Andor’s season one finale, “Rix Road,” capped off a journey taken by many, not just one, in a perfect hour of television. Diego Luna solidified Cassian as one of the most important characters in the canon—retroactively at that—and the Lucasfilm series, led by Tony Gilroy, proved it’s simply operating on a level that’s…
Source: Gizmodo – Andor’s First Season Finale Made Star Wars Better
The network of offshore oil and gas facilities in the U.S. is at serious and increasing risk of a potentially devastating cyberattack, a government watchdog says. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a new report last week finding that if a cyberattack successfully hits the nation’s offshore…
Source: Gizmodo – Hackers Could Cause Next Deepwater Horizon-Level Disaster
Shipments of integrated and discrete graphics processing units dropped to a 10-year low in the third quarter as PC OEMs reduced procurements of CPUs, and gamers lowered their purchases of existing graphics cards while waiting for next-generation products. From a report: In contrast, miners ceased to buy graphics boards due to changes that happened to Ethereum. In general, sales of standalone graphics cards for desktops hit a multi-year low. Usually, PC makers increase procurement of PC hardware components in the third quarter as they assemble computers to sell them in back-to-school and holiday seasons when sales are high. But as demand for PCs softened recently, manufacturers initiated inventory corrections and lowered their components buying to sell off what they already have. As a result, sales of integrated and discrete GPU dropped to 75.5 million units in Q3 2022, down 10.5% sequentially and 25.1% year-over-year, according to Jon Peddie Research. In addition, shipments of desktop GPUs fell by 15.43%, and notebook GPUs decreased by 30%, which is the most significant drop since the 2009 recession, JPR notes.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – GPU Market Nosedives, Sales Lowest In a Decade
Anyone following the tech industry knows lawsuits at this point are a dime a dozen, however, a new entry filed this month against Microsoft owned Github challenges the fundamental foundational principles underpinning some of the most important artificial intelligence advancements in the past three decades.
Source: Gizmodo – ‘A Brave New World of Software Piracy:’ Lawsuit Takes Aim at Scrapping Methods Underpinning Modern Artificial Intelligence
Enlarge / Workers walk outside Hon Hai Group’s Foxconn plant in Shenzhen, China, in 2010. (credit: Getty)
Violent worker protests have erupted at the world’s largest iPhone factory in central China as authorities at the Foxconn plant struggle to contain a COVID-19 outbreak while maintaining production ahead of the peak holiday season.
Workers at the factory in Zhengzhou shared more than a dozen videos that show staff in a standoff with lines of police armed with batons and clad in white protective gear. The videos show police beating workers, with some bleeding from their heads and others limping away from chaotic clashes.
Beijing’s strict zero-COVID regime has posed big challenges for the running of Foxconn’s Zhengzhou plant, which typically staffs more than 200,000 workers on a large campus in the city’s suburbs.
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Source: Ars Technica – Apple iPhone factory workers clash with police in China
The San Francisco Police Department is currently petitioning the city’s Board of Supervisors for permission to deploy robots to kill suspects that law enforcement deems a sufficient threat that the “risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.” The draft policy, which was written by the SFPD itself, also seeks to exclude “hundreds of assault rifles from its inventory of military-style weapons and for not include personnel costs in the price of its weapons,” according to a report from Mission Local.
As Mission Local notes, this proposal has already seen significant opposition from both within and without the Board. Supervisor Aaron Peskin, initially pushed back against the use of force requirements, inserting “Robots shall not be used as a Use of Force against any person,” into the policy language. The SFPD removed that wording in a subsequent draft, which I as a lifelong San Francisco resident did not know was something that they could just do. The three-member Rules Committee, which Peskin chairs, then unanimously approved that draft and advanced it to the full Board of Supervisors for a vote on November 29th. Peskin excused his decision by claiming that “there could be scenarios where deployment of lethal force was the only option.”
The police force currently maintains a dozen fully-functional remote-controlled robots, which are typically used for area inspections and bomb disposal. However, as the Dallas PD showed in 2016, they make excellent bomb delivery platforms as well. Bomb disposal units are often equipped with blank shotgun shells used to forcibly disrupt an explosive device’s internal workings, though there is nothing stopping police from using live rounds if they needed, as Oakland police recently acknowledged to that city’s civilian oversight board.
