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canopic jug writes:

Ken Shirrif writes about restoring the computer which helped guide spacecraft from the Earth to the moon and back again. The Apollo Guidance Computer restoration team, consisting of Mike Stewart, Carl Claunch, Marc Verdiell, and Ken Shirrif ran into challenges simulating the permanent storage. In flight the persitent storage was made of core ropes, though these were simulated on the ground. The team is currently reverse engineering the rope simulators, which were used on the ground and originally built with 7400-series TTL integrated circuits, so as to avoid having to thread an overwhelming multitude of cores with each new version. Once completed the programs were hard-wired into the computers by passing wires through magnetic rings, a process which took many weeks and had to be done correctly the first time. The restoration team opted for a simpler method and built theirs from a BeagleBone.

The Apollo Guidance Computer held six core rope modules, each storing just 6 kilowords of program information (about 12 kilobytes).2 Core rope modules were a bit like a video game ROM cartridge, holding software in a permanent yet removable format. Programs were hard-wired into core rope by weaving wires through magnetic cores. A wire passed through a core for a 1 bit, while a wire going around a core was a 0 bit. By weaving 192 wires through or around each core, each core stored 192 bits, achieving much higher density than read/write core memory that held 1 bit per core.

Earlier on SN:
Her Software Put Men on the Moon. Fifty Years Later, Margaret Hamilton got a Glowing Moonlit Tribute (2019)
The Machine That Made the Moon Missions Possible (2019)
NASA Restores Mission Control (2019)
First Moon Landing Manual Could Fetch $9 Million at Auction (2019)

Original Submission

martyb writes:

DRAM Prices to Slide Over 40% in 2019 Because Chip Makers Can't Forecast:

The laws of botched supply and demand forecasting are coming home to roost for the semiconductor industry in 2019 with DRAM average sales price set to fall 42.1 per cent.

The latest ladle of doom and gloom was poured onto the sector this morning by Gartner, days after IC Insights delivered its dark prognosis for chip makers.

"A weaker pricing environment for memory and some other chip types combined with the US-China trade dispute and lower growth in major applications, including smartphones, servers and PCs is driving the global semiconductor market to its lowest growth level since 2009," said Gartner analyst Ben Lee.

Smartphones sales are touted to fall 3.3 per cent to 2.2 billion units this year – the steepest recorded drop in their history. Traditional desktops and notebooks are forecast to drop to 187.2 million from 195.3 million last year. As for servers, the big cloud providers have put spending on pause.

The upshot of this is that global semiconductor revenues are expected to drop 9.6 per cent year-on-year to $475bn. This is down 3.4 per cent on Gartner's earlier forecast and likely could be revised again before the end of 2019 is upon us.

Given the chip makers are facing pricing pressure on memory, I would expect them to try and transition to more profitable markets such as processors. If enough of them have the same idea, are we on the verge of a drop in CPU prices, too?

Or will enough people see the drop in memory prices and use that as justification to upgrade their motherboard so as to be able to support more and/or faster memory — leading to an increase in mobo prices?

To complicate matters even further, Microsoft's Windows 7 is slated to go unsupported at year's end. Will companies install Windows 10 on existing systems or decide to do a hardware upgrade at the same time? How will the promise of a lower energy bill and thus lessened cost of doing business going to factor in?

What are YOU going to do?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Russian Secret Intelligence Contractor Tried to Deanonymize Tor Users

Hackers have leaked data obtained from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), showing that a contractor called SyTech was trying to deanonymize users of the Tor anonymity network, as reported by Forbes. The group, called 0v1ru$, stole 7.5 terabytes of data by gaining access to SyTech's entire network.

The hacking group shared the data with Digital Revolution, a different hacking group that last year breached the servers of another FSB contractor, called Quantum. Digital Revolution then shared more details about SyTech's data on Twitter and with Russian journalists.

