Comment Re:What (Score 1) 38
I came here to say this too.
now back to my cave
Comment Re:If it's for AI training bots (Score 1) 87
if you go to the link, you'll see that each page is unique.
Comment East coast though... not so scary (Score 5, Informative) 99
While the earthquake is clearly powerful and devastating and I hope that there is only limited loss of life, nearly all if not entirely all of the chip fabs are on the west (Hsinchu) and south (Tainan) areas which are distant from the epicenter. Of course the equipment is very sensitive so it makes sense to be cautious but this particular earthquake may not have much impact on the semi industry.
Comment Re:FDIV (Score 4, Informative) 82
I can happily inform you that the Reuters article that was quoted in this summary is the source of the incorrect number. They have posted a statement mentioning the correction on their page.
Comment NGL This is kinda wildly awesome.... (Score 2) 59
I mean yeah, it sucks for the players in the tournament and all that but the idea of some nefarious person modding a third person's installed game/mods and enabling them remotely during a live online multiplayer game seems still sci-fiy to me.
I mean, game player hacking? boring. game server having hacks installed? soo 2023. This? it's like out of anime.
Submission + - SPAM: Winamp Prepares a Relaunch
An anonymous reader writes: Winamp is getting closer to release with a redesigned website, logo, and a new beta signup allowing users to soon test the upcoming version of the media player. Before we streamed our music, users would rip their albums or download MP3s to listen on their computer using media players. One of the most popular media players to play MP3s was Winamp, with its retro skins and animated visualizers that moved along with the music you were playing. However, Winamp had not seen any further development after its version 5.5 release in 2007.
In October 2018, after Winamp 5.8 was leaked online, the developers decided to publish the leaked version on their website Winamp.com to allow everyone to use it in all its nostalgic glory. Unfortunately, while Radionomy, the owners of Winamp, said they had big plans for Winamp, no further versions have been released since then. The only new Winamp development we have seen has been by the Winamp Community Update Project (WACUP) who released Preview version 1.0.20.7236 with bug fixes and improvements.
Link to Original Source
In October 2018, after Winamp 5.8 was leaked online, the developers decided to publish the leaked version on their website Winamp.com to allow everyone to use it in all its nostalgic glory. Unfortunately, while Radionomy, the owners of Winamp, said they had big plans for Winamp, no further versions have been released since then. The only new Winamp development we have seen has been by the Winamp Community Update Project (WACUP) who released Preview version 1.0.20.7236 with bug fixes and improvements.
Link to Original Source
Submission + - SPAM: SpaceX Will 'Hopefully' Launch First Orbital Starship Flight In January
An anonymous reader writes: Elon Musk on Wednesday said SpaceX is “hoping” to launch the first orbital flight test of its mammoth Starship rocket in January, a schedule that depends on testing and regulatory approval. “We’ll do a bunch of tests in December and hopefully launch in January,” Musk said, speaking at a meeting of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Space Studies Board.
The company’s next major step in developing Starship is launching to orbit. First, the company needs a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration for the mission, with the regulator expecting to complete a key environmental assessment by the end of this year. Musk noted that he wasn’t sure if Starship would successfully reach orbit on the first try, but emphasized that he is “confident” that the rocket will get to space in 2022. “We intend to have a high flight rate next year,” Musk said.
SpaceX aims to launch as many as a dozen Starship test flights next year, he said, to complete the “test flight program” and move to launching “real payloads in 2023.” He stressed that creating a mass production line for Starship is crucial to the program’s long-term goals, noting that the current “biggest constraint” on rocket manufacturing is how fast the company can build the Raptor engines needed for Starship. “I think, in order for life to become multiplanetary, we’ll need maybe 1,000 ships or something like that,” Musk said. “The overarching goal of SpaceX has been to advance space technology such that humanity can become a multi-planet species and, ultimately, a spacefaring civilization.”
Link to Original Source
The company’s next major step in developing Starship is launching to orbit. First, the company needs a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration for the mission, with the regulator expecting to complete a key environmental assessment by the end of this year. Musk noted that he wasn’t sure if Starship would successfully reach orbit on the first try, but emphasized that he is “confident” that the rocket will get to space in 2022. “We intend to have a high flight rate next year,” Musk said.
