 A New Global Plastics Treaty Is Coming For Your Bags and Bottles
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: The world is choking in plastic trash, and the UN wants to do something to fix it. A weeklong meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) on Plastic Pollution in Punta del Este, Uruguay, ended last Friday (Dec. 2). It was a first, formal step towards a legally binding international treaty to deal with the global plastics problem. Such a pact would be the most consequential environmental treaty in years, on par with 2015's Paris Ag
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Supercomputer Re-Creates One of the Most Famous Pictures of Earth
sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: Fifty years ago today, astronauts aboard Apollo 17, NASA's last crewed mission to the Moon, took an iconic photograph of our planet. The image became known as the Blue Marble -- the first fully illuminated picture of Earth, in color, taken by a person. Now, scientists have re-created that image during a test run of a cutting-edge digital climate model. The model can simulate climatic phenomena, such as storms and ocean eddies, at 1-kilometer re
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Atari Revives Unreleased Arcade Game That Was Too Damn Hard For 1982 Players
Atari is reviving Akka Arrh, a 1982 arcade game canceled because test audiences found it too difficult. Engadget reports: For the wave shooter's remake, the publisher is teaming up with developer Jeff Minter, whose psychedelic, synthwave style seems an ideal fit for what Atari describes as "a fever dream in the best way possible." The remake will be released on PC, PS5 and PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and Atari VCS in early 2023. The original Akka Arrh cabinet used a trackball to target
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Amazon Joins Open Invention Network
Amazon and Amazon Web Services (AWS) have joined the Open Invention Network (OIN) -- the world's largest patent non-aggression consortium. ZDNet reports: OIN has long protected Linux and Linux-related software from patent aggression by rival companies. With the recent increase in patent troll attacks, the OIN is also defending companies from these assaults. This is a natural move for Amazon. Besides relying on Linux and open-source software both for its retail and cloud businesses, Amazon has a
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Meta's Behavioral Ads Will Finally Face GDPR Privacy Reckoning In January
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Major privacy complaints targeting the legality of Meta's core advertising business model in Europe have finally been settled via a dispute resolution mechanism baked into the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The complaints, which date back to May 2018, take aim at the tech giant's so-called forced consent to continue tracking and targeting users by processing their personal data to build profiles for behavioral advertising, so
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Nigeria Limits ATM Cash Withdrawals To Encourage Digital Financial Transactions
Nigeria has drastically reduced the amount of cash individuals and businesses can withdraw as it attempts to push its "cash-less Nigeria" policy and increase the use of the eNaira -- Nigeria's central bank digital currency (CBDC). CoinTelegraph reports: The Central Bank of Nigeria issued (PDF) the directive to financial businesses in a Dec. 6 circular, noting that individuals and businesses would now be limited to withdrawing $45 (20,000 Nigerian nairas) per day and $225 (100,000 nairas) per wee
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GOP-Led States Ban TikTok On Government Devices
A growing number of GOP-led states are barring state employees and contractors from using TikTok on government-issued devices as the FBI warns of possible threats to national security posed by the Chinese-owned social media platform. Texas became the latest to do so on Wednesday, joining South Dakota, South Carolina and Maryland, all of which banned the app on government devices in the past week. Wisconsin Republicans are urging their Democratic governor to do the same. Axios reports: "[U]nder C
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Four-Person Dev Team Gets Apple's M-Series GPU Working On Linux
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: For the brave people running Linux on Apple Silicon, their patience has paid off. GPU drivers that provide desktop hardware acceleration are now available in Asahi Linux, unleashing more of the M-series chips' power. It has taken roughly two years to reach this alpha-stage OpenGL driver, but the foundational groundwork should result in faster progress ahead, writes project leads Alyssa Rosenzweig and Asahi Lina. In the meantime, the drivers
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Apple Advances User Security With Three New Data Protections
WankerWeasel writes: Apple today introduced three advanced security features focused on protecting against threats to user data in the cloud, representing the next step in its ongoing effort to provide users with even stronger ways to protect their data. With iMessage Contact Key Verification, users can verify they are communicating only with whom they intend. With Security Keys for Apple ID, users have the choice to require a physical security key to sign in to their Apple ID account. And with
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Apple Kills Its Plan To Scan Your Photos for CSAM
Apple plans to expand its Communication Safety features, which aim to disrupt the sharing of child sexual abuse material at the source. From a report: In August 2021, Apple announced a plan to scan photos that users stored in iCloud for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The tool was meant to be privacy-preserving and allow the company to flag potentially problematic and abusive content without revealing anything else. But the initiative was controversial, and it soon drew widespread criticism
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San Francisco Halts 'Killer Robots' Police Policy Following Backlash
San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco supervisors have walked back their approval of a controversial policy that would have allowed police to kill suspects with robots in extreme cases. Instead of granting final authorization to the policy Tuesday in its second of two required votes, the Board of Supervisors reversed course and voted 8-3 to explicitly prohibit police from using remote-controlled robots with lethal force. It was a rare step: The board's second votes on local laws are typically f
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Scammers Are Scamming Other Scammers Out of Millions of Dollars
Nobody is immune to being scammed online -- not even the people running the scams. From a report: Cybercriminals using hacking forums to buy software exploits and stolen login details keep falling for cons and are getting ripped off thousands of dollars at a time, a new analysis has revealed. And what's more, when the criminals complain that they are being scammed, they're also leaving a trail of breadcrumbs of their own personal information that could reveal their real-world identities to polic
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Canada's Biggest Pension Fund Ends Crypto Investment Pursuit
Canada's biggest pension fund, CPP Investments, has ended its nearly year-long effort of studying investment opportunities in the volatile crypto market, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. From the report: The reasons behind CPPI's abandonment of crypto research were not immediately clear. CPPI declined to comment but said it has made no direct investments in crypto. It referred to previous comments on cryptocurrency by its CEO, John Graham, in which he sounded a
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Amazon Sued by District of Columbia for 'Stealing' Delivery Driver Tips
Washington DC's attorney general is suing Amazon, seeking civil penalties for allegedly misleading consumers who thought they were tipping delivery drivers but had the money diverted to cover the couriers' base pay. From a report: The case, filed in Washington DC Superior Court, cites a 2021 settlement between the company and the Federal Trade Commission, in which the agency found that Amazon withheld tips meant for its gig-economy drivers for more than two years.
