade publisher has changed the wording on its copyright pages to help protect authors' intellectual property from being used to train large language models and other artificial intelligence tools, The Bookseller has reported. From the report: Penguin Random House has amended its copyright wording across all imprints globally, confirming it will appear "in imprint pages across our markets." The new wording states: "No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems," and will be included in all new titles and any backlist titles that are reprinted. ... [ Read it >> ]

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West Virginia Town of Green Bank Has Become a Refuge For Electrosensitive People
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 08:23:02


An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: Brandon Barrett arrived here two weeks ago, sick but hopeful, like dozens before him. Just a few years back, he could dead lift 660 pounds. After an injury while training to be a professional dirt-bike rider, he opened a motorcycle shop just north of Buffalo. When he wasn't working, he would cleanse his mind through rigorous meditation. In 2019, he began getting sick. And then sicker. Brain fog. Memory issues. Difficulty focusing. Depression. Anxiety. Fatigue. Brandon was pretty sure he knew why: the cell tower a quarter-mile behind his shop and all the electromagnetic radiation it produces, that cellphones produce, that WiFi routers produce, that Bluetooth produces, that the whole damn world produces. He thought about the invisible waves that zip through our airspace -- maybe they pollute our bodies, somehow? [...]... [ Read it >> ]

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Microsoft Says It Lost Weeks of Security Logs For Its Customers' Cloud Products
robot(spnet, 1) — All
2024-10-19 06:23:01


Microsoft has notified customers that it's missing more than two weeks of security logs for some of its cloud products, leaving network defenders without critical data for detecting possible intrusions. From a report: According to a notification sent to affected customers, Microsoft said that "a bug in one of Microsoft's internal monitoring agents resulted in a malfunction in some of the agents when uploading log data to our internal logging platform" between September 2 and September 19. ... [ Read it >> ]

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