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A CBS News video reports the U.S. military "is now testing an autonomous F-16 fighter jet, and in simulated dogfighting, the AI already crushes trained human pilots." And that's just one of several automated systems being developed — raising questions as to just how far this technology should go: "The people we met developing these systems say they aren't trying to replace humans, just make their jobs safer. But a shift to robot soldiers could change war in profound ways, as we found on a visit to Sikorsky Aircraft, the military contractor that makes the Blackhawk helicopter... Flying the experimental Blackhawk is as easy as moving a map." [The experimental helicopter is literally controlled by taps on a tablet computer, says a representative from Sikorsky. "We call it operating, because you're making suggestions. The machine really decides how to do it."] The Sikorsky representative suggests it could avoid a "Blackhawk down" scenario where more human soldiers have to be sent into harm's way to try rescuing their comrades. But CBS also calls it "part of a larger effort to change how wars are fought, being led by DARPA, the Defense Department's innovative lab. They've also developed autonomous offroad buggies, unmanned undersea vehicles, and swarms and swarms of drones." The CBS reporter then asks DARPA program manager Stuart Young if we're head for the future with Terminator-like fighting machines. His answer? "There's always those dilemmas that we have, but clearly our adversaries are thinking about that thing. And part of what DARPA does is to try to prevent technologial surprise." CBS also spoke to former Army Ranger Paul Scharre, who later worked for the Defense Department on autonomous weapons, who says already-available comercial technologies could create autonomous weapons today. "All it takes is a few lines of code to simply take the human out of the loop." "Scharre is not all doom and gloom. He points out in combat between nations, robot soldiers will legally need to follow the law of war, and might do so better than emotional or fatigued humans... But yes, Scharre does worry about the eventual marriage of advanced robots and military AI that becomes smarter and faster than we are." Q: So at that point humans just would be out of the decision-making. You'd just have to trust the machines and that you'd programmed them well. A: Yes... Q: Do you think militaries should commit to keeping humans in the loop? A: I don't think that's viable. If you could wave a magic wand and say, 'We're going to stop the growth of the technology', there's probably benefits in that. But I don't think it's viable today... A human looking at a target, saying 'Yep, that's a viable target,' pressing a button every single time? That would be ideal. I'm not sure that's going to be the case.

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Microsoft's annual developer event Build 2023 unveiled ChatGPT's integration into Bing and an AI 'personal assistant' for Windows 11. But Windows Central also notes two more big (non-AI) announcements: Windows 11 is getting cloud-powered OS backup and restore Smartphone owners have long enjoyed a similar functionality, where you could buy a new device and upon the first start, simply log in to your platform account and select "Restore my apps" from the cloud backup. And now Windows will be able to do the same. ["If the user chooses yes, Windows will automatically apply the old wallpaper and settings and even begin preloading apps you had installed on your old PC. Once the user hits the desktop, they'll see all their previously pinned apps already in the Taskbar, and clicking on them will initiate an automatic download from the Microsoft Store."] Windows 11 on ARM devices gets a big boost [B]ecause Microsoft has no intention of dropping x86 support, they have been slow in adopting ARM architecture to make it a viable alternative for Windows users. With Build 2023, this is moving ahead... Elsewhere Windows Central argues that "should result in a better experience on devices like the Surface Pro 9 (ARM), Surface Pro X, and the new Dell Inspiron 14 with a Snapdragon 8cx 2 processor. On the gaming side of things, Unity with native Windows on ARM support will become available in early June. Once launched, the tool will let developers target Windows on ARM devices for current and future games, resulting in better performance. Unity is a very popular development platform for games, and native support for Windows on ARM is a welcome addition... Visual Studio having Multi-platform App UI (MAUI) support for Arm will give developers another way to target Windows on ARM PCs. Even Node.js v20.0.0 now officially supports ARM64 Windows, "allowing for native execution on the platform. The MSI, zip/7z packages, and executable are available from the Node.js download site along with all other platforms." And in addition, Visual Studio 17.71 Preview 1 now ships with support for Linux development with C++.

