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Fnord666 writes:

All versions of Docker are currently vulnerable to a race condition that could give an attacker both read and write access to any file on the host system. Proof-of-concept code has been released.

The flaw is similar to CVE-2018-15664 and it offers a window of opportunity for hackers to modify resource paths after resolution but before the assigned program starts operating on the resource. This is known as a time-to-check-time-to-use (TOCTOU) type of bug.

Source:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/unpatched-flaw-affects-all-docker-versions-exploits-ready/

Original Submission

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for AnonymousLuser:

Investigation into Crew Dragon incident continues - SpaceNews.com

WASHINGTON — More than a month after a Crew Dragon spacecraft was destroyed in a test of its propulsion system, NASA and SpaceX investigators are still working to determine the cause of the accident and its implications for upcoming test flights.

In a May 28 presentation to the NASA Advisory Council's human exploration and operations committee, Kathy Lueders, manager of the commercial crew program at NASA, offered few updates on the progress of the investigation into the April 20 incident at a SpaceX pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

In that incident, SpaceX was testing both the Draco thrusters and larger SuperDraco abort thrusters in preparation for an in-flight abort test of the capsule that, at the time, was scheduled for the end of June. "An anomaly occurred during activation of the SuperDraco system," she said, but offered no details on what caused that anomaly.

[...] With the investigation ongoing, Lueders said the dates of both the in-flight abort test and the Demo-2 mission are under review. Assembly of the Demo-2 capsule continues, she said, although she said workers are keeping open the vehicle's propulsion system in case they need to make modifications as a result of the investigation. "They're making progress in a lot of the other areas while trying to keep, most particularly in the prop area, access to the systems that may need to be modified," she said.

She didn't give an indication of when that investigation will be completed. "You don't push your anomaly investigation team too quick," she said, stressing the importance for them to be "methodical" while working through all parts of the fault tree of potential causes.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

'We're Not Being Paranoid': U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

Drones have become an increasingly popular tool for industry and government. Electric utilities use them to inspect transmission lines. Oil companies fly them over pipelines. The Interior Department even deployed them to track lava flows at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano.

But the Department of Homeland Security is warning that drones manufactured by Chinese companies could pose security risks, including that the data they gather could be stolen.

The department sent out an alert on the subject on May 20, and a video on its website notes that drones in general pose multiple threats, including "their potential use for terrorism, mass casualty incidents, interference with air traffic, as well as corporate espionage and invasions of privacy." "We're not being paranoid," the video's narrator adds.

Related: Department of Homeland Security Terror Bulletin Warns of "Weaponized Drones"

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Intel's 10th Gen, 10nm Ice Lake CPUs: everything you need to know

Intel has a lot to prove. 2018 marked the chipmaker's 50th anniversary, but it was also a year that shook the company to its core. It was the year that Intel lost its CEO, struggled with Spectre and Meltdown, and reportedly lost Apple's confidence as far as chips for future Macs are concerned. Above all, it was the year the world finally realized Intel processors had hit a wall, after yet another failure to shrink its circuits down to the "10 nanometer" process node.

But now, after years of delays, the company is about to bring its first real batch[*] of 10nm CPUs to the world. Today, the company is officially taking the wraps off its 10th Gen Intel Core processors, codename "Ice Lake," and revealing some of what they might be able to do for your next PC when they ship in June.

[*] 18% IPC improvement *loud coughing* compared "against the Skylake cores the company released nearly four years ago!"

Also at AnandTech and Tom's Hardware.

Original Submission

James Orme writes:

Chinese tech giant Huawei has filed a motion in a US court challenging the constitutionality of a law that limits its sales of telecoms equipment, the latest action in an ongoing clash with Washington.

Huawei's chief legal officer Song Liuping said the firm had filed a motion for summary judgment asking the court to rule on whether it is constitutional for the US to implement a military spending provision that bars the government and its contractors from using its equipment.

Mr Song said the "state-sanctioned campaign" against the company will not improve cybersecurity.

"Politicians in the US are using the strength of an entire nation to come after a private company," he said. "This is not normal."

Source: https://techerati.com/news-hub/huawei-takes-us-to-court-over-security-law/

Additional Coverage:

• The New York Times
• Reuters
• NBC News

[Ed Note: full disclosure - The submitter is also the author of the linked news story and a junior editor at the techerati.com web site]

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

According to a forum post on Best Buy, as reported by The Verge, the retailer is cancelling "all current pre-orders" for the $1,980 Samsung Galaxy Fold.

The edited forum post, published by a Best Buy social media specialist, says that "while Samsung continues to make progress in enhancing the Galaxy Fold, we will continue to keep our customers updated as best we can."

[...] As time drags on, we have to wonder if the Galaxy Fold will be coming back in 2019 at all. Or if Samsung will just move on to a Galaxy Fold 2. But we'll stay tuned for the latest updates and will keep you posted.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/galaxy-fold-best-buy-orders-cancelled,news-30160.html

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

California lawmakers on Thursday advanced the last major surviving bill in a package aimed at reducing consumption of sodas, approving a measure that would require health warning labels on sugary drinks.