While San Francisco has never explicitly allowed for robots to take human lives, lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs), are increasingly common in modern warfare. Anti-personnel mines, one of the earliest iterations of automated weaponry, have been banned since 1997 (but tell that to the mines already in the ground) and fully automated defenses like shipboard Phalanx systems have been in use since the 1970s. Autonomous offensive systems, such as UAVs and combat drones, have been used for years but have always required a “human in the loop” to bear the responsibility of actually firing the weapons. Now, the SFPD — the same department that regularly costs the city six-figure settlements for its excessive use of force and actively opposes investigations into its affinity for baton-based beatings — wants to wield that same life-and-death power over San Francisco’s civilians.
Source: Engadget – San Francisco police seek permission for its robots to use deadly force
Overwatch 2 may be a sequel, but it seems that it loves cop skins just as much as the original game. A brand-new bundle recently dropped in the in-game shop called Constable Tracer, which puts Tracer in a goofy British cop outfit, complete with absurd hat and twirly mustache. The $10 bundle also includes a police…
Source: Kotaku – Overwatch 2 Continues Franchise Tradition Of Putting Characters In Cop Skins
When working with teams, I hear a lot of complaints about bosses. One of the most common is about a manager who doesn’t hold people accountable. Someone (or maybe a couple people) on the team consistently perform poorly in their jobs, and the boss doesn’t do anything about it.
Source: LifeHacker – How to Hold a Coworker Accountable When Your Boss Won’t
NASA experienced a data connection glitch between the Orion spacecraft and ground control for nearly an hour early this morning, in a surprising disruption to the craft’s otherwise fair-weather journey around the Moon.
Source: Gizmodo – NASA Unexpectedly Lost Contact With Orion Last Night
Enlarge / The jets of material ejected from around black holes can be enormous. (credit: NASA, ESA)
Active galactic nuclei, powered by the supermassive black holes they contain, are the brightest objects in the Universe. The light originates from jets of material hurled out at nearly the speed of light by the environment around the black hole. In most cases, these active galactic nuclei are called quasars. But, in rare instances where one of the jets is oriented directly toward Earth, they’re called a blazar and appear brighter.
While the general outline of how a blazar operates has been worked out, several details remain poorly understood, including how the fast-moving material generates so much light. Now, researchers have turned a new space-based observatory called the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) toward one of the brightest blazars in the sky. The data from it and other observations combined indicate that light is produced when the black hole jets slam into slower-moving materials.
The IXPE specializes in detecting the polarization of high-energy photons—the orientation of the wiggles in the light’s electric field. Polarization information can tell us something about the processes that created the photons. For example, photons that originate in a turbulent environment will have an essentially random polarization, while a more structured environment will tend to produce photons with a limited range of polarizations. Light that passes through material or magnetic fields can also have its polarization altered.
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Source: Ars Technica – We now know why black hole jets make high-energy radiation
A novel medication for hemophilia B has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The treatment is a form of gene therapy, intended to replace a dysfunctional gene that leaves people unable to control their bleeding. It’s expected to cost $3.5 million per patient.
Source: Gizmodo – First of Its Kind Gene Therapy Treatment Approved for Hemophilia
Cryptocurrency mining companies hoping to set up shop in New York State may bump into some limits. Governor Kathy Hochul has signed legislation restricting crypto mining in the country, making it the first state to clamp down on the practice. The environment-focused law establishes a two-year freeze on new and renewed air permits for fossil fuel power plants used for mining that uses demanding “proof-of-work” authentication. The Department of Environmental Conservation will also have to study if and how crypto mining hurts the government’s climate change mitigation efforts.
The bill passed the state legislature in June, but didn’t reach Hochul’s desk until this Tuesday. It wasn’t guaranteed to become law. The Hillnotes that the governor didn’t commit to signing the measure during an October election debate. Her main opponent, Lee Zeldin, said he wouldn’t sign the bill if he were in a position to do so.