Read more of this story at
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Microsoft Teams Adds Free Communities Feature To Take on Discord
Microsoft is launching a new communities feature for Microsoft Teams today, designed for consumers to use the best parts of Teams free of charge to create and organize groups. From a report: The new community feature will allow groups to use the calendar, meeting, and chat features of Teams. Features like group chat, calling, and file / photo sharing are all supported, and groups will also be able to use a shared calendar (which includes Google Calendar integration) to organize community events.
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Boeing's Last 747 Rolls Out of the Factory After More Than 50-Year Production Run
Boeing's final 747 rolled out of the company's cavernous factory north of Seattle Tuesday night as airlines' push for more fuel-efficient planes ends the more than half-century production run of the jumbo jet. From a report: The 1,574th -- and last -- 747 will later be flown by a Boeing test pilot, painted and handed over to cargo and charter carrier Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings early next year.
"It's a very surreal time, obviously," said Kim Smith, vice president and general manager of Boeing
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Microsoft Reaches 10-year Deal With Nintendo for Call of Duty
Microsoft says it has reached a 10-year agreement with Nintendo to make Call of Duty available on Nintendo consoles if the Activision Blizzard acquisition closes. From a report: The deal is similar in length to what Microsoft has offered Sony, and the Xbox maker has also committed to continue to offer new versions of Call of Duty on Steam at the same time they launch on Xbox. The deal is clearly designed to put pressure on Sony to accept a similar offer, just days after Microsoft president Brad
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US To Spend $1.5 Billion To Jumpstart Alternatives To Huawei
The federal government plans to invest $1.5 billion to help spur a standards-based alternative for the gear at the heart of modern cellular networks. From a report: Experts say -- and the government agrees -- that there are economic and national security risks in having such equipment made only by a handful of companies overseas, with the most affordable products coming from China's Huawei. The most likely effort to benefit from the new funding is known as ORAN (Open Radio Access Network), which
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Telegram is Auctioning Phone Numbers To Let Users Sign Up To the Service Without Any SIM
Ivan Mehta, writing for TechCrunch: After putting unique usernames on the auction on the TON blockchain, Telegram is now putting anonymous numbers up for bidding. These numbers could be used to sign up for Telegram without needing any SIM card. Just like the username auction, you can buy these virtual numbers on Fragment, which is a site specially created for Telegram-related auctions. To buy a number, you will have to link your TON wallet (Tonkeeper) to the website. You can buy a random number
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Gut Bacteria Are Linked To Depression
Two studies published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications found a link between several types of bacteria in the gut and depressive symptoms. The first study, titled "Gut microbiome-wide association study of depressive symptoms," reports: Here we investigate the relation of fecal microbiome diversity and composition with depressive symptoms in 1,054 participants from the Rotterdam Study cohort and validate these findings in the Amsterdam HELIUS cohort in 1,539 subjects. We identify assoc
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Renewables Will Overtake Coal by Early 2025, Energy Agency Says
Elena Shao reports via the New York Times: Worldwide, growth in renewable power capacity is set to double by 2027, adding as much renewable power in the next five years as it did in the past two decades, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Renewables are posed to overtake coal as the largest source of electricity generation by early 2025, the report found, a pattern driven in large part by the global energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine. "This is a clear example of how the curren
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Dwarf Fortress' Graphical Upgrade Provides a New Way Into a Wildly Wonky Game
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Kevin Purdy: Available tomorrow on Steam and itch.io, the new version of Dwarf Fortress updates the legendary (and legendarily arcane) colony-building roguelike with new pixel-art graphics, music, some (default) keyboard shortcuts, and a beginners' tutorial. The commercial release aims to do two things: make the game somewhat more accessible and provide Tarn and Zach Adams, the brothers who maintained the game as a free download f
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Real-ID Requirement Pushed Back To 2025
frdmfghtr shares a report from NBC News: The Department of Homeland Security announced Monday that it is extending the deadline to require Real ID-compliant identification for air travelers, pushing the start date from May 3, 2023, to May 7, 2025. The deadline for the new IDs has already been extended previously. While time extensions in the past were caused by a lack of full state compliance with the requirements for issuing the more secure driver's licenses, the deadline was previously pushed
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Apple Music Is Getting a Karaoke Mode
Apple on Tuesday announced Apple Music Sing, a karaoke experience that will be built right into the Apple Music app. The Verge reports: With Apple Music Sing, you'll be able to follow along with Apple Music's real-time lyrics and adjust the volume of the vocals so that you can better hear your singing voice. There are a few features designed to make it easier to sing with others, too. Background vocals can appear independently of main vocals, according to Apple, and there will be a duet view as
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New Winamp Update Adds Features, Fixes, and (Sigh) Support For 'Music NFTs'
The release candidate for Winamp version 5.9.1 builds on the groundwork laid by August's 5.9 update to fix some bugs and add new features to the reanimated music player. "Most of these are straightforward updates or improvements to existing features, but because it's 2022, one of the only new features is support for music NFTs," reports Ars Technica. From the report: "Winamp's latest version lets music fans link their Metamask wallet via Brave, Chrome, or Firefox to Winamp. It then connects thei
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Remote Work Is Gutting Downtowns, Will Cost Cities $453 Billion
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Insider: Deserted downtowns have been haunting US cities since the beginning of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, 95% of offices were occupied. Today that number is closer to 47%. Employees' not returning to downtown offices has had a domino effect: Less foot traffic, less public-transit use, and more shuttered businesses have caused many downtowns to feel more like ghost towns. Even 2 1/2 years later, most city downtowns aren't back to where they were p
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FTC Probes 'Possible Misconduct' In Cryptocurrency Advertising
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating several unnamed crypto firms over deceptive or misleading crypto advertising, according to a Bloomberg report. Decrypt reports: "We are investigating several firms for possible misconduct concerning digital assets," the FTC spokeswoman Juliana Gruenwald Henderson said in a statement. Henderson declined to share further information about which firms are the subject of the probe or what had prompted the Commission to launch investigations.