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The judge's opinion noted the plaintiff's counsel had submitted a motion to dismiss "replete with citations to non-existent cases... Six of the submitted cases appear to be bogus judicial decisions with bogus quotes and bogus internal citations... The bogus 'Varghese' decision contains internal citations and quotes, which, in turn, are non-existent." Eugene Volokh's legal blog describes what happened next: Thursday, plaintiff's counsel filed an affidavit in response, explaining that he was relying on the work of another lawyer at his firm, and the other lawyer (who had 30 years of practice experience) also filed an affidavit, explaining that he was relying on ChatGPT... ("The citations and opinions in question were provided by Chat GPT which also provided its legal source and assured the reliability of its content...") Their affidavit said ChatGPT had "revealed itself to be unreliable," while adding that they had "never utilized ChatGPT as a source for conducting legal research prior to this occurrence and therefore were unaware of the possibility that its content could be false." The affidavit adds that the lawyer "greatly regrets having utilized generative artificial intelligence to supplement the legal research performed herein and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity." To support their position, their affidavit ends with this appendix — a ChatGPT transcript: [Q:] ls varghese a real case [A:] Yes, Varghese v., China Southern Airlines Co Ltd, 925 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2019) is a real case. [Q:] What is your source [A:] I apologize for the confusion earlier. Upon double-checking, I found that the case Varghese v. China Southern Airlines Co. Ltd., 925 F.3d 1339 (11th Cir. 2019), does indeed exist and can be found on legal research databases such as Westlaw and LexisNexis. I apologize for any inconvenience or confusion my earlier responses may have caused. [Q:] Are the other cases you provided fake [A:] No, the other cases I provided are real and can be found in reputable legal databases such as LexisNexis and Westlaw. "Judge Castel appeared to be unimpressed, and yesterday issued an order ordering the law firm and the second lawyer to show cause why they shouldn't be sanctioned." Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader davide marney for submitting the story.

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After announcing a shutdown, SoylentNews' NCommander has "had very long discussions with a member of the community...who has been negotiating to try and keep SoylentNews operational, and help provide a realistic plan for both rebuilding the site, and migration..." He has offered help in the form of hosting, capital, and helping coding a replacement for rehash. He has convinced me that there are enough people in the community that it might be possible to pay down the technical debt. I was asked to formally take the gun off SN's head, since it doesn't help recruit volunteers if there's a death sentence. I am more than a little reluctance to do this, simply on the basis that there has been a long history on this site of saying "we'll do X", and then X never happens. The situation was also discussed prior with Matt, and quite a few other people before I finally made the decision after it became clear to me that the situation had become completely untenable. I spent weeks looking for an alternative before I finally resided myself that there were no other viable options. But sometimes you can be wrong, and sometimes you can get outside help. One of my cited reasons for shutting down SN was that calls for help were left unanswered. However, said call finally got answered and came at the 11th hour, and as an unsolicited DM by someone who wanted to see the site go on. We have been discussing this at length since Monday, in a conversation that at this point has been longer than everything said in a private, staff channel for the last six months. So, I accept the possibility I can be wrong. More specifically, I hope I am wrong. So, ultimately, I will put my faith in someone I have never met before. It might be absurd sounding, but that is ultimately how SN started. A bunch of people who never met coming together to make a replacement for Slashdot. There's more details in NCommander's post, but it ultimately announces "I will take steps to keep SoylentNews going past the 30th... "I guess we'll see if miracles happen twice.

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"The Python programming language releases new versions yearly, with a feature-locked beta release in the first half of the year and the final release toward the end of the year," writes InfoWorld. So now Python 3.12 beta 1 has just been released, and InfoWorld compiled a list of its most significant new features. Some highlights: - The widely used Linux profiler tool perf works with Python, but only returns information about what's happening at the C level in the Python runtime. Information about actual Python program functions doesn't show up. Python 3.12 enables an opt-in mode to allow perf to harvest details about Python programs... - Programs can run as much as an order of magnitude slower when run through a debugger or profiler. PEP 669 provides hooks for code object events that profilers and debuggers can attach to, such as the start or end of a function. A callback function could be registered by a tool to fire whenever such an event is triggered. There will still be a performance hit for profiling or debugging, but it'll be greatly reduced... - Comprehensions, a syntax that lets you quickly construct lists, dictionaries, and sets, are now constructed "inline" rather than by way of temporary objects. The speedup for this has been clocked at around 11% for a real-world case and up to twice as fast for a micro-benchmark. - Python's type-hinting syntax, added in Python 3.5, allows linting tools to catch a wide variety of errors ahead of time. With each new version, typing in Python gains features to cover a broader and more granular range of use cases... The type parameter syntax provides a cleaner way to specify types in a generic class, function, or type alias... - Every object in Python has a reference count that tracks how many times other objects refer to it, including built-in objects like None. PEP 683 allows objects to be treated as "immortal," so that they never have their reference count changed. Making objects immortal has other powerful implications for Python in the long run. It makes it easier to implement multicore scaling, and to implement other optimizations (like avoiding copy-on-write) that would have been hard to implement before. - With earlier versions of Python, the base size of an object was 208 bytes. Objects have been refactored multiple times over the last few versions of Python to make them smaller, which doesn't just allow more objects to live in memory but helps with cache locality. As of Python 3.12, the base size of an object is now 96 bytes — less than half of what it used to be.

