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hubie writes:

A memristor (memory resistor) is a hypothetical circuit element that, in principle, would make up the fourth basic circuit element joining the resistor, capacitor, and inductor. One of the more interesting properties of an ideal memristor is that there exists a non-liner relationship between the applied voltage and current which gives rise to non-volatile memory behavior. This has resulted in a lot of exciting research in the semiconductor industry for new and improved memory chips.

The hallmark of a memristor is that the non-linear relationship between the electric flux and charge gives rise to a voltage-current plot that exhibits a pinched hysteresis behavior, namely that it looks like a frequency-dependent Lissajous figure that always crosses the plot at the origin. If one takes a step back from solid state devices and defines memristors in terms of this voltage/current behavior, there are a number of biologic-based systems that qualify, including human skin. If skin is a memristor, does that mean that it acts like non-volatile memory? In a new paper published in Nature's open-access journal Scientific Reports, Pabst et al show that this is indeed the case. They applied direct current voltage pulses to various parts of the human skin and show that analog information can be stored for at least three minutes.

takyon writes:

Nvidia has announced its next chip for self-driving cars years in advance:

First outlined as part of NVIDIA's DRIVE roadmap at GTC 2018, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang took the stage at GTC China this morning to properly introduce the chip that will be powering the next generation of the DRIVE platform. Officially dubbed the NVIDIA DRIVE AGX Orin, the new chip will eventually succeed NVIDIA's currently shipping Xavier SoC, which has been available for about the last year now. In fact, as has been the case with previous NVIDIA DRIVE unveils, NVIDIA is announcing the chip well in advance: the company isn't expecting the chip to be fully ready for automakers until 2022.

What lies beneath Orin then is a lot of hardware, with NVIDIA going into some high-level details on certain parts, but skimming over others. Overall, Orin is a 17 billion transistor chip, almost double the transistor count of Xavier and continuing the trend of very large, very powerful automotive SoCs. NVIDIA is not disclosing the manufacturing process being used at this time, but given their timeframe, some sort of 7nm or 5nm process (or derivative) is pretty much a given. And NVIDIA will definitely need a smaller manufacturing process – to put things in comparison, the company's top-end Turing GPU, TU102, takes up 754mm² for 18.6B transistors, so Orin will pack in almost as many transistors as one of NVIDIA's best GPUs today.

[...] All told, NVIDIA expects Orin to deliver 7x the 30 INT8 TOPS performance of Xavier, with the combination of the GPU and DLA pushing 200 TOPS. It goes without saying that NVIDIA is still heavily invested in neural networks as the solution to self-driving systems, so they are similarly heavily investing in hardware to execute those neural nets.

[...] Finally, while NVIDIA hasn't disclosed any official figures for power consumption, it's clear that overall power usage is going up relative to Xavier. While Orin is expected to be 7x faster than Xavier, NVIDIA is only claiming it's 3x as power efficient. Assuming NVIDIA is basing all of this on INT8 TOPS as they usually do, then the 1 TOPS/Watt Xavier would be replaced by the 3 TOPS/Watt Orin, putting the 200 TOPS chip at around 65-70 Watts. Which is admittedly still fairly low for a single chip at a company that sells 400 Watt GPUs, but it could add up if NVIDIA builds another multi-processor board like the DRIVE Pegasus.

The design will include 12 ARM "Hercules" (Cortex-A78) cores rather than Nvidia-designed custom ARM cores.

Also at Wccftech.

Related: Nvidia Demos a Car Computer Trained with "Deep Learning"
Nvidia Announces Jetson Nano Single-Board Computer
Nvidia Supercomputer to Crunch Autonomous Vehicles Data

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

VPNs are a way of stitching together separate networks, often physically separate ones, such that they resemble a single logical network. They are (mis-)used heavily these days on the mistaken premise that the network inside any given firewall is somehow secure and the network outside that firewall is somehow less secure. The idea of not trusting the network at all, the foundation of several of the services developed in the 1980s under MIT's Project Athena, such as Kerberos, is returning. Zero Trust is the new name for the networking concept in which no part of the network is considered secure, whether inside or outside a firewall. The pendulum is swinging back and multiple articles this year cover the fact that Zero Trust Networking is trending.

VPNs are part of a security strategy based on the notion of a network perimeter; trusted employees are on the inside and untrusted employees are on the outside. But that model no longer works in a modern business environment where mobile employees access the network from a variety of inside or outside locations, and where corporate assets reside not behind the walls of an enterprise data center, but in multi-cloud environments.