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Amazon Luna Can Now Play Games You Own On PC, No Channel Subscriptions Required
Amazon Luna is one of the better cloud gaming options if you play a lot of Ubisoft titles, and it's getting a big upgrade this week. You can now sync purchases on Luna to PC and play without a subscription. 9to5Google reports: Since its launch, Amazon Luna has worked solely on a subscription model. Players can access games through "channels," each of which includes a rotating selection of games. One of those channels is Ubisoft+, which has a selection of Ubisoft games for $17.99/month that can s
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Apple Loosens Grip On App Store Pricing With 700 New Price Points
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Apple is loosening its requirements around how developers have to price their apps as legal and regulatory pressure over its tight control of the App Store intensifies. The company announced today it's expanding its App Store pricing system to offer developers access to 700 additional price points, bringing the new total number of price points available to 900. It will also allow U.S. developers to set prices for apps, in-app purchases or subs
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Telegram Premium Tops 1 Million Subscribers
Telegram Premium has amassed over 1 million subscribers, less than six months after the popular instant messaging app launched the paid offering and began a serious effort to monetize the business. From a report: Pavel Durov shared the update on his Telegram channel Tuesday, calling the milestone "one of the most successful examples of a social media subscription plan ever launched." The subscription, however, still "represents just a fraction of Telegram's overall revenue," he shared in the sam
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Amazon is Offering Customers $2 Per Month For Letting the Company Monitor the Traffic on Their Phones
Some Amazon users will now earn $2 dollar per month for agreeing to share their traffic data with the retail giant. From a report: Under the company's new invite-only Ad Verification program, Amazon is tracking what ads participants saw, where they saw them, and the time of day they were viewed. This includes Amazon's own ads and third-party ads on the platform. Through the program, Amazon hopes to offer more personalized-ad experiences to customers that reflect what they have previously purchas
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Intel's Take on the Next Wave of Moore's Law
The next wave of Moore's Law will rely on a developing concept called system technology co-optimization, Ann B. Kelleher, general manager of technology development at Intel told IEEE Spectrum in an interview ahead of her plenary talk at the 2022 IEEE Electron Device Meeting. From a report: "Moore's Law is about increasing the integration of functions," says Kelleher. "As we look forward into the next 10 to 20 years, there's a pipeline full of innovation" that will continue the cadence of improve
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Apple Scales Back Self-Driving Car and Delays Debut Till '26
Apple has scaled back ambitious self-driving plans for its future electric vehicle and postponed the car's target launch date by about a year to 2026, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, citing people with knowledge of the matter. From the report: The car project, dubbed Titan inside the company, has been in limbo for the past several months as Apple executives grappled with the reality that its vision for a fully autonomous vehicle -- without a steering wheel or pedals -- isn't feasible with current te
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Google Search Brings Continuous Scrolling To Desktop
Google's search results on desktop will load in a continuous scroll instead of dividing into pages, the company has announced. From a report: The move follows a similar change made on mobile in October last year, but isn't quite an "infinite" scroll. Instead, Google will load six pages of results into a single scroll before offering users a "See more" button to show more results. Google says the change is rolling out first for English searches in the US, but judging by the rollout of the feature
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The World Cup of Microsoft Excel
Competitive Excel clearly is not the NFL, but it does have the beginnings of a fan base. From a report: This was just the second year of the World Championship, but it's already streaming on ESPN3. This year's edition has 30,000 views on YouTube. Supporters of Michael Jarman, the No. 3 seed in this year's competition, call themselves the "Jarmy Army." A few months ago, an all-star game of sorts aired on ESPN2, and this month, ESPNU will televise the collegiate championship. The tournament begins
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France Bans Short Haul Domestic Flights in Favour of Train Travel
France has been given the green light to ban short haul domestic flights. The European Commission has approved the move which will abolish flights between cities that are linked by a train journey of less than 2.5 hours. From a report: The decision was announced on Friday. The changes are part of the country's 2021 Climate Law and were first proposed by France's Citizens' Convention on Climate -- a citizens' assembly tasked with finding ways to reduce the country's carbon emissions. France is al
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Syntax Errors Are the Doom of Us All, Including Botnet Authors
An anonymous reader shares a report: KmsdBot, a cryptomining botnet that could also be used for denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks, broke into systems through weak secure shell credentials. It could remotely control a system, it was hard to reverse-engineer, didn't stay persistent, and could target multiple architectures. KmsdBot was a complex malware with no easy fix. That was the case until researchers at Akamai Security Research witnessed a novel solution: forgetting to put a space between an I
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ConsenSys To Update MetaMask Crypto Wallet in Response To Privacy Backlash
ConsenSys, the company behind the MetaMask crypto wallet, said Tuesday it will release a series of updates to the platform in response to user backlash regarding its data-collection practices. From a report: In a statement, the company explained how and why it was sharing MetaMask user internet-protocol information with Infura, the ConsenSys-made RPC (remote procedure call) service for reading and writing data to the Ethereum blockchain. A change in wording to the ConsenSys user agreement last m
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Microsoft Eyes 'Super App' To Break Apple and Google's Hold on Mobile Search