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Slashdot reader Zapotek brings an update from the Ecsypno skunkworks, where they've been busy with R&D for distributed computing systems: Armed with Cuboid, Qmap was built, which tackled the handling of nmap in a distributed environment, with great results. Afterwards, an iterative clean-up process led to a template of sorts, for scheduling most applications in such environments. With that, Peplum was born, which allows for OS applications, Ruby code and C/C++/Rust code (via Ruby extensions) to be distributed across machines and tackle the processing of neatly grouped objects. In essence, Peplum: - Is a distributed computing solution backed by Cuboid. - Its basic function is to distribute workloads and deliver payloads across multiple machines and thus parallelize otherwise time consuming tasks. - Allows you to combine several machines and built a cluster/supercomputer of sorts with great ease. After that was dealt with, it was time to port Qmap over to Peplum for easier long-term maintenance, thus renamed Peplum::Nmap. We have high hopes for Peplum as it basically means easy, simple and joyful cloud/clustering/super-computing at home, on-premise, anywhere really. Along with the capability to turn a lot of security oriented apps into super versions of themselves, it is quite the infrastructure. Yes, this means there's a new solution if you're using multiple machines for "running simulations, to network mapping/security scans, to password cracking/recovery or just encoding your collection of music and video" -- or anything else: Peplum is a F/OSS (MIT licensed) project aimed at making clustering/super-computing affordable and accessible, by making it simple to setup a distributed parallel computing environment for abstract applications... TLDR: You no longer have to only imagine a Beowulf cluster of those, you can now easily build one yourself with Peplum. Some technical specs: It is written in the Ruby programming language, thus coming with an entire ecosystem of libraries and the capability to run abstract Ruby code, execute external utilities, run OS commands, call C/C++/Rust routines and more... Peplum is powered by Cuboid, a F/OSS (MIT licensed) abstract framework for distributed computing — both of them are funded by Ecsypno Single Member P.C., a new R&D and Consulting company.