SyTech has been working on the Tor deanonymization project, Nautilus-S, since 2012. Academics from the Swedish university Karlstad were able to identify 25 malicious servers that attempted to deanonymize Tor users. Eighteen of those servers were located in Russia.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser

Huawei reportedly helped North Korea build out 3G network in secret

A new report could ultimately prove another bombshell in Huawei's ongoing conflicts with the U.S. government. New documents obtained by The Washington Post tie the Chinese hardware giant to North Korea's commercial 3G wireless network.

If proven, the ties would be yet more fodder for the U.S., which has already dinged the company over charges of violating Iran sanctions. The government has also investigated potential ties between Huawei and North Korea for years, though concrete links have apparently remained elusive.

This latest report arrives by way of a former Huawei employee, with confirmation and supporting documents from other sources who have also requested to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. For its part, Huawei has stated that it has "no business presence" in the embattled country.

"Huawei is fully committed to comply with all applicable laws and regulations in the countries and regions where we operate, including all export control and sanction laws and regulations," it said in a statement offered to the press. Notably, the statements appear to apply primarily to its current business offerings, while declining to comment on the past.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser

Onward raises $1.5 million to offer round-trip rides to older adults needing assistance – TechCrunch

Uber and Lyft aren’t designed to transport people who need a little help getting out of the house or need someone to help get them from the doctor’s waiting room back to their home. While Uber, for example, has launched Uber Health to help patients get to their appointments, the drivers are not vetted with patient assistance in mind. This is where Onward comes in.

Onward, with $1.5 million in seed funding from Royal Street Ventures, Matchstick Ventures and JPK Capital, launched a few months ago in the San Francisco Bay Area to help seniors safely get from point A to point B. Unlike Uber and Lyft, Onward offers round-trip, door-to-door rides and aims to provide freedom for older adults who may feel isolated, Onward co-founder Mike Lewis told TechCrunch.

The idea for Onward emerged from Lewis’ experience with his mother-in-law who had Alzheimer’s. It got him and his co-founder, Nader Akhnoukh, thinking about the idea of aging in place and how older people may feel isolated as they become unable to do the tasks they’ve spent their whole lives doing, like driving.

[...] Onward has three types of customers: older adults who are no longer able to drive, someone who can’t drive for medical reasons (surgeries, eye exams, etc.) and caregivers who are unable to provide transportation to their loved ones.

Similar to Uber and Lyft, Onward drivers are 1099 contractors, but a key difference is that they are paid hourly — at least $20 per hour. Currently, there are more than 25 drivers on board who are all trained in CPR, dementia, and have gone through a background check and car inspection.

Onward also ensures its drivers know how to fold wheelchairs, though, only some drivers have the ability to transport those in powered wheelchairs. This time next year, Onward expects to have hundreds of drivers. Lewis says he also expects the number of vehicles with the ability to transport people in powered wheelchairs to increase as the company grows.

[...] Onward completed its first ride in March in the San Francisco Bay Area. For the rest of the year, Onward plans to focus on San Francisco as well as one other launch market. To date, Onward has completed more than 500 trips.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser

Google pays $11 million to settle 227 age discrimination claims

Google will pay $11 million to settle the claims of 227 people who say they were unfairly denied jobs because of their age, according to Friday court filings. The settlement must still be approved by the judge in the case.

The original lead plaintiff in the case, first filed in 2015, was a 60-something man named Robert Heath who says he was deemed a "great candidate" by a Google recruiter. The lawsuit said that in 2013, the median age of Google employees was 29, whereas the typical computer programmer in the US is over 40, according to several different measures.

During the interview process, Heath received a technical phone interview with a Google engineer. Heath alleged that the engineer had a heavy accent, a problem made worse by the engineer's insistence on using a speakerphone. When Heath was working through a technical problem, he asked if he could share his code using a Google Doc. The interviewer refused, Heath alleged. Instead, Heath had to read code snippets over the phone—an inherently error-prone process. Heath argued that the interview process "reflected a complete disregard for older workers who are undeniably more susceptible to hearing loss."