Gartner predicts that by 2023, 60% of enterprises will phase out most of their VPNs in favor of zero trust network access, which can take the form of a gateway or broker that authenticates both device and user before allowing role-based, context-aware access.

Is this a case of what's old is new again or merely a case of being so obvious that no one bothered to mention it and thus it got forgotten because it largely went unsaid? VPNs have a place, but the way in which they are often used amounts to just more snake oil. Many have long pointed out that if a product or service cannot exist online without a firewall then it should never have been connected to the network in the first place.

See also
SC Magazine: Kill the VPN. Move to Zero Trust
Zscaler blog: Zero trust is shaking up VPN strategies
Business Wire: New Research Reveals Widespread Movement to Replace VPNs With Zero Trust Network Access
Techzine: 'Companies want to replace VPN with Zero Trust Network Access'

Original Submission

takyon writes:

NASA's X-59 QueSST cleared for final assembly

NASA's first large scale, piloted X-plane in more than three decades is cleared for final assembly and integration of its systems following a major project review by senior managers held Thursday at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The management review, known as Key Decision Point-D (KDP-D), was the last programmatic hurdle for the X-59 Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) aircraft to clear before officials meet again in late 2020 to approve the airplane's first flight in 2021.

"With the completion of KDP-D we've shown the project is on schedule, it's well planned, and on track. We have everything in place to continue this historic research mission for the nation's air-traveling public," said Bob Pearce, NASA's associate administrator for Aeronautics.

Jonny Quest Rusty Venture was unavailable for comment.

Also at BGR.

Previously: NASA Quesst Project - Quiet Supersonic Transport
Concorde Without the Cacophony: NASA Thinks It's Cracked Quiet Supersonic Flight
Trump Administration Supports NASA's Quieter Supersonic Plane Design
Quieter, Faster, Stronger: The Next Jet Age Is Coming

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

Only 6 years after the weathermen needed a new color for just one spot of extreme temperatures on the map, this is how it looks when that color needs to be used for over 30% of the Australia's area. And that for 3 days in a row, starting today, Dec 18 2019 (like, meh, just a balmy 40C in Melbourne at 18:30, she'll be apples).

[40C is 104F and 50C is 122F --ed.]

Coverage:
BBC - Australia heatwave: Nation endures hottest day on record

Guardian Australia heatwave: records forecast to be broken as temperatures surge past 40C

Severe-weather.eu An extreme heatwave is about to swipe across Australia, raising maximum temperatures up to near 50°C (122°F) in S/SE parts of the continent, breaking many all-time records!

AFP Australia has its hottest day on record, more to come

Original Submission

martyb writes:

iFixit surgeons dissect Apple's pricey Mac Pro: Industry standard sockets? Repair diagrams? Who are you and what have you done to Apple?

DIY repair site iFixit has announced the results of its teardown of the 2019 Mac Pro – the latest eye-wateringly priced, professional-oriented computer from fruit-branded-biz-turned- kitchenware supplier, Apple.

And while the Mac Pro looks like [a] cheese grater and costs a lot of cheddar, you'll be delighted to discover it's no stinking bishop[*]. With PCIe slots galore, and modular RAM that isn't soldered to the motherboard, Apple's latest tower is delightfully easy to repair and upgrade, or so iFixit found.

The screwdriver botherers bestowed the Mac Pro with a repairability score of 9. That's pretty much unprecedented for Apple's latest crop of machines. The 16-inch MacBook Pro, for example, has a score of just one, with most components either soldered or glued in place.

In its teardown, iFixit commended Apple for the ease in which punters can open the case, remarking that some simple procedures require no tools at all.

It also lauded Apple's decision to use industry-standard sockets and interfaces, as well as its publication of repair diagrams and instructions. Both moves will allow owners of the ultra-pricey boxes to repair their kit without making an appointment at the Genius Bar.

Or, you could just purchase one fully-kitted out from the start for only $53,000. (Display not included.)

[*] Stinking Bishop cheese.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Where's our data, Google? Chrome 79 update 'a catastrophe' for Android devs with WebView apps:

A change to the location of profile data in Chrome 79 on Android, the new version rolling out now, means that applications using the WebView component lose data stored locally.

"This is a catastrophe; our users' data are being deleted as they receive the update," complained one developer.

[...] Google said it has halted the rollout, which is estimated at 50 per cent of devices.

The problem appears to stem from a change to the location of profile data in Chromium, the open source project on which Google Chrome is based. Some applications, such as those built with Apache Cordova, use the WebView component extensively, and in these cases the location of local data is determined by this component.