Microsoft recently considered building a "super app" that could combine shopping, messaging, web search, news feeds and other services in a one-stop smartphone app, in what would be an ambitious move by the software giant to expand further into consumer services, The Information reported Tuesday, citing people with direct knowledge of the discussions. From the report: Microsoft executives wanted the app to boost the company's multibillion-dollar advertising business and Bing search, as well as d
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Amazon Agrees Final Deal To Close EU Antitrust Probes
Amazon has reached a final deal with EU antitrust regulators over concerns its use of data undermined rivals, in a move that will close two of the most high-profile probes in Brussels. From a report: The US ecommerce group has committed to increasing the visibility of rival products by giving them equal treatment on Amazon's "buy box," which generates the majority of purchases on the site. It will also create an alternative featured offer for those buyers where speed of delivery is less importan
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Apple Expands Self Service Repair To iPhone and MacBook Users in Europe
Apple has announced that its Self Service Repair store for iPhones and MacBooks is now open for business in Europe. From a report: First announced last November, the repair program essentially enables anyone to purchase genuine Apple components to repair their damaged devices, while the Cupertino company also provides online manuals to guide consumers through the self-service repair process. It's worth noting that while the program is open to anyone where the repair store is available, repairing
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Meta Threatens To Pull News From Facebook If Congress Passes Media Bill
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Facebook parent company Meta on Monday threatened to remove news from its social media platform in the US if Congress approves a bill that would allow news organizations to collectively bargain with tech companies for compensation. Andy Stone, Meta's head of policy communications, wrote on Twitter that Facebook would "be forced to consider removing news" if the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act becomes law. He added that the proposal fails
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SpaceX Unveils 'Starshield,' a Military Variation of Starlink Satellites
Elon Musk's SpaceX is expanding its Starlink satellite technology into military applications with a new business line called Starshield. CNBC reports: "While Starlink is designed for consumer and commercial use, Starshield is designed for government use," the company wrote on its website. Few details are available about the intended scope and capabilities of Starshield. The company hasn't previously announced tests or work on Starshield technology.
On its website, SpaceX said the system will h
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Microsoft-Backed Start-Up Heirloom Uses Limestone To Capture CO2
California-based startup Heirloom is using limestone to capture CO2 from the atmosphere to reduce carbon emissions and prevent the worst effects of global warming. CNBC reports: CO2 naturally occurs in limestone. Heirloom removes that CO2 by heating the limestone into a powder and stores the extracted CO2 underground. The remaining powder is then thirsty for more CO2. Heirloom spread that powder out on trays, with a robot determining location for maximum CO2 absorption. A process that naturally
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'NASA's Plan To Make JWST Data Immediately Available Will Hurt Astronomy'
An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from an opinion piece in Scientific American, written by Jason Wright. Wright is a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Pennsylvania State University, where he is director of the Penn State Extraterrestrial Intelligence Center. From the piece: In August the White House announced (PDF) that the results of all federally funded research should be freely accessible by the end of 2025. This will be a big change for scientists in many fields but ultimately a
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Microsoft Offers Sony a 10-Year Deal On New CoD Games, Plans To Raise Game Prices Next Year
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today, Microsoft president Brad Smith said the company has offered Sony a 10-year contract to make future Call of Duty games available on PlayStation if its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition gets approved. Microsoft initially offered to keep the popular game series on PlayStation for three years after the current agreement expires, but that deal was deemed inadequate by Sony's gaming chief Jim Ryan.
"The main supposed potential anticompetitive risk
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Crypto Exchange Gemini Trying To Recover $900 Million From Crypto Lender Genesis
Crypto broker Genesis and its parent company Digital Currency Group (DCG) owe customers of the Winklevoss twins' crypto exchange Gemini $900 million, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. Reuters reports: Crypto exchange Gemini is trying to recover the funds after Genesis was wrongfooted by last month's failure of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX crypto group, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter. Venture capital company Digital Currency Group, which owns Genesis Trading and cry
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How 'Goblin Mode' Became Oxford's Word of the Year
This year, Oxford Languages, the creator of the Oxford English Dictionary, titled "goblin mode" as the 2022 Word of the Year, meaning it best reflected the ethos and mood of the past 12 months. The slang term is defined as a "type of behavior which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly, or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations." NPR reports: The term first appeared on Twitter in 2009 but didn't go viral until 2022, according to Oxford Languages. "It ca
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Company 'Hijacks' Blender's CC BY-Licensed Film, YouTube Strikes User
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: The Blender Institute develops Blender, a free and open source 3D graphics tool used to create animated films. Sintel and Big Buck Bunny are among Blender's most recognizable titles and due to Creative Commons licensing (CC BY), they are widely shared, used, remixed and reshared. According to original Blender creator Ton Roosendaal, "Open licenses are essential for sharing our films and their source material." Right now, a company is claimin
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Sam Bankman-Fried Says He Will Testify Before Congress On FTX Collapse
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried promised to testify before Congress after he finished "learning and reviewing" the events that caused the popular cryptocurrency exchange to file for bankruptcy last month. The Verge reports: Bankman-Fried's promise was made in response to a tweet from House Financial Services Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) last week calling on him to join the committee's hearing on FTX's collapse on December 13th. But Bankman-Fried didn't commit to testifying at the hearing scheduled f
