SoylentNews

takyon writes:

Intel Issues Update on 14nm Shortage, Invests $1B Into Fab Sites (Update)

Intel's CFO and interim CEO Bob Swan penned an open letter to its customers and partners today outlining the steps it is taking to address a persistent and worsening shortage of 14nm processors.

[...] The shortage impacts nearly every aspect of Intel's business, from desktops to laptops, servers and even chipsets, so Intel is making the sound business decision to prioritize high-margin products. The firm has also expanded its testing capacity by diverting some work to a facility in Vietnam.

[...] Intel's statement also assures us that processors built on its 10nm fabrication will arrive in volume in 2019. Intel had previously stated that 10nm processors would be available in 2019, but hadn't made the distinction that they would arrive in volume. That's a positive sign, as the oft-delayed 10nm production is surely a contributing factor to the shortage. Intel also cites the booming desktop PC market, which has outstripped the company's original estimates earlier this year, as a catalyst.

In either case, Intel concedes that "supply is undoubtedly tight, particularly in the entry-level of the PC market" but doesn't provide a firm timeline for when the processors will become fully available. Intel's letter also touts its $1 billion investment in 14nm fabs this year, but half of that capital expenditure was scheduled prior to its first public acknowledgement of the shortage. Given Intel's foresight into the production challenges, the prior $500 million investment was likely in response to the increases in demand and looming production shortfall.

Previously: Intel Migrates New Chipsets to "22nm" Node From "14nm"

Related: Intel's "Tick-Tock" Strategy Stalls, 10nm Chips Delayed
Intel's First 8th Generation Processors Are Just Updated 7th Generation Chips
Intel Delays Mass Production Of 10 nm CPUs To 2019

Original Submission

Bytram (from IRC) writes:

Seattle throws out pot convictions:

Judges in Seattle have decided to quash convictions for marijuana possession for anyone prosecuted in the city between 1996 and 2010. City Attorney Pete Holmes asked the court to take the step "to right the injustices of a drug war that has primarily targeted people of colour."

Possession of marijuana became legal in the state of Washington in 2012.

Officials estimate that more than 542 people could have their convictions dismissed by mid-November.

Mr Holmes said the city should "take a moment to recognise the significance" of the court's ruling. "We've come a long way, and I hope this action inspires other jurisdictions to follow suit," he said. Mayor Jenny Durkan also welcomed the ruling, which she said would offer residents a "clean slate."

Order (PDF).

Also at CNN and The Hill.

See also: Vacating misdemeanor marijuana convictions is the right thing to do (Editorial)

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

The company ESET, based in Slovakia, has announced finding the first-ever UEFI rootkit in the wild. Once infected with the malware the only option is to reflash the SPI firmware or else replace the whole motherboard.

First spotted in early 2017, LoJax is a trojaned version of a popular legitimate LoJack laptop anti-theft software from Absolute Software, which installs its agent into the system's BIOS to survive OS re-installation or drive replacement and notifies device owner of its location in case the laptop gets stolen.

According to researchers, the hackers slightly modified the LoJack software to gain its ability to overwrite UEFI module and changed the background process that communicates with Absolute Software's server to report to Fancy Bear's C&C servers.

UEFI is an overly complex replacement for BIOS, and is often conflated with one of its payloads, Restricted Boot aka Secure Boot.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Hackaday:

Everything is getting smaller and even wearable, so traditional antennas are less practical than ever. You’ve probably seen PCB antennas on things like ESP8266s, but Drexel University researchers are now studying using titanium carbide — known as MXene — to build thin, light, and even transparent antennas that outperform copper antennas. Bucking the trend for 3D printing, these antennas are sprayed like ink or paint onto a surface.

A traditional antenna that uses metal carries most of the current at the skin (something we’ve discussed before). For example, at WiFi frequencies, a copper antenna’s skin depth is about 1.33 micrometers. That means that antennas have to be at least thick enough to carry current at that depth from all surfaces –practically 5 micrometers is about the thinnest you can reasonably go. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you are trying to make something thin and flexible, it is pretty thick. Using MXene, the researchers made antennas as thin as 100 nanometers thick — that’s 10% of a micrometer and only 2% of a conventional antenna.

I'm looking forward to networked graffiti.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Roadshow:

The BMW i3 has been on sale since 2014, and in that time, BMW has seen fit to expand its battery size and, by proxy, its range. For the 2019 model year, it's getting yet another battery upgrade, and it's a big one.

The 2019 BMW i3 will come with a 42.2-kWh battery (120 amp-hours), which should permit for up to 153 miles of all-electric driving. This is a roughly 30 percent improvement over the previous 94-Ah battery, which allowed for 115 miles of range. The i3's first battery was just 60 Ah, offering a range of just 81 miles. Oh, how far we've come.