[... Cheryl Fillekes] says she interviewed for engineering jobs at Google four times but was never offered a position. During one interview process, Fillekes says, a recruiter requested that she submit an updated résumé that showed her graduation dates for college and graduate degrees. When Fillekes asked why this was required, she says the recruiter responded that it was "so the interviewers can see how old you are."

Of the $11 million payout in the settlement, $2.75 million will go to lawyers representing the class, Bloomberg reports. Fillekes will get an extra $10,000 as the lead plaintiff. The remaining cash works out to around $35,000 per plaintiff.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

New research identifies deadly hidden weather hazard that has the potential to affect millions of people

New research, led by Loughborough University academics, has found that tropical cyclones followed by deadly heat is an emerging weather threat that could put millions of people at risk as global temperatures continue to rise.

Climate scientist Dr. Tom Matthews and Professor Rob Wilby hope their findings will act as a 'stark warning' and raise awareness of the previously hidden hazard so measures can be put in place to protect vulnerable communities.

Until now, little was known about the possibility of deadly heatwaves—which have temperatures that feel like 40.6°C and above—following major tropical cyclones (rapidly rotating, very intense storm systems that form over tropical oceans and have winds of hurricane force).

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Americans are drilling deeper than ever for fresh water

Groundwater may be out of sight, but for over 100 million Americans who rely on it for their lives and livelihoods it's anything but out of mind. Unfortunately, wells are going dry and scientists are just beginning to understand the complex landscape of groundwater use.

Now, researchers at UC Santa Barbara have published the first comprehensive account of groundwater wells across the contiguous United States. They analyzed data from nearly 12 million wells throughout the country in records stretching back decades. Their findings appear in the journal Nature Sustainability.

[...] Focusing on regions known to depend on groundwater, such as California's Central Valley, the pair collected a wealth of information about different types of wells across the country. Groundwater is generally a matter of state management, so they had to cull their data from a variety of sources. "[That was] one of the biggest hurdles," said Perrone, an assistant professor in UC Santa Barbara's environmental studies department.

[...] Scientists know that groundwater depletion is causing some wells to run dry. Where conditions are right, drilling new and deeper wells can stave off this issue, for those who can afford it. Indeed, Perrone and Jasechko found that new wells are getting deeper between 1.4 and 9.2 times as often as they are being drilled shallower.

What's more, the researchers found that 79% of areas they looked at showed well-deepening trends across a window spanning 1950 to 2015. Hotspots of this activity include California's Central Valley, the High Plains of southwestern Kansas, and the Atlantic Coastal Plain, among other regions.

"We were surprised how widespread deeper well drilling is," Jasechko said. News media had documented the trend in places like the Central Valley, but it is pervasive in many other parts of the country as well. This includes places like Iowa, where groundwater hasn't been studied as intensively, he noted.

[...] This new paper provides additional context to one of Perrone and Jasechko's past studies -- completed with professors Grant Ferguson of the University of Saskatchewan, and Jennifer McIntosh at the University of Arizona -- where they found that the United States may have less usable groundwater than previously thought. It also ties into Perrone's work regarding groundwater policy across the U.S. In the future, she plans to look at the legal frameworks surrounding groundwater use. "My goal is to understand what types of laws are being passed in the western 17 states to manage groundwater withdrawals in more sustainable ways," she said.

Debra Perrone, Scott Jasechko. Deeper well drilling an unsustainable stopgap to groundwater depletion. Nature Sustainability, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41893-019-0325-z

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Venezuela Suffers Nationwide Blackout in Latest Power Outage:

Venezuela has suffered a nationwide power cut, including the capital, Caracas, which the country's Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said was caused by an "electromagnetic attack".

[...] The lights went out in most of Caracas at 4:41pm (20:41 GMT) while people in other parts of the country took to social media to report the power had gone out there too in the first major blackout since March.

"These blackouts are catastrophic," said 51-year-old janitor Bernardina Guerra, who lives in Caracas. "I live in the eastern part of the city and there the lights go out every day. Each day things are worse."

At least 14 Venezuelan states lost power on Monday, according to Reuters witnesses and reports on social media.

The state-owned power company Corpolec only reported a breakdown affecting sectors of the capital, Caracas.