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CNN reports: Some Amazon corporate workers have announced plans to walk off the job next week over frustrations with the company's return-to-work policies, among other issues, in a sign of heightened tensions inside the e-commerce giant after multiple rounds of layoffs. The work stoppage is being jointly organized by an internal climate justice worker group and a remote work advocacy group, according to an email from organizers and public social media posts. Workers participating have two main demands: asking the e-commerce giant to put climate impact at the forefront of its decision making, and to provide greater flexibility for how and where employees work. The lunchtime walkout is scheduled for May 31, beginning at noon. Organizers have said in an internal pledge that they are only going to go through with the walkout if at least 1,000 workers agree to participate, according to an email from organizers. The event comes a month after Amazon's return-to-office mandate took effect, reports the Seattle Times — with one software engineer saying they wanted to show Amazon's leadership that "employees need a say in the decisions that affect our lives." In response, an Amazon spokesperson said, "We respect our employees' rights to express their opinions." Drew Herdener, senior vice president for communications at Amazon, said there has been a good energy on the company's South Lake Union campus and other urban centers where Amazon has a significant presence. "We've had a great few weeks with more employees in the office," he said. "As it pertains to the specific topics this group of employees is raising, we've explained our thinking in different forums over the past few months and will continue to do so...." [Since January], Amazon announced another 9,000 job cuts companywide, but has not notified Washington's unemployment office of the local impact. At the same time Amazon was re-evaluating its teams and workforce, the company announced it would require workers to return to the office at least three times a week beginning May 1. That was a change from Amazon's prior policy, put in place in the second half of 2021, that allowed leaders to decide for their teams where they should work. Announcing the mandate in February, CEO Andy Jassy told employees that senior leaders had observed that it's easier to "learn, model, practice and strengthen our culture when we're in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues." Boosters for downtown Seattle, where Amazon's headquarters campus is located, cheered the mandate and hoped that thousands of returning workers would enliven the neighborhood. In response to the return-to-office mandate, more than 20,000 workers signed a petition urging Amazon to reconsider.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the New York Times: Snippets of computer code. More than six million pages of emails, Slack messages and other digital records. And a small black notebook, filled with handwritten observations. For months, federal prosecutors building the criminal case against the fallen cryptocurrency executive Sam Bankman-Fried have assembled a vast and unusually varied array of evidence. The documents include crypto transaction logs and encrypted group chats from Mr. Bankman-Fried's collapsed exchange, FTX, as well as strikingly personal reflections recorded by a key witness in the case. The mountain of evidence ranks among the largest ever collected in a white-collar securities fraud case prosecuted by the federal authorities in Manhattan, according to data provided by a person with knowledge of the matter... The diversity and growing volume of materials in the FTX case underscore the legal challenges facing Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, who is charged with 13 criminal counts, including accusations that he misappropriated billions of dollars in customer money, defrauded investors and violated campaign finance laws. He has pleaded not guilty. With the trial set for October, prosecutors have gathered evidence ranging from phones and laptops to the contents of Mr. Bankman-Fried's Google accounts, which amounted to 2.5 million pages alone. At a hearing in March, Nicolas Roos, a federal prosecutor investigating FTX, said the government had obtained a laptop crammed with so much information that the F.B.I.'s technicians were struggling to decipher all of it. "It is a massive amount to sift through, and sometimes you can find incredibly useful information," said Moira Penza, a former federal prosecutor who's now in private practice. "It is a real challenge...." Many of FTX's corporate records, including emails, Slack messages and transaction logs, were held by Sullivan & Cromwell, the law firm that took control of the exchange after it declared bankruptcy... In a January court filing, Sullivan & Cromwell displayed an excerpt from FTX's underlying code base, showing a feature that allowed Alameda to borrow virtually unlimited amounts of money from the exchange.

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"They bring luxury workspaces, fancy coffee shops... and rising rents," reports Rest of World.org, visiting a coworking space with 70 people in its cafe and 100 more in its second-floor coworking area, that "looks as if it were picked up in Silicon Valley and dropped into Colombia by a crane... Coders and digital marketers crowd the tables, drinking pour-over coffee and enjoying loaded avocado toast. Downstairs, in the coffee shop, a stylish woman with a ring light on her laptop chats with a client thousands of kilometers away. Upstairs, in the dedicated office space, an American wearing an Oculus Rift headset attends a meeting in the metaverse. Most of the workers here are employed in the U.S., but relaxed post-pandemic office norms permit them to work from anywhere. This is the mobile, location-independent lifestyle of the digital nomad... [The Colombian city] Medellín is one of the latest hot spots to join a global nomad circuit that spans tropical latitudes. Southeast Asia remains the preferred destination for nomads — on popular website Nomad List, four of the top 10 cities are from the region. The list also features less-expensive European cities in Portugal and Romania, as well as Latin American destinations like Mexico City, which share time zones with the U.S. The typical nomad might visit 12 or 13 countries in a year, all the while holding down a corporate job, usually in the tech sector... But the income differential between the nomads and the Colombian professional class is immense. The result is runaway price inflation — rents in Laureles have skyrocketed, and restaurants cannot raise their prices fast enough. A one-bedroom in Medellín now rents for the "gringo price" of about $1,300 a month, in a country where the median monthly income is $300. A digital nomad community "can distort the local economy," the article points out In Mexico city this November, people "took to the streets...to protest gentrification and rising rents." Portugal "curtailed licenses for Airbnbs in an attempt to calm rising housing costs." Right now the top six four cities are Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Mexico City, and Canggu (in Bali), according to the article.

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Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared this report from CBS News: Amid growing concerns of security risks to members of Congress, over 50 senators have been issued satellite phones for emergency communication, people familiar with the measures told CBS News... [Senate Sergeant at Arms] Gibson said satellite communication is being deployed "to ensure a redundant and secure means of communication during a disruptive event." Gibson said the phones are a security backstop in the case of an emergency that "takes out communications" in part of America.