BMW will offer the battery in both variants of the i3. The standard i3 uses a 170-horsepower electric motor, powerful enough to get the little EV to 60 mph in just 7.2 seconds. The i3s, on the other hand, is the sportier trim, offering a 181-hp electric motor and a 6.8-second sprint to 60.

Will EVs (electric vehicles) like this succeed in replacing ICEs (internal combustion engines) as commuter cars?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Polymer-Coated Buildings:

Researchers at Columbia Engineering have invented a high-performance exterior PDRC [passive daytime radiative cooling] polymer coating with nano-to-microscale air voids that acts as a spontaneous air cooler and can be fabricated, dyed, and applied like paint on rooftops, buildings, water tanks, vehicles, even spacecraft -- anything that can be painted. They used a solution-based phase-inversion technique that gives the polymer a porous foam-like structure. The air voids in the porous polymer scatter and reflect sunlight, due to the difference in the refractive index between the air voids and the surrounding polymer. The polymer turns white and thus avoids solar heating, while its intrinsic emittance causes it to efficiently lose heat to the sky.

Journal Reference:
J. Mandal, Y. Fu, A. Overvig, M. Jia, K. Sun, N. Shi, H. Zhou, X. Xiao, N. Yu, Y. Yang. Hierarchically porous polymer coatings for highly efficient passive daytime radiative cooling. Science, 2018; eaat9513 DOI: 10.1126/science.aat9513

The new desert home paint?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

From research out of the University of Colorado Denver:

Ride-hailing accounts for an 83 percent increase in the miles cars travel for ride-hailing passengers in Denver's metro area, according to a study published this week in the journal Transportation by researchers at the University of Colorado Denver.

[...] For this first-of-its-kind study, the researcher-driver collected real-time data and surveyed passengers for feedback and demographic information. By surveying passengers, Henao learned that a combined 34 percent of his ride-hailing passengers would have taken transit, walked, or bicycled if ride-hailing hadn't existed.

Journal Reference:
Alejandro Henao, Wesley E. Marshall. The impact of ride-hailing on vehicle miles traveled. Transportation, 2018; DOI: 10.1007/s11116-018-9923-2

So, is ride hailing a net good, or not?

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002976/weibos-most-influential-users-can-now-silence-their-critics

Beginning Thursday, Weibo accounts with more than 100,000 followers will have the ability to silence their critics: If you leave a comment on a post from one of these accounts, and that account blocks you, you’ll be banned from commenting for three days.

The Weibo Administrator account announced the trial function on Wednesday. “If a user’s comment is deleted by a blogger, and their account is also blocked by the blogger, their comment function will be suspended throughout the site for three days,” reads the company’s statement, which also clarifies that affected users will still be able to retweet and write their own posts.

Weibo says the temporary commenting ban function will first be available to bloggers with over 100,000 followers for a trial phase, and then, depending on feedback and results, it will gradually expand to verified users, paying members, and finally all users. According to Weibo’s most recently announced figure in August, the site has over 430 million monthly active users — more than the combined population of the U.S. and the U.K.

More details are available in Weibo's FAQ.

[NOTE: Links are to pages written in Chinese or may require a login. Google Translate may prove useful. --Ed.]

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Happy 35th Birthday GNU!

The GNU project was officially announced on 27 September 1983 by Richard Stallman. Thirty-five years of a project that has now become the fundamental building block of everything we use and see in technology in 2018. I would not be wrong to say that there isn't a single proprietary piece of software that anyone is still using from 35 years ago – please post comments if there is something still being used.

There is only one reason for this longevity: the GNU project was built upon the premise that the code is available to anyone, anywhere with the only restriction that whatever is done to the code, it shall always be available to anyone, forever. Richard Stallman's genius in crafting the copyleft license that is the GNU General Public License is probably the best hack of the 20th century software industry.

Extra: Happy Birthday, GNU: Why I still love GNU 35 years later

Original Submission #1   Original Submission #2

chromas writes:

Elon Musk Accused by SEC of Misleading Investors in August Tweet

Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk was accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of misleading investors when he tweeted that he had funding lined up to take the company private.

The agency said Musk fabricated the claim in his August tweet, which sent Tesla shares higher.

"In truth and in fact, Musk had not even discussed, much less confirmed, key deal terms, including price, with any potential funding source," the SEC said in complaint filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court, less than two months after Musk's tweet.

The suit seeks an order from a judge barring Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company, a request often made in SEC lawsuits, as well as unspecified monetary penalties.

Shares fell about 10 percent in after-hour trading on news of the lawsuit. The company, which wasn't sued, and an attorney for Musk didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. The SEC has scheduled a press conference for 5 p.m.

The complaint: 1:18-cv-8865 (alt source).

Current (delayed) stock quote: TSLA.

Also at the BBC, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, c|net, and Ars Technica.