Politicians and environmental groups have worried that crypto mining, particularly that involving proof-of-work, consumes too much energy. The computationally intensive process adds to the load on the electrical grid, and has even prompted some mining outfits in New York to build natural gas-based power plants to sustain their operations. The cryptocurrency world has sometimes tried to minimize the impact. Ethereum, for instance, recently completed a merge to a less energy-hungry “proof-of-stake” system that revolves around validation from certain users.
It’s not certain if other states will follow suit. Democratic Senators have pressured Texas to take action on crypto mining energy demands, but that state’s government hasn’t budged so far. Not surprisingly, crypto proponents have also balked at laws limiting their activity. The Chamber of Digital Commerce claimed New York’s law sets a “dangerous precedent,” and that proof-of-work mining played a role in economic growth. There’s also the question of effectiveness — New York’s law might drive some miners to states with looser policies.
Source: Engadget – New York’s crypto mining restrictions are the first in the nation
In its latest written response sent to the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) group, Microsoft uses a lot of data to show that its buying of beleaguered publisher Activision Blizzard isn’t going to hurt Sony or Nintendo. In fact, as its bizarre frenzy of self-negging continues, it suggests that the deal will…
Source: Kotaku – Xbox Admits PlayStation Exclusives Are ‘Better Quality’
An anonymous reader shares a report: In April 1992, Vanessa Williams’ “Save the Best for Last” topped the Billboard 100, Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton was running for the White House, “Who’s the Boss?” aired its final episode, and the babies born to Rachel and Philip Ridgeway a couple of weeks ago were frozen as embryos. Born on October 31, Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born from what may be the longest-frozen embryos to ever result in a live birth, according to the National Embryo Donation Center. The previous known record holder was Molly Gibson, born in 2020 from an embryo that had been frozen for nearly 27 years. Molly took the record from her sister Emma, who was born from an embryo that had been frozen for 24 years. It’s possible an older frozen embryo may have been used; although the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks success rates and data around reproductive technologies, it does not track how long embryos have been frozen. But there’s no evidence of an older embryo resulting in a live birth.
“There is something mind-boggling about it,” Philip Ridgeway said as he and his wife cradled their newborns in their laps at their home outside Portland, Oregon. “I was 5 years old when God gave life to Lydia and Timothy, and he’s been preserving that life ever since. In a sense, they’re our oldest children, even though they’re our smallest children,” Ridgeway added. The Ridgeways have four other children, ages 8, 6, 3 and almost 2, none conceived via IVF or donors. The embryos were created for an anonymous married couple using in-vitro fertilization. The husband was in his early 50s, and they used a 34-year-old egg donor. The embryos were frozen on April 22, 1992.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot – Parents Welcome Twins From Embryos Frozen 30 Years Ago
Find works on searching for files, while the exec command gives you the ability to work on those results. Here’s how you can use them together.
The post How to Use the find Command With exec appeared first on Linux Today.
Source: Linux Today – How to Use the find Command With exec
Terrible weather can make a winter home search uniquely stressful. We can’t make it any warmer out there, but here are a few things to consider if you’re buying a home in the winter months.
Source: LifeHacker – Keep These Things in Mind Before Buying a House in the Winter
It apparently took “Xtreme Imagination” to design the Vivo X90. [credit:
Vivo ]
The world’s first smartphone with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 SoC is the Vivo X90 Pro Plus. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 will power most of the flagship Android phones coming out in 2023, but BBK’s Vivo is beating everyone to the punch and releasing before the new year. The phone is coming out in China on December 6 for 6,499 CNY (about $910).
For specs, there’s a 6.78-inch, 3200×1440, 120HZ OLED display, 12GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, a 4700 mAh battery with an 80 W fast charger, and a rare signing of Qualcomm’s super-sized 3D Sonic Max in-display fingerprint sensor. The cameras are also really big, with Sony’s 1-inch IMX989 sensor leading the way, along with a 50MP portrait camera, a 48MP ultrawide, and a 64MP 3.5x telephoto.
As for fun new things the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 enables, that storage is UFS 4.0, a new, faster flash storage standard that can hit read speeds of 4,200MBps and write speeds of 2,800MBps (though there’s no benchmark on this phone yet). We were looking forward to Wi-Fi 7 support, but this phone only supports Wi-Fi 6. It’s hard to tell what’s going on with the Chinese-language spec sheet, but it should have AV1 support.