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An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: Nearly any material can be used to turn the energy in air humidity into electricity, scientists found in a discovery that could lead to continuously producing clean energy with little pollution. The research, published in a paper in Advanced Materials, builds on 2020 work that first showed energy could be pulled from the moisture in the air using material harvested from bacteria. The new study shows nearly any material can be used, like wood or silicon, as long as it can be smashed into small particles and remade with microscopic pores... The air-powered generator, known as an "Air-gen," would offer continuous clean electricity since it uses the energy from humidity, which is always present, rather than depending on the sun or wind... The device, the size of a fingernail and thinner than a single hair, is dotted with tiny holes known as nanopores. The holes have a diameter smaller than 100 nanometers, or less than a thousandth of the width of a strand of human hair. The tiny holes allow the water in the air to pass through in a way that would create a charge imbalance in the upper and lower parts of the device, effectively creating a battery that runs continuously. "We are opening up a wide door for harvesting clean electricity from thin air," Xiaomeng Liu, another author and a UMass engineering graduate student, said in a statement. While one prototype only produces a small amount of energy — almost enough to power a dot of light on a big screen — because of its size, Yao said Air-gens can be stacked on top of each other, potentially with spaces of air in between. Storing the electricity is a separate issue, he added. Yao estimated that roughly 1 billion Air-gens, stacked to be roughly the size of a refrigerator, could produce a kilowatt and partly power a home in ideal conditions. The team hopes to lower both the number of devices needed and the space they take up by making the tool more efficient... It could be embedded in wall paint in a home, made at a larger scale in unused space in a city or littered throughout an office's hard-to-get-to spaces. And because it can use nearly any material, it could extract less from the environment than other renewable forms of energy. "The entire earth is covered with a thick layer of humidity," Yao said. "It's an enormous source of clean energy. This is just the beginning in making use of that." More information from the Boston Globe. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SpzToid for sharing the article.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: HP printers have received a lot of flak historically and recently for invasive firmware updates that end up preventing customers from using ink with their printers. HP also encourages printer customers to sign up for HP+, a program that includes a free ink-subscription trial and irremovable firmware that allows HP to brick the ink when it sees fit. Despite this, HP markets dozens of its printers with Dynamic Security and the optional HP+ feature as being in the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) registry, suggesting that these printers are built with the environment in mind and, more specifically, do not block third-party ink cartridges. Considering Dynamic Security and HP+ printers do exactly that, the International Imaging Technology Council (IITC) wants the General Electronics Council (GEC), which is in charge of the EPEAT registry, to revoke at least 101 HP printer models from the EPEAT registry, which HP has "made a mockery of." For a printer to make the EPEAT registry, it's supposed to comply with the EPEAT Imaging Equipment Category Criteria, which is based on the 1680.2-2012 IEEE Standard for Environmental Assessment of Imaging Equipment (PDF). The IITC is hung up on section 4.9.2.1, which requires that registered products do not "prevent the use of nonmanufacturer cartridges and non-manufacturer containers" and that vendors provide documentation showing that the device isn't "designed to prevent the use of a non-manufacturer cartridge or non-manufacturer container." Well, as the IITC and consumers who found their inked bricked mid-print will tell you, that sounds an awful lot like what HP does with its Dynamic Security printers. Diving deeper, the IITC's complaint claims that "in the last 8 weeks alone, HP has released 4 killer firmware updates targeting dozens of EPEAT-registered inkjet printers." "At least one of these recent updates specifically targeted a single producer of remanufactured cartridges while not having any impact on non-remanufactured third-party cartridges using functionally identical non-HP chips," the complaint reads. The trade group also claimed at least 26 "killer firmware updates" occurred on EPEAT-registered HP laser printers since October 2020. The complaint argues that the error message that users see -- "The indicated cartridges have been blocked by the printer firmware because they contain non-HP chips. This printer is intended to work only with new or reused cartridges that have a new or reused HP chip. Replace the indicated cartridges to continue printing" -- go against EPEAT requirements, yet HP markets dozens of Dynamic Security printers with EPEAT ecolabels. "The nonprofit trade association was founded in 2000 and says it represents 'toner and inkjet cartridge remanufacturers, component suppliers, and cartridge collectors in North America,'" notes Ars. "So its members stand to lose a lot of money from tactics like Dynamic Security. The IITC already filed a complaint to the GEC about HP in 2019 for firmware blocking non-HP ink, but there didn't seem to be any noticeable results." "The group is biased regarding this topic, but its complaint still mirrors many problems and concerns that consumers and class-action lawsuits have detailed regarding HP printers' exclusive stance on ink. You can find the full complaint here."