[...] Blackouts are a common occurrence in Venezuela, especially in remote western regions.

The government usually blames them on sabotage but experts say that a lack of investment, poor management and corruption are the more likely culprits.

The oil-rich country's hyperinflationary economic crisis has led to widespread shortages in food and medicine, prompting more than four million Venezuelans to leave the country.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Widespread Aspirin use Despite Few Benefits, High Risks:

Aspirin use is widespread among groups at risk for harm including older adults and adults with peptic ulcers -- painful sores in the lining of the stomach that are prone to bleeding that affect about one in ten people. In a research report published today in Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) report on the extent to which Americans 40 years old and above use aspirin for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease.

"Although prior American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology guidelines recommended aspirin only in persons without elevated bleeding risk, the 2019 guidelines now explicitly recommend against aspirin use among those over the age of 70 who do not have existing heart disease or stroke," said senior author Christina C. Wee, MD, MPH, a general internist and researcher at BIDMC and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Our findings suggest that a substantial portion of adults may be taking aspirin without their physician's advice and potentially without their knowledge."

[...] Concerningly, nearly half of adults 70 years and older without a history of heart disease or stroke reported taking aspirin daily. The authors noted that a history of peptic ulcer disease -- another contraindication for the routine use of aspirin -- was not significantly associated with lower aspirin use as one would have expected.

"Our findings show a tremendous need for health care practitioners to ask their patients about ongoing aspirin use and to advise them about the importance of balancing the benefits and harms, especially among older adults and those with prior peptic ulcer disease," said lead author Colin O'Brien, MD, a senior internal medicine resident at BIDMC and fellow at Harvard Medical School.

Journal Reference:
Colin W. O'Brien, Stephen P. Juraschek, Christina C. Wee. Prevalence of Aspirin Use for Primary Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease in the United States: Results From the 2017 National Health Interview Survey. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2019; DOI: 10.7326/M19-0953

So take one of these and call the doctor in the morning... but only if instructed to do so and there are no other contraindications.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

NASA Legendary Flight Director Chris Kraft has Died at 95:

Christoper Columbus Kraft Jr., NASA's first flight director, pioneer of Mission Control and a key figure in the spaceflight program, died Monday. He was 95.

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine called Kraft a "national treasure," pointing to his work in establishing NASA's Mission Control, which directs human spaceflight activities from the ground. Kraft's work in developing the procedures and processes for sending humans to space would eventually pave the way for the Apollo missions to the moon and, to this day, provides communications for astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

"Chris was one of the core team members that helped our nation put humans in space and on the moon, and his legacy is immeasurable," said Bridenstine in a NASA press release. "Chris' engineering talents were put to work for our nation at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, before NASA even existed, but it was his legendary work to establish Mission Control as we know it for the earliest crewed space flights that perhaps most strongly advanced our journey of discovery."

Kraft was born in Phoebus, Virginia on Feb. 28, 1924. He graduated from Virginia Tech in 1944, majoring in aeronautical engineering and joined the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1945. Kraft was tapped to oversee flight operations for NASA's earliest manned expeditions off-planet and would serve as the first flight director for NASA's Mercury missions, putting Americans into space for the first time.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for SoyCow7671:

TrickBot malware learns how to spam, ensnares 250M email addresses

Old bot, new tricks.

TrickBot, a financially motivated malware in wide circulation, has been observed infecting victims’ computers to steal email passwords and address books to spread malicious emails from their compromised email accounts.

The TrickBot malware was first spotted in 2016 but has since developed new capabilities and techniques to spread and invade computers in an effort to grab passwords and credentials — eventually with an eye on stealing money. It’s highly adaptable and modular, allowing its creators to add in new components. In the past few months it’s adapted for tax season to try to steal tax documents for making fraudulent returns. More recently the malware gained cookie stealing capabilities, allowing attackers to log in as their victims without needing their passwords.

With these new spamming capabilities, the malware — which researchers are calling “TrickBooster” — sends malicious [e-mail] from a victim’s account then removes the sent messages from both the outbox and the sent items folders to avoid detection.