The upgrade to Chrome 79 should migrate this data to the new location, but a Chromium engineer remarked that "unfortunately local storage was missed off the list of files migrated."

[...] It gets worse. "There are several more missed migrations. 'databases' contains the websql dbs 'QuotaManager', and 'QuotaManager-journal' tracks site storage quotas," said another engineer.

One would think that after the deleting of user's files by a Microsoft Windows auto-update raised such a backlash, that testing for loss of data would be a top priority.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

What Ancient 'Chewing Gum' Can Tell Us About Life 5,700 Years Ago

The dark little blob would be easy to overlook at an archaeological site. Hannes Schroeder, a paleogeneticist at the University of Copenhagen, says a student brought it to him from a Stone Age site in Denmark and had a question: "Can we get DNA out of this?" Schroeder remembers replying: "We don't know, haven't really tried, so let's give it a go."

The researchers think ancient people chewed the black-brown substance, known as birch pitch, which "was obtained by heating birch bark," Schroeder says. He says it's not clear why they chewed the pitch, but it was likely to soften it up before using it as a kind of glue to stick sharp points onto weapons or tools. They may have even used it for medicinal purposes, such as a pain remedy for toothaches, because it is a mild antiseptic.

These were clues that the bit of "chewing gum" might contain human DNA, but the researchers expected it to be difficult to sequence it. After all, "it's still quite challenging to get a complete ancient human genome from human remains," Schroeder says.

But the DNA sequencing went better than anyone could have expected. The researchers were able to reconstruct a complete human genome. Schroeder says this is the first time that an entire ancient human genome has been extracted from anything other than human bones or teeth. The team published its findings in the journal Nature Communications [open, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-13549-9] [DX].

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/secret-fisa-court-issues-highly-unusual-rebuke-fbi-mistakes-n1103451

The secret federal court that approves orders for conducting surveillance on suspected foreign terrorists or spies issued a strong and highly unusual public rebuke to the FBI on Tuesday, ordering the agency to say how it intends to correct the errors revealed last week by a Justice Department report on one aspect of the FBI's investigation of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said the FBI made serious and repeated mistakes in seeking under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.

The FBI's submission to the court made assertions that were "inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation," the report said.

Rosemary Collyer, presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, said in the unusual public order that the report "calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable." She ordered the FBI to explain in writing by Jan. 10 how it intends to remedy those problems.

Document here: https://www.scribd.com/document/440156909/Fisa-Court-to-FBI

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Hugging Face raises $15 million to build open source community for cutting-edge conversational AI

Hugging Face has announced the close of a $15 million series A funding round led by Lux Capital, with participation from Salesforce chief scientist Richard Socher and OpenAI CTO Greg Brockman, as well as Betaworks and A.Capital.

New-York based Hugging Face started as a chatbot company, but then began to use Transformers, an approach to conversational AI that's become a foundation for state-of-the-art algorithms. The startup expands access to conversational AI by creating abstraction layers for developers and manufacturers to quickly adopt cutting-edge conversational AI, like Google's BERT and XLNet and OpenAI's GPT-2 or AI for edge devices. More than 1,000 companies use Hugging Face solutions today, including Microsoft's Bing.

The funding will be used to grow the Hugging Face team and continue development of an open source community for conversational AI. Efforts will include making it easier for contributors to add models to Hugging Face libraries and the release of additional open source tech, like a tokenizer.

Also at TechCrunch.

Related: Facebook Open sources PyText NLP Framework
Mozilla Expands Common Voice Database to 18 Languages, With More on the Way
Investigating the Self-Attention Mechanism Behind BERT-Based Architectures

Original Submission

MrPlow writes in with a submission, via IRC, for SoyCow4408.

Put the crypt into cryptocoin: Amid grave concerns, lawyers to literally dig into exchange exec who died owing $190m

A group of aggrieved crypto-coin investors want to exhume the corpse of a digital money exchange boss in a bid to find their missing millions.

Lawyers representing the out-of-pocket Quadriga CX punters have filed a request [PDF] to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to dig up and examine the body of Gerald Cotten, the deceased CEO of the now-defunct exchange.

In the letter, attorneys from law firm Miller Thomson ask that a detailed autopsy be performed in order to determine the exact cause of death for Cotten, who is interred at a cemetery in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

[...] Cotten is the exec who singlehandedly caused the crash of the Quadriga CX exchange late last year when, while apparently traveling in India, he was said to have died of complications related to Crohn's disease.