The measure by Sen. Bill Monning (D-Carmel) received a bare majority of votes even though some Democrats withheld votes while others in the majority party joined Republicans in opposition.

The latest action follows this year’s shelving of measures that would have put a tax on soda and banned “Big Gulp”-style sodas in an effort to address health risks including obesity and diabetes that are posed by sugary drinks.

“They represent the single leading source of increased bad calories that are being promoted in our communities and pushed on communities of color,” Monning said during the floor debate, citing a “national epidemic” of diabetes.

The label on container would say: “STATE OF CALIFORNIA SAFETY WARNING: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) may contribute to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and tooth decay.”

[...] The American Beverage Assn. opposed the bill with a strong push by lobbyists and while making major political contributions to state lawmakers.

The industry argued that the bill and its health impact claims went too far.

“There are already more effective ways to help people manage their overall sugar consumption rather than through mandatory and misleading messages,” said Steven Maviglio, a spokesman for the American Beverage Assn.

[...] Legislators are also still considering a bill that would bar the soda industry from offering subsidies including discount coupons that encourage soda consumption.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Artificial intelligence is ubiquitous. Mobile maps route us through traffic, algorithms can now pilot automobiles, virtual assistants help us smoothly toggle between work and life, and smart code is adept at surfacing our next our new favorite song.

But AI could prove dangerous, too. Tesla CEO Elon Musk once warned that biased, unmonitored and unregulated AI could be the "greatest risk we face as a civilization." Instead, AI experts are concerned that automated systems are likely to absorb bias from human programmers. And when bias is coded into the algorithms that power AI it will be nearly impossible to remove.

[...] To better understand how AI might be governed, and how to prevent human bias from altering the automated systems we rely on every day, CNET spoke with Salesforce AI experts Kathy Baxter and Richard Socher in San Francisco. Regulating the technology might be challenging, and the process will require nuance, said Baxter.

The industry is working to develop "trusted AI that is responsible, that it is mindful, and safeguards human rights," she said. "That we make sure [the process] does not infringe on those human rights. It also needs  to be transparent. It has to be able to explain to the end user what is it doing, and give them the opportunity to make informed choices with it."

Salesforce and other tech firms, Baxter said, are developing cross-industry guidance on the criteria for data used in AI data models. "We will show the factors that are used in a model like age, race, gender. And we're going to raise a flag if you're using one of those protected data categories."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

W3C and the WHATWG Sign an Agreement to Collaborate on a Single Version of HTML and DOM:

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has decided to join forces with the Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) so there is now hope we may eventually have a single, comprehensive agreement for what is valid HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and how the DOM (Document Object Model) should be defined.

Today W3C and the WHATWG signed an agreement to collaborate on the development of a single version of the HTML and DOM specifications. The Memorandum of Understanding jointly published as the WHATWG/W3C Joint Working Mode gives the specifics of this collaboration. This is the culmination of a careful exploration effective partnership mechanisms since December 2017 after the WHATWG adopted many shared features as their work-mode and an IPR policy.

[...] Motivated by the belief that having two distinct HTML and DOM specifications claiming to be normative is generally harmful for the community, and the mutual desire to bring the work back together, W3C and WHATWG agree to the following terms:

• W3C and WHATWG work together on HTML and DOM, in the WHATWG repositories, to produce a Living Standard and Recommendation/Review Draft-snapshots
• WHATWG maintains the HTML and DOM Living Standards
• W3C facilitates community work directly in the WHATWG repositories (bridging communities, developing use cases, filing issues, writing tests, mediating issue resolution)
• W3C stops independent publishing of a designated list of specifications related to HTML and DOM and instead will work to take WHATWG Review Drafts to W3C Recommendations

So how does this fit in with the obligatory xkcd?

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

University of Sheffield and Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) scientists have discovered several new related (dinuclear RuII) compounds which visualize and kill gram-negative bacteria, such as E. coli (note - no word on whether it works on synthetic E.coli)

Bacteria are classified generally by what type of staining works on them using a method developed in the 1800's by Hans Christian Gram. 'Gram-negative' bacteria retain a stain color that shows them as a pinkish red coloring, these bacteria have cell walls that make it difficult to get drugs into them and many gram-negative bacteria have become significantly or even completely resistant to available drug treatments.

A new drug in the difficult gram-negative space is particularly important. Drug resistant bacteria already cause the deaths of over 50 thousand people a year in the US and EU alone, and as many as 10 million people a year could die worldwide every year by 2050 due to antibiotic resistant infections.

Doctors have not had a new treatment for gram-negative bacteria in the last 50 years, and no potential drugs have entered clinical trials since 2010.

The new drug compound has a range of exciting opportunities. As Professor Jim Thomas explains: "As the compound is luminescent it glows when exposed to light. This means the uptake and effect on bacteria can be followed by the advanced microscope techniques available at RAL.