SpaceX aims to launch as many as a dozen Starship test flights next year, he said, to complete the “test flight program” and move to launching “real payloads in 2023.” He stressed that creating a mass production line for Starship is crucial to the program’s long-term goals, noting that the current “biggest constraint” on rocket manufacturing is how fast the company can build the Raptor engines needed for Starship. “I think, in order for life to become multiplanetary, we’ll need maybe 1,000 ships or something like that,” Musk said. “The overarching goal of SpaceX has been to advance space technology such that humanity can become a multi-planet species and, ultimately, a spacefaring civilization.”
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Fusion's role in fighting climate change (thebulletin.org)
DanDrollette writes: One way to help eliminate carbon emissions and thereby fight global warming may be to exploit fusion, the energy source of the sun and stars.
Submission + - Iodine instead of Xenon for Ion Drives (newscientist.com)
Tesseractic writes: Chen Ly over at New Scientist reports on a Nature article on ion drives:
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticle...
Dmytro Rafalskyi at ThrustMe, a space technology company based in France, and his colleagues have developed an electric propulsion system that uses iodine. They operated a small satellite and performed successful manoeuvres using the drive.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticle...
Dmytro Rafalskyi at ThrustMe, a space technology company based in France, and his colleagues have developed an electric propulsion system that uses iodine. They operated a small satellite and performed successful manoeuvres using the drive.
Submission + - SPAM: BlockFi Faces SEC Scrutiny Over High-Yield Crypto Accounts
An anonymous reader writes: BlockFi is being scrutinized by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its popular product that pays customers high interest rates for lending out their digital tokens, a development that significantly ratchets up the fast-growing crypto firm’s legal woes. The SEC review focuses on whether the BlockFi accounts are akin to securities that should be registered with the regulator, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The Jersey City, New Jersey-based firm touts annual yields as high as 9.5% on its website — a figure that dwarfs the 0.06% average interest rate for bank savings accounts.
States including New Jersey and Texas have already taken action against BlockFi, questioning whether it’s marketing illicit financial products that lack bedrock consumer protections. BlockFi and other firms are able to pay high interest rates because they can charge institutional investors that want access to coins even more. The market is one of the hottest corners of crypto, with companies saying they’ve collected more than $40 billion in deposits. [...] A key concern is that unlike bank deposits, the crypto accounts aren’t insured by the federal government. If a firm goes bust, customers could lose their funds.
Link to Original Source
States including New Jersey and Texas have already taken action against BlockFi, questioning whether it’s marketing illicit financial products that lack bedrock consumer protections. BlockFi and other firms are able to pay high interest rates because they can charge institutional investors that want access to coins even more. The market is one of the hottest corners of crypto, with companies saying they’ve collected more than $40 billion in deposits. [...] A key concern is that unlike bank deposits, the crypto accounts aren’t insured by the federal government. If a firm goes bust, customers could lose their funds.
Link to Original Source
Submission + - SPAM: South Korea Is Giving Millions of Photos to Facial Recognition Researchers
An anonymous reader writes: The South Korean Ministry of Justice has provided more than 100 million photos of foreign nationals who travelled through the country’s airports to facial recognition companies without their consent, according to attorneys with the non-governmental organization Lawyers for a Democratic Society. While the use of facial recognition technology has become common for governments across the world, advocates in South Korea are calling the practice a “human rights disaster” that is relatively unprecedented. “It’s unheard-of for state organizations—whose duty it is to manage and control facial recognition technology—to hand over biometric information collected for public purposes to a private-sector company for the development of technology,” six civic groups said during a press conference last week.
The revelation, first reported in the South Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh, came to light after National Assembly member Park Joo-min requested and received documents from the Ministry of Justice related to a April 2019 project titled Artificial Intelligence and Tracking System Construction Project. The documents show private companies secretly used biometric data to research and develop an advanced immigration screening system that would utilize artificial intelligence to automatically identify airport users’ identities through CCTV surveillance cameras and detect dangerous situations in real time. Shortly after the discovery, civil liberty groups announced plans to represent both foreign and domestic victims in a lawsuit.