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Bret Taylor Steps Down As Co-Chair and CEO of Salesforce
Ron Miller reports via TechCrunch: It's been quite a roller coaster ride for Bret Taylor over the last year. In one week last December, he was named board chair at Twitter and co-CEO at Salesforce. One year later, he doesn't have either job. Taylor lost the job as Twitter board chair when Elon Musk took over last month and dissolved the Twitter board immediately. Today, he stepped down as co-CEO at Salesforce in a stunning announcement that appeared to come out of the blue. "After a lot of refle
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Judge Orders US Lawyer In Russian Botnet Case To Pay Google
An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: In December 2021, Google filed a civil lawsuit against two Russian men thought to be responsible for operating Glupteba, one of the Internet's largest and oldest botnets. The defendants, who initially pursued a strategy of counter suing Google for tortious interference in their sprawling cybercrime business, later brazenly offered to dismantle the botnet in exchange for payment from Google. The judge in the case was not amused, found for
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Risky Online Behaviour Such as Piracy 'Almost Normalized' Among Young People, Says Study
Risky and criminal online behaviour is in danger of becoming normalized among a generation of young people across Europe, according to EU-funded research that found one in four 16- to 19-year-olds have trolled someone online and one in three have engaged in digital piracy. From a report: An EU-funded study found evidence of widespread criminal, risky and delinquent behaviour among the 16-19 age group in nine European countries including the UK. A survey of 8,000 young people found that one in fo
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Chinese Hackers Stole Millions Worth of US COVID Relief Money, Secret Service Says
New submitter CrankyOldGuy writes: Chinese hackers have stolen tens of millions of dollars worth of U.S. COVID relief benefits since 2020, the Secret Service said on Monday. The Secret Service declined to provide any additional details but confirmed a report by NBC News that said the Chinese hacking team that is reportedly responsible is known within the security research community as APT41 or Winnti. APT41 is a prolific cybercriminal group that had conducted a mix of government-backed cyber int
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FBI Joins Investigation Into North Carolina Power Outage Caused By 'Intentional' Attacks on Substations
Joe_Dragon writes: With no suspects or motive announced, the FBI is joining the investigation into power outages in a North Carolina county believed to have been caused by "intentional" and "targeted" attacks on substations that left around 40,000 customers in the dark Saturday night, prompting a curfew and emergency declaration. The mass outage in Moore County turned into a criminal investigation when responding utility crews found signs of potential vandalism of equipment at different sites --
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Work Begins in Western Australia on World's Most Powerful Radio Telescopes
Construction of the world's largest radio astronomy observatory, the Square Kilometre Array, has officially begun in Australia after three decades in development. From a report: A huge intergovernmental effort, the SKA has been hailed as one of the biggest scientific projects of this century. It will enable scientists to look back to early in the history of the universe when the first stars and galaxies were formed. It will also be used to investigate dark energy and why the universe is expandin
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Windows 11 Still Not Winning the OS Popularity Contest
Microsoft has released an out-of-band update to nudge laggards toward Windows 11 amid a migration pace that company executives would undoubtedly prefer is rather faster. From a report: The software giant is offering an option of upgrading to Windows 11 as an out of box experience to its Windows 10 22H2 installed base, the main aim being to smooth their path forward to the latest operating system. "On November 30, 2022, an out-of-band update was released to improve the Windows 10, version 2004, 2
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DeepMind AI Topples Experts at Complex Game Stratego
Game-playing AIs that interact with humans are laying important groundwork for real-world applications. From a report: Another game long considered extremely difficult for artificial intelligence (AI) to master has fallen to machines. An AI called DeepNash, made by London-based company DeepMind, has matched expert humans at Stratego, a board game that requires long-term strategic thinking in the face of imperfect information. The achievement, described in Science on 1 December, comes hot on the
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AMD Says Transistor Tech Will Keep Moore's Law Alive For 6 To 8 Years
Chipmaker AMD has hinted that new transistor technology will keep Moore's Law alive for the next six to eight years, but as one might guess, it will cost more. From a report: Meanwhile, the company still plans to market new chips based on its Zen 4 architecture next year, including Bergamo, which is intended to compete against Arm-based chips for cloud-native computing. In an interview with Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers at the financial outfit's TMT Summit, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster talked abo
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Business-Software Companies Say Customers Are Pulling Back Amid Economic Concerns
Business-software companies say customers are being more cautious with their spending in response to a challenging economy, adding to the tech industry's list of concerns. From a report: Customers for companies such as Salesforce, Okta and CrowdStrike are taking longer to sign deals, and in some cases slowing their hiring plans as they try to protect their bottom lines, the software providers reported this past week. That trend has created a cloudy outlook for many in the once-booming business-s
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EU Hosted 24-Hour Party In Its $400,000 Metaverse. Very Few People Turned Up.
An anonymous reader shares a report: The European Union hosted a 24-hour party in its $407,000 metaverse, but only a handful of people turned up, according to journalist Vince Chadwick, one of the attendees. Last week's event was billed as a "beach party" offering "music and fun" to launch the EU's "Global Gateway" strategy. When the costly virtual-reality world was first shown in October, EU staff were already raising concerns, per Devex.