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Source: Ars Technica – The world’s first Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 phone is the Vivo X90 Pro Plus
The White House and the Department of Energy (DOE) are soliciting applications from utility companies, state governments, and tribal nations to create a stronger energy grid. The DOE has announced that it is ready to use $13 billion in funding for the much-needed energy upgrade.
Source: Gizmodo – The White House Is Ready to Shell Out Billion to Modernize U.S. Power Grid
Ticketmaster’s chaotic handling of Taylor Swift’s tour ticket sales has brought the company under increased scrutiny, including from lawmakers. Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT), the chair and ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, have announced a hearing to gather evidence on competition in the ticketing industry. They have yet to confirm when the hearing will take place or the witnesses that the committee will call upon.
Swift’s fans overwhelmed Ticketmaster’s systems in the gold rush for tickets to her first tour in five years. Ticketmaster says presale codes went out to 1.5 million people, but 14 million (including “a staggering number” of bots) tried to buy tickets. The company said it was slammed with 3.5 billion total system requests, four times its previous peak. When fans were able to make it to the seat selection screen, many effectively had tickets snatched out of their hands as tried to put them in their carts.
There was supposed to be a general sale for the remaining tickets last Friday, but Ticketmaster canceled that, citing “extraordinarily high demands on ticketing systems and insufficient remaining ticket inventory to meet that demand.” Even though the level of interest in Swift’s stadium shows was evidently through the roof, Ticketmaster’s management of the process has raised a lot of questions. Swift said Ticketmaster assured her and her team that it could handle the demand. However, she said the mayhem “pissed me off.”
After the presale mess, Klobuchar (who wrote to Ticketmaster to ask if the company is taking appropriate measures to provide the best service it can) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal said they were concerned about “the state of competition in the ticketing industry.” Others, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called for Ticketmaster’s parent, Live Nation, to be broken up.
Along with selling event tickets, the company owns and operates many venues and manages several major artists. Last week, it was reported that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been conducting an antitrust investigation into Live Nation for several months.
“Last week, the competition problem in ticketing markets was made painfully obvious when Ticketmaster’s website failed hundreds of thousands of fans hoping to purchase concert tickets. The high fees, site disruptions and cancellations that customers experienced shows how Ticketmaster’s dominant market position means the company does not face any pressure to continually innovate and improve,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “That’s why we will hold a hearing on how consolidation in the live entertainment and ticketing industry harms customers and artists alike. When there is no competition to incentivize better services and fair prices, we all suffer the consequences.”
Ticketmaster has said it’s adhering to a 2010 consent decree it has with the DOJ that allowed its merger with Live Nation to go ahead. “Ticketmaster has a significant share of the primary ticketing services market because of the large gap that exists between the quality of the Ticketmaster system and the next best primary ticketing system,” it added in a statement to Deadline.
Source: Engadget – Ticketmaster’s Taylor Swift fiasco sparks Senate antitrust hearing
Enlarge / The latest Microsoft Store version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux allows for graphical apps, systemd support, multiple distributions, and a lot of questions about whether you have three different options enabled on your Windows 10 system. (credit: Kevin Purdy)
The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), one of the best reasons to run Windows 11, is now also available to Windows 10 users. WSL dropped its “preview” label with a 1.0 release, offering its best features to Windows 10 users.
Getting the best version of WSL used to mean installing big, system-level Windows updates (including 11 itself). As part of its broader moving of key apps into its Store, Microsoft now offers the most feature-rich version of WSL. “The in-Windows version of WSL will still receive critical bug fixes, but the Store version of WSL is where new features and functionality will be added,” Windows Developer Platform Program Manager Craig Loewen noted in a blog post.
Loewen noted that the “WSL community’s requests” drove Microsoft to make the latest, GUI-ready framework version available to Windows 10 users. Now a Store installation is the default, even if you the command line (PowerShell) to install and update WSL. Now anyone whose system is capable of running WSL has access to graphical apps and (optional) systemd support, and can hopefully spend less time wondering which WSL version they have, what they need, and what the differences are.
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Source: Ars Technica – Windows Subsystem for Linux with GUI apps launches for Windows 10