“We, the NGOs, urge the government to immediately stop the establishment of a biometric monitoring system that is not only illegal but also significantly violates international human rights norms,” wrote Advocates for Public Interest Law, MINBYUN — Lawyers for a Democratic Society, the Institute for Digital Rights, the Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea, and the Korean Progressive Network Jinbonet, in a press release that was translated and provided to Motherboard. Attorneys claim the project directly violates South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act, a law that strictly limits the processing of personal information in the country. Still, the Ministry has yet to announce plans to halt the program, which was scheduled to be completed in 2022.
Link to Original Source
The revelation, first reported in the South Korean newspaper The Hankyoreh, came to light after National Assembly member Park Joo-min requested and received documents from the Ministry of Justice related to a April 2019 project titled Artificial Intelligence and Tracking System Construction Project. The documents show private companies secretly used biometric data to research and develop an advanced immigration screening system that would utilize artificial intelligence to automatically identify airport users’ identities through CCTV surveillance cameras and detect dangerous situations in real time. Shortly after the discovery, civil liberty groups announced plans to represent both foreign and domestic victims in a lawsuit.
“We, the NGOs, urge the government to immediately stop the establishment of a biometric monitoring system that is not only illegal but also significantly violates international human rights norms,” wrote Advocates for Public Interest Law, MINBYUN — Lawyers for a Democratic Society, the Institute for Digital Rights, the Joint Committee with Migrants in Korea, and the Korean Progressive Network Jinbonet, in a press release that was translated and provided to Motherboard. Attorneys claim the project directly violates South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Act, a law that strictly limits the processing of personal information in the country. Still, the Ministry has yet to announce plans to halt the program, which was scheduled to be completed in 2022.
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Oumuamua May Not Be A Frozen Nitrogen Chunk After All (livescience.com) 1
alaskana98 writes: In the latest move in the war on who gets to define what exactly OuMuaMua is, Harvard astrophysicists Amir Siraj and Avi Loeb have countered the prevailing hypothesis that it is a frozen chunk of nitrogen with their own — that it is simply not possible:
"According to Siraj and his co-author, Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb, Jackson and Desch's conclusion that 'Oumuamua is a nitrogen iceberg is flawed because there isn't enough nitrogen in the universe to make an object like 'Oumuamua, which is somewhere between 1,300 and 2,600 feet (400 and 800 meters) long and between 115 and 548 feet (35 and 167 m) wide. Pure nitrogen is rare, Siraj said, and has been found only on Pluto, where it makes up about 0.5% of the total mass. Even if all of the nitrogen ice in the universe was scraped off every Pluto-like planet that's predicted to exist, there still wouldn't be enough nitrogen to make 'Oumuamua."
Although Oumuamua probably isn't some probe looking for humpbacked whales, it does continue to deliver plenty of intrigue — and controversy — for those astronomy buffs out there.
Submission + - THE LOST AMIGA CD64 - After the CD32... - A Commodore History Documentary
Mike Bouma writes: Lady Decade talks about the fate of the Amiga CD32 after Commodore's demise, as well as covers what could have been the successor to the short-lived Amiga CD32 (which was the world's first true 32-bit CD based home console), the Amiga CD64.
The Amiga CD32 released in Europe on September 16, 1993 and on March 1, 1994, Commodore Business Machines announced: "First launched in Europe this past fall, Commodore reports to have sold over 100,000 units in Europe in just three months prior to Christmas. By outselling Sega four to one and claiming 38% market share of all CD ROM drives sold in the UK (according to the Gallup Weekly Report), the Amiga CD32 has established itself as the undisputed leader of the 32 bit machines." Operations in Germany and the United Kingdom were still profitable, but Commodore was not able to meet demand for new units because of component supply problems and could not release the (already made) Amiga CD32 stock in the United States due to a legal patent issue .Commodore declared bankruptcy on April 29, 1994 causing the CD32 to be discontinued only eight months after its debut. (source: wikipedia and Amiga Report)
The Amiga CD32 still has more than 100 games released for it. Sadly most of them were straight A500 conversions to CD format without any or little improvements technically. IMO the most impressive game released for the system was Super Stardust by Bloodhouse, published by Team17. It was the sequel to Stardust for the Amiga 500 and Atari STE. Bloodhouse merged with Terramarque (famous for their impressive Amiga 500 game Elfmania) to form Housemarque, which is still making games as of today.