"Depressing and embarrasing" and "digital garbage" wer
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Adobe Will Sell AI-made Stock Images
Adobe is opening its stock images service to creations made with the help of generative AI programs like Dall-E and Stable Diffusion, the company said. From the report: While some see the emerging AI creation tools as a threat to jobs or a legal minefield (or both), Adobe is embracing them. At its Max conference in October, Adobe outlined a broad role it sees generative AI playing in the future of content generation, saying it sees AI as a complement to, not a replacement for, human artists. Ado
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AI-Generated Answers Temporarily Banned on Coding Site Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow, the go-to question-and-answer site for programmers, has temporarily banned users from sharing responses generated by AI chatbot ChatGPT. From a report: The site's mods said that the ban was temporary and that a final ruling would be made some time in the future after consultation with its community. But, as the mods explained, ChatGPT simply makes it too easy for users to generate responses and flood the site with answers that seem correct at first glance but are often wrong on c
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As the Arctic Warms, Beavers Are Moving In
It began decades ago, with a few hardy pioneers slogging north across the tundra. It's said that one individual walked so far to get there that he rubbed the skin off the underside of his long, flat tail. Today, his kind have homes and colonies scattered throughout the tundra in Alaska and Canada -- and their numbers are increasing. Beavers have found their way to the far north. From a report: It's not yet clear what these new residents mean for the Arctic ecosystem, but concerns are growing, an
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2022's Geeky 'Advent Calendars' Tempt Programmers with Coding Challenges and Tips
"The Perl Advent Calendar has come a long way since it's first year in 2000," says an announcement on Reddit. But in fact the online world now has many daily advent calendars aimed at programmers — offering tips about their favorite language or coding challenges. The HTMHell site — which bills itself as "a collection of bad practices in HTML, copied from real websites" — decided to try publishing 24 original articles for their 2022 HTMHell Advent Calendar. Elsewhere on the way
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Meet DTV's Successor: NextGen TV
Around 2009 Slashdot was abuzz about how over-the-air broadcasting in North America was switching to a new standard called DTV. (Fun fact: North America and South America have two entirely different broadcast TV standards — both of which are different from the DVB-T standard used in Europe/Africa/Australia.) But 2022 ends with us already talking about DTV's successor in North America: the new broadcast standard NextGen TV.
This time the new standard isn't mandatory for TV stations, CNET
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Amazon Builds a New Drone - But Is It Falling Behind Other Drone Delivery Services?
Axios reports:
As Amazon prepares to debut its long-delayed Prime Air drone delivery service, it's also showing off a smaller, quieter drone that will be ready in 2024 and could be making regular deliveries in major cities by the end of the decade.
The 80-pound hexagon-shaped aircraft, about 5 and a half feet in diameter, is nimble enough to make deliveries in highly populated areas such as Boston, Atlanta and Seattle. It'll be more capable and less intrusive than the model Amazon is using in
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Over 50 Programmers Generate 50,000-Word Novels For 9th Annual 'Nanogenmo' Event
Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: Since 1999 fiction writers have tried starting and finishing the composition of 50,000-word novels in November for "National Novel Writing Month". But for the last nine years, programmers have instead tried generating 50,000 word novels — and this year's edition received more than 50 entries.
"The only rule is that you share at least one novel and also your source code at the end," explains the event's official page on GitHub.
From the rep
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Senator Urges Automakers to Keep Making Cars with AM Radio
The Boston Globe reports that U.S. Senator Ed. Markey just sent a letter to more than 20 car manufacturers asking them to continue including AM radios in future car models — including electric vehicles:
Some EV manufacturers have raised concerns even as far back as 2016 about how the battery power of an EV can interfere with AM radio signals. However, Markey addressed these concerns saying, "car manufacturers appear to have developed innovative solutions to this problem."
"The last time
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Writers of 'Rogue One: A Star Wars Story' Had Imagined an Even Darker Sequel
The writers of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story "had an idea for a sequel that would have been even darker and more morally ambiguous," writes Screen Rant:
Rogue One told the story of how the Rebel Alliance gained access to the Death Star plans, and further explored the sacrifices that needed to be made to defeat the Empire. Famously, the movie led straight into the events of Star Wars: A New Hope, and most of its main characters died, so there was never any true hope for a direct Rogue One sequel.
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Should CS Be Required for a High School Degree?
When it comes to the official requirements for graduating from a U.S. high school, there's a push for changes.
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp looks at 2014:
Making computer science courses 'count' would not require schools to offer computer science or students to study it," Code.org CEO Hadi Partovi emphasized to lawmakers in his 2014 Congressional testimony following the nation's first Hour of Code, an event organized and run by the tech-backed nonprofit. "It would simply allow existing c
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California City Discovers It Doesn't Actually Know Where 60% of Its Recycling Goes
Palo Alto, California began investigating where its recycling goes over four years ago, reports NBC News. The results?
Palo Alto's best reckoning, today, is that about 40% of its recyclable material stays in North America, where it's supposed to be processed according to strict environmental and labor standards. The other roughly 60% goes abroad, mainly to Asia, with next to no transparency about its fate.
Experts say cities and towns across the United States would probably have similar diffi
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'Germans Have Seen the Future, and It's a Heat Pump'
Facing higher prices for natural gas, Germans are now embracing climate-friendly heat pumps, reports the New York Times. "So much so that heat pumps are often sold out, and the wait for a qualified installer can last months."
The German government is among the fans. "This is the technology of the future," Robert Habeck, the minister for the economy, told reporters last month while announcing a government plan to promote heat pumps. "To achieve our goals, we want to get to six million customers
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Driverless Electric Robot Tractors are Here, Powered by NVIDIA AI Chips
NVIDIA is proud of its role in the first commercially available smart tractor (which began rolling off the production line Thursday). Monarch Tractor's MK-V "combines electrification, automation, and data analysis to help farmers reduce their carbon footprint, improve field safety, streamline farming operations, and increase their bottom lines," according to NVIDIA's blog.
NVIDIA's been touting the ability to accelerate machine learning applications with its low-power Jetson boards (each with
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Stanford Investigates Its President Over Allegations of Past Research Misconduct
Marc Tessier-Lavigne is president of Stanford University. He's also "the subject of a university investigation," reports SFGate, "following a report from the school's newspaper, the Stanford Daily, that he committed scientific research misconduct" in papers he co-authored years ago which may contain altered images.
More from the Washington Post:
The university launched the inquiry after the Stanford Daily, a campus newspaper, reported that a well-known research journal was looking into concer
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Can the World Avoid a 'Quantum Encryption Apocalypse'?
Axios reports:
"Although a quantum computer isn't expected until 2030, at the earliest, updating current encryption standards will take just as long," writes Axios, "creating a high-stakes race filled with unanswerable questions for national security and cybersecurity officials alike."