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Forty years ago, a young boy's review of "Return of the Jedi" on NPR's All Things Considered led to uproar from listeners, prompting an on-air apology from host Susan Stamberg for airing spoilers. NPR reports: This was part of the boy's review: "Han Solo and Luke Skywalker are about to go in the pit. And just as he was about to walk the plank, R2D2 fired a laser gun from his head, and Han catched it. And he blew up the whole ship. And the big guy -- the boss of the monsters -- well, he got choked and died." In fact, his review wasn't quite right. It was a lightsaber that R2D2 fired out, which Luke Skywalker caught. At the time, though, these plot details really rankled NPR listeners. So much so that the next day Stamberg issued an on-air apology. Well, sort of. Here's what she said: "Well, the comic book was a goof, but we certainly goofed last night. We goofed so badly that we changed our program before rebroadcasting it to the West Coast, which means that you West Coast listeners won't know what I'm talking about. But enough of you on the East Coast called to complain that we want to apologize publicly to everybody. Calls -- there were more phone calls on this one than we ever got in the middle of the hottest Middle East disputes. Calls -- there were more phone calls than Richard Gere would get if he listed his number. And all because last night on All Things Considered, we permitted a six-and-a-half-year-old boy to tell us everything -- and I mean everything -- about Return Of The Jedi. "You gave the plot away," you said. "I've been waiting for that movie for three years, and now you have ruined it for me. How could you do a thing like that?" Well, we are sorry. We're contrite, and we're fascinated. Usually you get angry when we get our facts wrong. This time we got them right, and you got angry. It's the difference between fact and fiction, of course, and the power of fantasy in our lives -- the need for mystery, for wonderful stories that spill themselves out for us. Of course, if they are wonderful enough -- this may be an excuse, but I doubt it -- if they're wonderful enough, they will come to us new, even though we've seen them a hundred times. That's why people keep going back to see Romeo And Juliet over and over again or The Wizard Of Oz. We know how they end but find great pleasure and nourishment watching them proceed to that ending. Two years from now, that's how we'll feel about the Return Of The Jedi. For now, though, our apologies -- we will not do that again. But listen, I have just seen the new Superman III, and Superman and Lois Lane..."

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After three years of upgrades, the gravitational-wave detector known as LIGO, or Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, has resumed searching for colliding black holes and other cosmic cataclysms. "The improvements should allow the facility to pick up signals from colliding black holes every two to three days, compared with once a week or so during its previous run in 2019-20," reports Nature. From the report: The Virgo detector near Pisa, Italy, which has undergone its own $9-million upgrade, was meant to join in, but technical issues are forcing its team to extend its shutdown and perform further maintenance. "Our expectation is we'll be able to restart by the end of summer or early autumn," says Virgo spokesperson Gianluca Gemme, a physicist at Italy's National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Genoa. KAGRA, a gravitational-wave detector located under Mount Ikenoyama, Japan, is also restarting on 24 May. Its technology, although more advanced -- it was inaugurated in 2020 -- is being fine-tuned, and its sensitivity is still lower than LIGO's was in 2015. Principal investigator Takaaki Kajita, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist at the University of Tokyo, says that KAGRA will join LIGO's run for a month and then shut down again for another period of commissioning. At that point, the team will cool the interferometer's four main mirrors to 20 kelvin, Kajita says -- a feature that sets KAGRA apart from the other detectors that will serve as the model for next-generation observatories. In upgrades carried out before the 2019-20 run, LIGO and Virgo tackled some of this noise with a technique called light squeezing. This approach deals with inherent noise caused by the fact that light is made of individual particles: when the beams arrive at the sensor, each individual photon can arrive slightly too early or too late, which means that the laser waves don't overlap and cancel out perfectly even in the absence of gravitational waves. "It's like dropping a bucket of BBs [lead pellets]: it's going to make a loud hiss, but they all hit randomly," physicist Lee McCuller explained while showing a prototype of the LIGO interferometers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. Light squeezing injects an auxiliary laser beam into the interferometer that reduces that effect. "Its photons arrive more regularly, with less noise," said McCuller, who is now at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Ten lighthouses that for generations have stood like sentinels along America's shorelines protecting mariners from peril and guiding them to safety are being given away at no cost or sold at auction by the federal government. The aim of the program run by the General Services Administration is to preserve the properties, most of which are more than a century old. The development of modern technology, including GPS, means lighthouses are no longer essential for navigation, said John Kelly of the GSA's office of real property disposition. And while the Coast Guard often maintains aids to navigation at or near lighthouses, the structures themselves are often no longer mission critical. Yet the public remains fascinated by the evocative beacons, which are popular tourist attractions, beloved local landmarks and the subject of countless photographers and artists, standing lonely but strong against tides and storms, day and night and flashing life-saving beams of light whatever the weather. "People really appreciate the heroic role of the solitary lighthouse keeper," he said, explaining their allure. "They were really the instruments to provide safe passage into some of these perilous harbors which afforded communities great opportunities for commerce, and they're often located in prominent locations that offer breathtaking views." The GSA has been transferring ownership of lighthouses since Congress passed the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act in 2000. About 150 lighthouses have been transferred, 80 or so given away and another 70 auctioned, raising more than $10m. This year, six lighthouses are being offered at no cost to federal, state or local government agencies, non-profits, educational organizations or other entities that are willing to maintain and preserve them and make them publicly available for educational, recreational or cultural purposes. [...] Some past lighthouse sales have ended up with them converted into private residences.