"This breakthrough could lead to vital new treatments to life-threatening superbugs and the growing risk posed by antimicrobial resistance."

The studies at Sheffield and RAL have shown the compound seems to have several modes of action, making it more difficult for resistance to emerge in the bacteria.

Better yet

Mammalian cell culture and animal model studies indicate that the complex is not toxic to eukaryotes, even at concentrations that are several orders of magnitude higher than its minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC).

The researchers plan to test the compounds against additional multi drug resistant bacteria next.

takyon writes:

Beer Archaeologists Are Reviving Ancient Ales — With Some Strange Results

Patrick McGovern is scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. The author of Ancient Brews: Rediscovered and Re-Created, he is known as the "Indiana Jones of Ancient Ales."

McGovern took a swing at ancient chicha, too, with the brewery Dogfish Head in Delaware. "We chewed the red Peruvian corn for eight hours. The insides of our mouths were pretty cut up and our jaws were aching and so on, but it worked," he says. The final product involved peppercorns and wild strawberries. Dogfish Head has been making chicha ever since, both serving it to customers at the brewery and shipping it out.

The trouble with re-creating ancient brews is that it's actually an impossible task, even for McGovern, who uses techniques like mass spectrometry and gas chromatography to figure out what an ancient vessel once contained.

"You don't have 100% certainty by any means," says McGovern. "The basic ingredients I think we can be pretty sure of. What we don't know about is likely microorganisms, the bittering agents, or other additives that we might have missed." In a way, we will never truly be able to taste what King Midas was drinking, or the brews of Machu Picchu. Or even something much more recent, like George Washington's favorite porter.

Ancient chicha = chewed corn and quinoa partially fermented in spit.

Boston Dogfish Beer Head Company should patent all the ancient ales.

Related: Beer Domesticated Man
Archaeologists Unearth 5,000-Year-Old Brewery in China
5,000-Year-Old Chinese Beer Recipe Recreated by Students
13,000-Year-Old Beer Residue Found in Prehistoric Cave in Israel

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Facebook is planning to launch its own cryptocurrency in early 2020, allowing users to make digital payments in a dozen countries.

The currency, dubbed GlobalCoin, would enable Facebook's 2.4 billion monthly users to change dollars and other international currencies into its digital coins. The coins could then be used to buy things on the internet and in shops and other outlets, or to transfer money without needing a bank account.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Facebook, last month met the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, to discuss the plans, according to the BBC.

Cryptocurrency without the pseudonymity? I think it'll work fine if they make it as easy to use as PayPal - and their blockchain processes transactions quickly, even without billions of records on it. Maybe we'll even finally get real microtransactions.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/may/24/facebook-plans-to-launch-globalcoin-cryptocurrency-in-2020?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Atomically thin material could cut need for transistors in half: It can do AND or OR logic in a single transistor, switch states using light.

With the development of carbon nanotubes and graphene, scientists were given an entirely new collection of materials to work with: sheets and tubes that could be consistently made with thicknesses roughly those of individual atoms. These materials hold the promise of building electronic devices with dimensions smaller than is currently possible through any other process and with properties that can be tuned by using different starting materials.

So far, most of the attention has gone to re-creating new versions of familiar devices. But a new paper by a group of researchers in Shanghai looks into what can be done if you're not constrained by the sorts of devices we currently make in silicon. The result is a device that can perform basic logic in half the transistors silicon needs, can be switched between different logical operations using light, and can store the output of the operation in the device itself.

Small footprint transistor architecture for photoswitching logic and in situ memory (DOI: 10.1038/s41565-019-0462-6) (DX)

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Honda e, the compact electric vehicle that’s coming to market in spring 2020, is bringing its side-view mirrors inside. The company confirmed Tuesday that its side-camera-mirror system, which was on the prototype version, will be a standard feature when the car enters production.  The side-ca...

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/28/the-all-electric-honda-e-is-bringing-its-side-view-mirrors-inside/

Original Submission

NPC-131072 writes:

From ieee spectrum

Engineers at Georgia Tech say they've come up with a programmable prototype chip that efficiently solves a huge class of optimization problems, including those needed for neural network training, 5G network routing, and MRI image reconstruction. The chip's architecture embodies a particular algorithm that breaks up one huge problem into many small problems, works on the subproblems, and shares the results. It does this over and over until it comes up with the best answer. Compared to a GPU running the algorithm, the prototype chip—called OPTIMO—is 4.77 times as power efficient and 4.18 times as fast.

[...] The test chip was made up of a grid of 49 "optimization processing units," cores designed to perform ADMM and containing their own high-bandwidth memory. The units were connected to each other in a way that speeds ADMM. Portions of data are distributed to each unit, and they set about solving their individual subproblems. Their results are then gathered, and the data is adjusted and resent to the optimization units to perform the next iteration. The network that connects the 49 units is specifically designed to speed this gather and scatter process.

Original Submission