How? He apparently had the only copy of the passwords for the wallets where the funds (about $190 million) were held. That was the end for the Quadriga CX exchange. It was later discovered that Cotten had already drained the wallets to personal accounts. Given the circumstances of the death and the handling of the funds, there is a question that the death might have been faked.

It is hoped the exhumation and autopsy will clearly identify the body as actually being that of Cotten and thus end speculations of a possible ruse.

Previously:

Laptop of Crypto-Exchange Owner who Died with Keys to $137m Finally Cracked
Digital Exchange Loses $137M as Founder Takes Passwords to the Grave

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/16/dead_coin_exec_exhumation/

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow4408

A preponderance of weak keys is leaving IoT devices at risk of being hacked, and the problem won't be an easy one to solve.

This was the conclusion reached by the team at security house Keyfactor, which analyzed a collection of 75 million RSA certificates gathered from the open internet and determined that number combinations were being repeated at a far greater rate than they should, meaning encrypted connections could possibly be broken by attackers who correctly guess a key.

Comparing the millions of keys on an Azure cloud instance, the team found common factors were used to generate keys at a rate of 1 in 172 (435,000 in total). By comparison, the team also analyzed 100 million certificates collected from the Certificate Transparency logs on desktops, where they found common factors in just five certificates, or a rate of 1 in 20 million.

The team believes that the reason for this poor entropy is down to IoT devices. Because the embedded gear is often based on very low-power hardware, the devices are unable to properly generate random numbers.

The result is keys that could be easier for an attacker to break, leaving the device and all of its users vulnerable.

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/12/16/internet_of_crap_encryption/

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

Kathryn Spiers says Google terminated her after she created a browser tool to notify employees of their organizing rights.

[...] Back in September, Google reached a settlement with the NLRB over earlier alleged violations of federal labor law. Under the settlement, Google was required to post a list of employee rights in its Mountain View headquarters.

[...] So when Google hired a consulting company known for its anti-union work, Spiers wrote a notification that would appear whenever Google employees visited the firm's website. The notification stated that "Googlers have the right to participate in protected concerted activities." That's a legal term of art for worker organizing efforts. It also included a link to the worker rights notification mandated by the NLRB settlement.

[...] Two weeks later, on December 13, Spiers was fired.

[...] The complaint argues that her firing was an "attempt to quell Spiers and other employees from asserting their right to engage in concerted protected activities."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/12/engineer-says-google-fired-her-for-browser-pop-up-about-worker-rights/

Previous stories:
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/12/04/0029250
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/11/26/1411249

Seems like a pattern of abuse to me. Just not necessarily by the employees.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Gate-All-Around Transistors, Quantum Refrigerators To Be Targeted By U.S. Export Rules

The trade war between the United States and China took a sharp turn for the tech world earlier this year when the United States' Bureau of Industrial Security added Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in its Entity List and required American companies to seek government approval before making sales to the company. This move followed concerns that sensitive technology that can be used against American national security interests will make its way into undesirable actors' hands, as per the current administration.

Now, after nearly a year of experience with the list, American authorities are well on their way to classify which exports can be harmful to the country, reports Reuters. The United States Department of Commerce is drafting up five new rules that will limit a specific set of technologies for export. These include Gate-All-Around Field Effect transistors jointly developed by Samsung and IBM, and quantum dilated refrigerators.

Gate-all-around field-effect transistors are expected to be used at the "3nm" node.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Europe's launch of space telescope called off at last minute

Europe's space agency was planning to send a new telescope to study far-off planets into space Tuesday but the launch was called off at the last minute.

A spokesperson for the European Space Agency (ESA) said the launch would not go ahead today because of a problem with the launch device.

Called CHEOPS (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite), the telescope was due to be launched aboard a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Europe's spaceport in Kourou in French Guiana early Tuesday. The launch had been due to be livestreamed on the ESA's website. During final countdown operations, the Soyuz launcher's automated sequence was interrupted at 1 hour 25 minutes before liftoff, Arianespace, the satellite company operating the launch, said in a statement. The new launch date will be announced as soon as possible, it added.

The telescope's mission is to observe individual stars already known to host exoplanets -- planets outside our solar system -- focusing on planets sized in the Earth to Neptune range. To date, 4,143 planets have been discovered around stars other than the sun, ESA said.

CHEOPS is a small space telescope with a cost cap of €50 million. It will measure the radii of previously discovered exoplanets, providing targets for future missions.

See also: Europe's Cheops telescope will profile distant planets

Related: PLATO Exoplanet Observatory Approved by ESA
ESA Selects ARIEL Exoplanet Survey as a Medium Class Mission

Original Submission