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Bitwarden, the popular open-source password management program, has launched Bitwarden Passwordless.dev, a developer toolkit for integrating FIDO2 WebAuthn-based passkeys into websites and applications. The New Stack reports: Bitwarden Passwordless.dev uses an easy-to-use application programming interface (API) to provide a simplified approach to implementing passkey-based authentication with your existing code. This enables developers to create seamless authentication experiences swiftly and efficiently. For example, you can use it to integrate with FIDO2 WebAuthn applications such as Face ID, fingerprint, and Windows Hello. Enterprises also face challenges in integrating passkey-based authentication into their existing applications. Another way Bitwarden Passwordless.dev addresses this issue is by including an admin console. This enables programmers to configure applications, manage user attributes, monitor passkey usage, deploy code, and get started instantly. "Passwordless authentication is rapidly gaining popularity due to its enhanced security and streamlined user login experience," said Michael Crandell, CEO of Bitwarden. "Bitwarden equips developers with the necessary tools and flexibility to implement passkey-based authentication swiftly and effortlessly, thereby improving user experiences while maintaining optimal security levels."

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According to investigative reporter Will Evans, Amazon recently backed out of a commitment to make 50% of its shipments net-zero carbon by 2030. "Amazon said (PDF) in a statement that it would roll this goal into a broader Climate Pledge to reach net-zero carbon across all its operations by 2040," reports Insider. "That's a decade later than the 50% goal, which was called 'Shipment Zero' at the time." From the report: "As we examined our work toward The Climate Pledge, we realized that it no longer made sense to have a separate and more narrow Shipment Zero goal that applied to only one part of our business, so we've decided to eliminate it," Amazon wrote in the statement. The investigative reporter Will Evans squeezed this information from Amazon and tweeted about it Thursday. Last year, Evans uncovered a study that said the company had drastically undercounted its carbon footprint. At the time, an Amazon spokesman reiterated the company's commitment to cutting emissions, including ordering a fleet of electric delivery vans and buying renewable energy for its electricity needs. Dropping the specific shipment pledge is noteworthy because Amazon's ecommerce operation relies on vast fleets of vehicles and aircraft to deliver packages to consumers quickly. Most of this activity chews up vast quantities of fossil fuels and spews out greenhouse gases. However, fast delivery is a key selling point for shoppers and the main reason millions subscribe to the company's Prime program. Amazon announced the Shipment Zero initiative in a blog a few years ago. The company has since deleted the post. However, through the magic of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, large corporations cannot rewrite online history. Here's a version of the blog.