As scientists, academics and international policymakers attended the first-ever Quantum World Congress conference in Washington this week, alarmism around the future of secure data was undercut by foundational q
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Chinese Joint Venture Will Begin Mass-Producing an Autonomous Electric Car
IEEE Spectrum reports:
In October, a startup called Jidu Automotive, backed by Chinese AI giant Baidu and Chinese carmaker Geely, officially released an autonomous electric car, the Robo-01 Lunar Edition. In 2023, the car will go on sale.
At roughly US $55,000, the Robo-01 Lunar Edition is a limited edition, cobranded with China's Lunar Exploration Project. It has two lidars, a 5-millimeter-range radar, 12 ultrasonic sensors, and 12 high-definition cameras. It is the first vehicle to offer o
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Apple Makes Plans to Move Production Out of China
The Wall Street Journal reports:
In recent weeks, Apple Inc. has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China, long the dominant country in the supply chain that built the world's most valuable company, say people involved in the discussions. It is telling suppliers to plan more actively for assembling Apple products elsewhere in Asia, particularly India and Vietnam, they say, and looking to reduce dependence on Taiwanese assemblers led by Foxconn Technology Group.
Turmoil a
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Graduate Students Analyze, Crack, and Remove Under-Desk Surveillance Devices
"Graduate students at Northeastern University were able to organize and beat back an attempt at introducing invasive surveillance devices that were quietly placed under desks at their school," reports Motherboard:
Early in October, Senior Vice Provost David Luzzi installed motion sensors under all the desks at the school's Interdisciplinary Science & Engineering Complex (ISEC), a facility used by graduate students and home to the "Cybersecurity and Privacy Institute" which studies surveilla
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What is ChatGPT, the AI Chatbot That's Taking The Internet By Storm
A reader submits a report:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) research company OpenAI on Wednesday announced ChatGPT, a prototype dialogue-based AI chatbot capable of understanding natural language and responding in natural language. It has since taken the internet by storm, with people marvelling at how intelligent the AI-powered bot sounds. Some even called it a replacement for Google, since it's capable of giving solutions to complex problems directly," almost like a personal know-all teacher.
"W
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Trailers Released for 2023 First-Person Shooter 'Starship Troopers: Extermination'
You can read the news in Military Times magazine. "Coming just after the 25th anniversary of the release of the cult classic Starship Troopers (November 1997), Offworld Industries and Sony Pictures Consumer Projects are bringing the fight against the Arachnids to a computer near you."
An official announcement and gameplay teaser were released for the upcoming game this week. "Starship Troopers: Extermination is a co-op FPS that puts you on the far-off front lines of an all-out battle against t
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Physicists Use Google's Quantum Computer to Create Holographic Wormhole Between Black Holes
"In an experiment that ticks most of the mystery boxes in modern physics, a group of researchers announced Wednesday that they had simulated a pair of black holes in a quantum computer," reports the New York Times [alternate URL here. But in addition, the researchers also sent a message between their two black holes, the Times reports, "through a shortcut in space-time called a wormhole.
"Physicists described the achievement as another small step in the effort to understand the relation betwee
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20 Videogame QA Testers in Albany Win Union Vote at Activision Blizzard
"A group of about 20 quality assurance testers at Activision Blizzard's Albany location won their bid for a union Friday afternoon," reports the Washington Post:
The workers join the Game Workers Alliance, a union at the gaming company that already includes testers from Wisconsin-based Raven Software. Amanda Laven, a Blizzard Albany quality assurance tester, said that the union vote comes just about a year after the testers first began collecting signatures for a union. "We knew we were gonna w
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Becoming America's #2 Seller of Electric Vehicles, Ford Passes Kia in November
CNBC reports:
Ford Motor said Friday that it has achieved CEO Jim Farley's goal of becoming the second best-selling automaker of electric vehicles in the U.S. The Detroit automaker, citing third-party industry data, narrowly topped Hyundai/Kia to hit the goal....
Ford said its share of the electric vehicle segment was 7.4% through November, up from 5.7% a year earlier. Ford reported sales of 53,752 all-electric vehicles in the U.S. through November. Tesla, which does not break out domestic re
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What Happened After Matt Taibbi Revealed Twitter's Deliberations on Hunter Biden Tweets?
"Twitter CEO Elon Musk turned to journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday to reveal the decision-making behind the platform's suppression of a 2020 article from the New York Post regarding Hunter Biden's laptop," reports Newsweek.
"Taibbi later deleted a tweet showing [former Twitter CEO] Jack Dorsey's email address," adds the Verge, covering reactions to Taibbi's thread — and the controversial events that the tweets described:
At the time, it was not clear if the materials were genuine, and Twi
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Computer Program For Particle Physics At Risk of Obsolescence
"Maintenance of the software that's used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely with a retiree," reports Quanta magazine, saying the situation "reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia."
Particle physicists use some of the longest equations in all of science. To look for signs of new elementary particles in collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, for example, they draw thousands of pictures called Feynman diagrams that depict possible collision outcomes, each
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America's TSA Begins Quietly Testing Facial Recognition Tech at 16 Airports
America's Transportation Security Administration "has been quietly testing controversial facial recognition technology for passenger screening at 16 major domestic airports — from Washington to Los Angeles," reports the Washington Post.
Their article adds that the agency "hopes to expand it across the United States as soon as next year."
Kiosks with cameras are doing a job that used to be completed by humans: checking the photos on travelers' IDs to make sure they're not impostors.... Y
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FTX Subsidiary Plans Restarting Withdrawals in Japan, as US Requests Review of Fraud Allegations
"FTX Japan is looking to restart withdrawals," reports CoinDesk, "after a plan to return deposits was approved by its parent, the failed FTX exchange."
"If the plan works out, the collapsed crypto exchange's users in Japan might be some of the first customers to get their money back...."