Researchers at cybersecurity firm Deep Instinct, who found the servers running the malware spamming campaign, say they have evidence that the malware has collected more than 250 million email addresses to date. Aside from the massive amounts of Gmail, Yahoo, and Hotmail accounts, the researchers say several U.S. government departments and other foreign governments — like the U.K. and Canada — had emails and credentials collected by the malware.

[...] The researchers described TrickBooster as a “powerful addition to TrickBot’s vast arsenal of tools,” given its ability to move stealthily and evade detection by most antimalware vendors, they said.

TrickBot malware attacks are ramping up ahead of Tax Day

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

The Paleo, or 'caveman' diet, consists of meat, vegetables, nuts, and limited fruit. It excludes grains, legumes, dairy, salt, and refined sugars and oils. Unfortunately in a recent study researchers also found it leads to reduced beneficial gut bacteria and twice the level of trimethylamin-n-oxide (TMAO), which is linked closely with increased risk of heart disease.

[Lead researcher Dr Angela Genoni] said the reason TMAO was so elevated in people on the Paleo diet appeared to be the lack of whole grains in their diet.

"We found the lack of whole grains were associated with TMAO levels, which may provide a link between the reduced risks of cardiovascular disease we see in populations with high intakes of whole grains," she said.

TMAO is produced in the gut, and gut bacteria change based on diet composition. In this case, the removal of whole grains, with "resistant starch and many other fermentable fibres that are vital to the health of your gut microbiome"

"Additionally, the Paleo diet includes greater servings per day of red meat, which provides the precursor compounds to produce TMAO, and Paleo followers consumed twice the recommended level of saturated fats, which is cause for concern.

The article conludes that "A variety of fiber components, including whole grain sources may be required to maintain gut and cardiovascular health."

Modified Paleo anyone?

Journal Reference
Genoni, A., Christophersen, C.T., Lo, J. et al. Eur J Nutr (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00394-019-02036-y

Original Submission

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

Cyber threats from the US and Russia are now focusing on civilian infrastructure – TechCrunch

Cyber-confrontation between the U.S. and Russia is increasingly turning to critical civilian infrastructure, particularly power grids, judging from recent press reports. The typically furtive conflict went public last month, when The New York Times reported U.S. Cyber Command's shift to a more offensive and aggressive approach in targeting Russia's electric power grid.

The report drew skepticism from some experts and a denial from the administration, but the revelation led Moscow to warn that such activity presented a "direct challenge" that demanded a response.  WIRED magazine the same day published an article detailing growing cyber-reconnaissance on U.S. grids by sophisticated malware emanating from a Russian research institution, the same malware that abruptly halted operations at a Saudi Arabian oil refinery in 2017 during what WIRED called "one of the most reckless cyberattacks in history."

Although both sides have been targeting each other's infrastructure since at least 2012, according to the Times article, the aggression and scope of these operations now seems unprecedented.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

How Microsoft made it harder to create Windows 10 local accounts

If you're thinking about resetting your Windows PC with a local account, save yourself some frustration and consider upgrading to the Windows 10 May 2019 Update first.

Our experiences with the October 2018 Update nearly convinced us that local accounts were gone for good. They're not, thank goodness, but Out-of-the-Box Experience (OOBE) in that version pushes you particularly hard toward using a Microsoft account. We discovered two workarounds, though, to allow you to log in as you wish.

[...] Over time, Microsoft has tacitly encouraged you ever more to create a Microsoft account, but it's never actually blocked you from creating a local one. It comes damn close in the October 2018 Update, however. Even worse, it begs you to connect your PC to the Internet—but never warns you that once you do, the local account option will never be displayed.

In the May 2019 Update, Microsoft seems to have relaxed its tactics. But only a small fraction of users, or about 6 percent, appear to have access to the friendlier version. That estimate comes from AdDuplex, which tracks versioning as part of its ad network. According to AdDuplex, about a third of Windows users remain on the October 2018 Update, also known as 1809.