[Update: added 20180928_141312 UTC]

The CNBC is reporting Tesla's Musk pulled the plug on a settlement with the SEC at the last minute:

chromas (from IRC) writes:

NASA to Air Live Coverage of International Space Station Crew Landing:

Three of the astronauts aboard the International Space Station, including two NASA astronauts, are scheduled to return to Earth on Thursday, Oct. 4. NASA Television and the agency's website will provide complete coverage of their departure from the station and landing back on Earth.

[...] The crew is completing a 197-day mission spanning 3,152 orbits of Earth and a journey of 83.4 million miles. During their time on the orbiting laboratory, the crew of Expedition 56 carried out science experiments ranging from physics to biological studies and conducted tests to expand navigation capabilities in preparation for future travel far from Earth. They also participated in NASA's Year of Education on Station, which links students on Earth directly to astronauts aboard the space station.

After landing, the crew will return by helicopter to the recovery staging city in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where they will go their separate ways. Feustel and Arnold will board a NASA plane and fly back to Houston, while Artemyev will return to his home in Star City, Russia.

Original Submission

chromas (from IRC) writes:

Controlling mosquitos with a gene drive that makes females infertile:

We've known for a long time that we can limit malaria infections by controlling the mosquitos that transmit them. But that knowledge hasn't translated into control efforts that have always been completely successful. Many of the approaches we've used to control mosquitos have caused environmental problems, and mosquito populations are large enough that they have evolved resistance to many of our pesticides.

That made the development of what are called "gene drive" constructs exciting (if a bit scary). They have the potential to rapidly spread genes throughout a population—including a mosquito population. But the prospect of a modern genetic control of mosquito populations has run up against the very old problem of evolution, as the gene drives often stall due to genetic changes that allow mosquito populations to escape their impact.

Now, a team has figured out a way that might avoid this problem: use gene drive to target a gene that's fundamental to how mosquitos develop as male or female. In doing so, it makes the females sterile and, at least in the lab, causes mosquito populations to collapse.

Original Submission

chromas (from IRC) writes:

FCC Hangs Blockbuster $37.5 Million Fine Over Robocaller Accused of Spoofing Real Numbers:

The FCC has announced its proposal to impose a fine of $37.5 million on a company accused of making robocalls and hiding the calls' origin behind the real phone numbers of consumers. The agency is attempting to show that it's cracking down on the out of control robocall industry, but critics say it's too little, too late.

On Wednesday, the FCC said that it was alerted by a whistleblower about the robocall practices of an Arizona-based company called Affordable Enterprises. According to the announcement, the company "made more than 2.3 million maliciously-spoofed telemarketing calls to Arizonans during a 14-month span starting in 2016 to sell home improvement and remodeling services."

Spoofing is the term for using various techniques to display a different phone number on a robocall target's caller-ID than the number that's actually being used by the caller. What makes the Affordable Enterprises case different is that it's accused of intentionally using phone numbers that belong to consumers. This makes it hard to file a complaint against the company and leads to confused Americans fielding angry phone calls out of the blue.

Original Submission

chromas writes:

NASA Wants To Probe Deeper Into Uranus Than Ever Before

Up until now, NASA has never paid too much attention to Uranus – but now the space agency wants to take a good, long look. And one of the things it might be investigating is all that gas. A NASA group outlined four possible missions to the ice giants Uranus and Neptune.

These missions include three orbiters and a possible fly-by of Uranus. The planned probes would take off in the 2030s, New Scientist reports.

[...] One of the proposed missions includes a fly-by of Uranus, which would include a narrow-angle camera – and a probe which would drop into Uranus's atmosphere to measure gas and heavy elements. There are four proposed missions. Three orbiters and a fly-by of Uranus, which would include a narrow angle camera to draw out details, especially of the ice giant's moons. It would also drop an atmospheric probe to take a dive into Uranus's atmosphere to measure the levels of gas and heavy elements there.

Original Submission

chromas (from IRC) writes:

Facebook Warns Memphis Police: No More Fake "Bob Smith" Accounts:

Facebook has a problem: an infestation of undercover cops. Despite the social platform's explicit rules that the use of fake profiles by anyone—police included—is a violation of terms of service, the issue proliferates. While the scope is difficult to measure, EFF has identified scores of agencies who maintain policies that explicitly flout these rules.

Hopefully—and perhaps this is overly optimistic—this is about to change, with a new warning Facebook has sent to the Memphis Police Department. The company has also updated its law enforcement guidelines to highlight the prohibition on fake accounts.

This summer, the criminal justice news outlet The Appeal reported on an alarming detail revealed in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Tennessee against the Memphis Police Department. The lawsuit uncovered evidence that the police used what they referred to as a "Bob Smith" account to befriend and gather intelligence on activists. Following the report, EFF contacted Facebook, which deactivated that account. Facebook has since identified and deactivated six other fake accounts managed by Memphis police that were previously unknown.

Original Submission