In a notice posted on its website, FTX Japan said it was able to confirm with the company's bankruptcy lawyers in the U.S. that Japanese customers' funds "should not be part of FTX Japan's estate given how th
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2022's 'Earthshot Prizes' Recognize Five Innovative Responses to Climate Change
"Childhood friends in Oman who figured out how to turn carbon dioxide into rock are among five winners chosen for the Prince of Wales's prestigious Earthshot Prize," reports the BBC:
The annual awards were created by Prince William to fund projects that aim to save the planet. Each winner will receive £1m ($1.2m) to develop their innovation.... "I believe that the Earthshot solutions you have seen this evening prove we can overcome our planet's greatest challenges," Prince William said du
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Chinese Police are Using Cellphone Data to Track Down Protesters
CNN reports on the aftermath of last weekend's protests against the Chinese government:
A protester told CNN they received a phone call Wednesday from a police officer, who revealed they were tracked because their cellphone signal was recorded in the vicinity of the protest site.... When they denied being there, the caller asked: "Then why did your cellphone number show up there?"
In China, all mobile phone users are required by law to register their real name and national identification numb
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New CryWiper Data Wiper Targets Russian Courts, Mayor's Offices
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: A previously undocumented data wiper named CryWiper is masquerading as ransomware, but in reality, destroys data beyond recovery in attacks against Russian mayor's offices and courts. CryWiper was first discovered by Kaspersky this fall, where they say the malware was used in an attack against a Russian organization. [...] CryWiper is a 64-bit Windows executable named 'browserupdate.exe' written in C++, configured to abuse many WinAPI fu
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Apple Now Calling AR/VR Headset Operating System 'xrOS'
Apple has decided to call the software that will run on its upcoming AR/VR headset "xrOS," an update from the original "RealityOS or "rOS" naming the company was planning on, according to Bloomberg. MacRumors reports: The name change comes as Apple begins to prepare for the launch of the headset, which is expected at some point in 2023. The headset will feature its own operating system, much like the Apple TV and the Apple Watch, and it will have a dedicated App Store. "XR" is meant to stand for
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Astronomers Say a New, Huge Satellite Is As Bright As the Brightest Stars
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Last month, a Texas-based company announced that it had successfully deployed the largest-ever commercial communications satellite in low-Earth orbit. This BlueWalker 3 demonstration satellite measures nearly 65 square meters, or about one-third the size of a tennis court. Designed and developed by AST SpaceMobile, the expansive BlueWalker 3 satellite is intended to demonstrate the ability of standard mobile phones to directly connect to the
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Chess' $100 Million Showdown: Carlsen Moves To Dismiss Niemann Lawsuit Over Cheating Allegations
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: Lawyers representing Norwegian World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen and online chess platform Chess.com asked a federal judge Friday to toss a $100 million lawsuit filed by chess grandmaster Hans Niemann in October, which marked a dramatic escalation of tensions over cheating allegations levied against the 19-year-old American. The motion to dismiss argued the teenager spent years "trying to curate a reputation as the bad boy of chess" and "now wan
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Prime Video Replaces Netflix As No. 1 Streaming Service In US
Prime Video has supplanted Netflix as the No. 1 subscription streaming outlet in the U.S. in an annual ranking compiled by research firm Parks Associates. Deadline reports: The company didn't disclose its methodology for how it isolates the number of Prime Video subscribers, a metric long cloaked in secrecy due to Amazon's general reluctance to disclose statistics about its Prime business. Still, Parks has been a reputable tracker of the streaming space for more than a decade. For many years in
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iPhone 14 Satellite Feature Saves Stranded Man In Alaska
Apple's iPhone 14 Emergency SOS via Satellite Feature was put to the test in Alaska yesterday, when a man became stranded in a rural area. MacRumors reports: In the early hours of the morning on December 1, Alaska State Troopers received an alert that a man traveling by snow machine from Noorvik to Kotzebue had become stranded. The man was in a cold, remote location with no connectivity, and he activated the Emergency SOS via satellite feature on his iPhone 14 to alert authorities to his predica
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Tesla Delivers Its First Electric Semi Trucks
Electrek recaps yesterday's Tesla's Semi Delivery Event in Nevada: As expected, Tesla delivered the first electric trucks to PepsiCo, a long-time reservation holder, and held a presentation to reveal more details about the production version of the Tesla Semi. There wasn't any big surprise during the presentation. Tesla basically delivered on its original promises made in 2017 when it first unveiled the prototypes of the Tesla Semi. Despite the lack of major changes, it's still a big moment sinc
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Australia Says Law Making Facebook and Google Pay For News Has Worked
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: An Australian law giving the government power to make internet giants Facebook owner Meta and Alphabet's Google negotiate content supply deals with media outlets has largely worked, a government report said. But the law, which took effect in March 2021 after talks with the big tech firms led to a brief shutdown of Facebook news feeds in the country, may need to be extended to other online platforms, the review said.
Since the News Media Bargain
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Edward Snowden Receives Russian Passport
Beerismydad shares a report from the Associated Press: Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden, who fled prosecution after revealing highly classified surveillance programs, has received a Russian passport and taken the citizenship oath, Russian news agencies quoted his lawyer as saying Friday. Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena was reported as saying that Snowden got the passport and took the oath on Thursday, about three months after Russian President Vladimir Putin granted him citizenship. T
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Huawei Teases a Smartwatch With Built-In Wireless Earbuds
Huawei has confirmed the existence of a smartwatch it's working on featuring a pair of built-in wireless earbuds. "Huawei's account on Chinese Twitter-like site Weibo announced the existence of the device on Wednesday and promised all would be revealed on December 2," reports The Register. "But Huawei has since postponed its Winter 2022 consumer kit launch for unexplained reasons." You can view a teaser video on YouTube. The Verge adds: As the name suggests, the Huawei Watch Buds are a pair of e
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