The Amiga CD32 released in Europe on September 16, 1993 and on March 1, 1994, Commodore Business Machines announced: "First launched in Europe this past fall, Commodore reports to have sold over 100,000 units in Europe in just three months prior to Christmas. By outselling Sega four to one and claiming 38% market share of all CD ROM drives sold in the UK (according to the Gallup Weekly Report), the Amiga CD32 has established itself as the undisputed leader of the 32 bit machines." Operations in Germany and the United Kingdom were still profitable, but Commodore was not able to meet demand for new units because of component supply problems and could not release the (already made) Amiga CD32 stock in the United States due to a legal patent issue
The Amiga CD32 still has more than 100 games released for it. Sadly most of them were straight A500 conversions to CD format without any or little improvements technically. IMO the most impressive game released for the system was Super Stardust by Bloodhouse, published by Team17. It was the sequel to Stardust for the Amiga 500 and Atari STE. Bloodhouse merged with Terramarque (famous for their impressive Amiga 500 game Elfmania) to form Housemarque, which is still making games as of today.
Submission + - Exploit Lets Spoofed Addresses Masquerade as Legit on Linux Servers (arstechnica.com)
shoor writes: The exploit may allow malicious hackers to redirect inquiries to phishing and other malware sites that are replicas of legitimate sites. A new DNS spec was supposed to randomize the port DNS queries come from, closing off an exploit that allowed attackers to introduce a malicious IP address into a DNS resolver's cache. Under the new spec, an ICMP probe can change internal state in the Linux Kernel in a way that can be observed through a side channel.
Submission + - SPAM: VR Treatment For Chronic Pain Gets FDA Authorization
An anonymous reader writes: The Food and Drug Administration authorized a virtual reality system as a prescription treatment for chronic back pain, the agency announced today. The therapy, called EaseVRx, joins the short list of digital therapeutics cleared by the agency over the past few years. EaseVRx includes a VR headset and a device that amplifies the sound of the user’s breath to assist in breathing exercises. It uses principles from cognitive behavior therapy, which aims to help people recognize and understand various thought patterns and emotions. The program addresses pain through relaxation, distraction, and improved awareness of internal signals, the FDA said in its statement.
The FDA authorized EaseVRx based on data from an eight-week study in 179 people with low back pain that had lasted six months or longer. Half used the EaseVRx program and half participated in another, two-dimensional virtual reality program that did not use cognitive behavioral therapy methods. Around two-thirds of participants using EaseVRx said they had more than 30 percent reduction in pain, while only 41 percent of the control group had a similar reduction. The reduced pain lasted for up to three months after the study for people in the EaseVRx group but not for the control group. The VR system could be an alternative option to opioid medications for back pain, Christopher Loftus, acting director of the Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices at the FDA, said in a statement. [...] EaseVRx was developed by the company AppliedVR, which is also testing its platform as a treatment for fibromyalgia pain, burn pains, or pain during childbirth.
Link to Original Source
The FDA authorized EaseVRx based on data from an eight-week study in 179 people with low back pain that had lasted six months or longer. Half used the EaseVRx program and half participated in another, two-dimensional virtual reality program that did not use cognitive behavioral therapy methods. Around two-thirds of participants using EaseVRx said they had more than 30 percent reduction in pain, while only 41 percent of the control group had a similar reduction. The reduced pain lasted for up to three months after the study for people in the EaseVRx group but not for the control group. The VR system could be an alternative option to opioid medications for back pain, Christopher Loftus, acting director of the Office of Neurological and Physical Medicine Devices at the FDA, said in a statement. [...] EaseVRx was developed by the company AppliedVR, which is also testing its platform as a treatment for fibromyalgia pain, burn pains, or pain during childbirth.
Link to Original Source
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