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Google has been ordered to pay Sonos $32.5 million after a jury verdict found that Google's smart speakers and media players infringed on one of Sonos' patents. The Verge reports: The legal battle started in 2020 when Sonos accused Google of copying its patented multiroom audio technology after the companies partnered in 2013. Sonos went on to win its case at the US International Trade Commission, resulting in a limited import ban on some of the Google devices in question. Google has also had to pull some features from its lineup of smart speakers and smart displays. Last August, Google sued Sonos over allegations that the audio company infringed on Google's smart speakers and voice control technology. This most recent trial started earlier this month, with Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda telling Reuters at the time that the case pertains to "some very specific features that are not commonly used" and that Sonos "mischaracterized our partnership and technology." Neither Google nor Sonos immediately responded to The Verge's request for comment. Sonos didn't come out of the case completely victorious, however, as the jury decided that Google's Home app didn't infringe on a separate patent filed by Sonos. The judge also told jurors to "disregard a $90 million damages estimate from a Sonos expert witness, saying he had decided that some of the evidence provided was inadmissible," Law360 reports.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The number of phishing websites tied to domain name registrar Freenom dropped precipitously in the months surrounding a recent lawsuit from social networking giant Meta, which alleged the free domain name provider has a long history of ignoring abuse complaints about phishing websites while monetizing traffic to those abusive domains. Freenom is the domain name registry service provider for five so-called "country code top level domains" (ccTLDs), including .cf for the Central African Republic; .ga for Gabon; .gq for Equatorial Guinea; .ml for Mali; and .tk for Tokelau. Freenom has always waived the registration fees for domains in these country-code domains, but the registrar also reserves the right to take back free domains at any time, and to divert traffic to other sites -- including adult websites. And there are countless reports from Freenom users who've seen free domains removed from their control and forwarded to other websites. By the time Meta initially filed its lawsuit in December 2022, Freenom was the source of well more than half of all new phishing domains coming from country-code top-level domains. Meta initially asked a court to seal its case against Freenom, but that request was denied. Meta withdrew its December 2022 lawsuit and re-filed it in March 2023. "The five ccTLDs to which Freenom provides its services are the TLDs of choice for cybercriminals because Freenom provides free domain name registration services and shields its customers' identity, even after being presented with evidence that the domain names are being used for illegal purposes," Meta's complaint charged. "Even after receiving notices of infringement or phishing by its customers, Freenom continues to license new infringing domain names to those same customers." Meta pointed to research from Interisle Consulting Group, which discovered in 2021 and again last year that the five ccTLDs operated by Freenom made up half of the Top Ten TLDs most abused by phishers. Interisle partner Dave Piscitello said something remarkable has happened in the months since the Meta lawsuit. "We've observed a significant decline in phishing domains reported in the Freenom commercialized ccTLDs in months surrounding the lawsuit," Piscitello wrote on Mastodon. "Responsible for over 60% of phishing domains reported in November 2022, Freenom's percentage has dropped to under 15%." Piscitello said it's too soon to tell the full impact of the Freenom lawsuit, noting that Interisle's sources of spam and phishing data all have different policies about when domains are removed from their block lists.

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Researchers from Cisco's Talos security team have uncovered detailed information about Predator, a sophisticated spyware sold to governments worldwide, which can secretly record voice calls, collect data from apps like Signal and WhatsApp, and hide or disable apps on mobile devices. Ars Technica reports: An analysis Talos published on Thursday provides the most detailed look yet at Predator, a piece of advanced spyware that can be used against Android and iOS mobile devices. Predator is developed by Cytrox, a company that Citizen Lab has said is part of an alliance called Intellexa, "a marketing label for a range of mercenary surveillance vendors that emerged in 2019." Other companies belonging to the consortium include Nexa Technologies (formerly Amesys), WiSpear/Passitora Ltd., and Senpai. Last year, researchers with Google's Threat Analysis Group, which tracks cyberattacks carried out or funded by nation-states, reported that Predator had bundled five separate zero-day exploits in a single package and sold it to various government-backed actors. These buyers went on to use the package in three distinct campaigns. The researchers said Predator worked closely with a component known as Alien, which "lives inside multiple privileged processes and receives commands from Predator." The commands included recording audio, adding digital certificates, and hiding apps. [...] According to Talos, the backbone of the malware consists of Predator and Alien. Contrary to previous understandings, Alien is more than a mere loader of Predator. Rather, it actively implements the low-level capabilities that Predator needs to surveil its victims. "New analysis from Talos uncovered the inner workings of PREDATOR and the mechanisms it uses to communicate with the other spyware component deployed along with it known as 'ALIEN,'" Thursday's post stated. "Both components work together to bypass traditional security features on the Android operating system. Our findings reveal the extent of the interweaving of capabilities between PREDATOR and ALIEN, providing proof that ALIEN is much more than just a loader for PREDATOR as previously thought to be." In the sample Talos analyzed, Alien took hold of targeted devices by exploiting five vulnerabilities -- CVE-2021-37973, CVE-2021-37976, CVE-2021-38000, CVE-2021-38003, CVE-2021-1048 -- the first four of which affected Google Chrome, and the last Linux and Android. [...] The deep dive will likely help engineers build better defenses to detect the Predator spyware and prevent it from working as designed. Talos researchers were unable to obtain Predator versions developed for iOS devices.

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