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takyon writes:

SK Hynix: Up to DDR5-8400 at 1.1 Volts

Back in November last year, we reported that SK Hynix had developed and deployed its first DDR5 DRAM. Fast forward to the present, and we also know SK Hynix has recently been working on its DDR5-6400 DRAM, but today the company has showcased that it has plans to offer up to DDR5-8400, with on-die ECC, and an operating voltage of just 1.1 Volts.

WIth CPU core counts rising with the fierce battle ongoing between Intel and AMD in the desktop, professional, and now mobile markets, the demand to increase throughput performance is high on the agenda. Memory bandwidth by comparison has not been increasing as much, and at some level the beast needs to be fed. Announcing more technical details on its official website, SK Hynix has been working diligently on perfecting its DDR5 chips with capacity for up to 64 Gb per chip.

Micron will begin selling High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) this year, entering the market alongside Samsung and SK Hynix and potentially lowering prices:

Bundled in their latest earnings call, Micron has revealed that later this year the company will finally introduce its first HBM DRAM for bandwidth-hungry applications. The move will enable the company to address the market for high-bandwidth devices such as flagship GPUs and network processors, which in the last five years have turned to HBM to meet their ever-growing bandwidth needs. And as the third and final of the "big three" memory manufacturers to enter the HBM market, this means that HBM2 memory will finally be available from all three companies, introducing a new wrinkle of competition into that market.

Also at Wccftech.

See also: Cadence DDR5 Update: Launching at 4800 MT/s, Over 12 DDR5 SoCs in Development

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

SpaceX loses its third Starship prototype during a cryogenic test

This week, SpaceX workers in South Texas loaded the third full-scale Starship prototype—SN3—onto a test stand ​at the company's Boca Chica launch site. On Wednesday night, they pressure-tested the vehicle at ambient temperature with nitrogen, and SN3 performed fine.

On Thursday night SpaceX began cryo-testing the vehicle, which means it was loaded again with nitrogen, but this time it was chilled to flight-like temperatures and put under flight-like pressures. Unfortunately, a little after 2am local time, SN3 failed and began to collapse on top of itself. It appeared as if the vehicle may have lost pressurization and become top-heavy.

Shortly after the failure, SpaceX's founder and chief engineer, Elon Musk, said on Twitter, "We will see what data review says in the morning, but this may have been a test configuration mistake." A testing issue would be good in the sense that it means the vehicle itself performed well, and the problem can be more easily addressed.

A YouTube Video is included in the article at no extra cost.

Original Submission

DannyB wrote in with a submission which inspired:

EU Says That, No, Rental Car Companies Don't Need To Pay A License To Rent Cars With Radios That Might Play Music:

Five years ago, we wrote about another such crazy demand -- a PRO in Sweden demanding that rental car companies pay a performance license because their cars had radios, and since "the public" could rent their cards[sic] and listen to the radio, that constituted "a communication to the public" that required a separate license. The case has bounced around the courts, and finally up to the Court of Justice for the EU which has now, finally, ruled that merely renting cars does not constitute "communication to the public."

See the CJEU's press release (.pdf) for details.

Basically, people aren't renting cars for the purpose of listening to music, and it's not like the rental car company is creating some special musical offering. They're just renting cars.

[...] But just the fact that this spent half a decade in court should give you an idea of just how greedy and messed up the copyright world is, with the various PROs/Collection Societies leading the way down the most ridiculous path.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow8162:

How to make your own yeast for baking:

As more people bake their blues away while stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, yeast is reportedly becoming harder to find on grocery store shelves. There's no shame in turning to carbohydrates for comfort in times like these. But what's one to do when a key ingredient for satisfying that craving is becoming as elusive as a roll of toilet paper?

[...] There's a good chance you've already got what you need at home to get started. The Verge asked Stephen Jones, director of Washington State University's Bread Lab, for simple instructions. What you'll actually be doing is capturing wild yeast and bacteria that's already present in the air or in the flour to make a "sourdough starter." This is what bakers have relied on for generations before commercial yeast became available less than 100 years ago.

[...] "Sourdough" is often used to refer to bread that's made with a wild yeast starter rather than with store-bought yeast; following the instructions for this starter doesn't necessarily mean that the bread you make with it will taste sour. But since you're harvesting wild yeast and bacteria (the bacteria is what adds some sourness) that's naturally present in your kitchen, your bread will have a flavor that's unique to wherever you are in the world. That's why, Jones says, "There's a little more beauty in starting your own starter."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.livescience.com/ancient-rainforest-antarctica.html

About 90 million years ago, West Antarctica was home to a thriving temperate rainforest, according to fossil roots, pollen and spores recently discovered there, a new study finds.

The rainforest's remains were discovered under the ice in a sediment core that a team of international researchers collected from a seabed near Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica in 2017.

As soon as the team saw the core, they knew they had something unusual. The layer that had formed about 90 million years ago was a different color. Back at the lab, the team put the core into a CT (computed tomography) scanner. The resulting digital image showed a dense network of roots throughout the entire soil layer. The dirt also revealed ancient pollen, spores and the remnants of flowering plants from the Cretaceous period.

The sediment core revealed that during the mid-Cretaceous, West Antarctica had a mild climate, with an annual mean air temperature of about 54 F (12 C), similar to that of Seattle. Summer temperatures were warmer, with an average of 66 F (19 C). In rivers and swamps, the water would have reached up to 68 F (20 C).

"Before our study, the general assumption was that the global carbon dioxide concentration in the Cretaceous was roughly 1,000 ppm [parts per million]," study co-researcher Gerrit Lohmann, a climate modeler at Alfred Wegener Institute, said in the statement. "But in our model-based experiments, it took concentration levels of 1,120 to 1,680 ppm to reach the average temperatures back then in the Antarctic."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2148-5

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow8162:

T-Mobile, Sprint took a risk by finishing merger without Calif. approval:

California state regulators are trying to hold up the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, saying the companies don't yet have approval to combine their operations in the state.

T-Mobile and Sprint announced yesterday that the merger is a done deal and that the two companies are now one. But while the companies had almost all approvals from government authorities, they have not yet gotten the expected approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). The CPUC is scheduled to vote on the merger approval and related conditions on April 16.

In response to yesterday's T-Mobile/Sprint announcement, the CPUC issued a ruling that says the companies "shall not begin merger of their California operations until after the CPUC issues a final decision on the pending applications."

We contacted T-Mobile today about yesterday's CPUC ruling and will update this article if we get a response.

The state Public Utilities Code prevents companies from merging their California operations without approval, the CPUC order said. "Both Joint Applicants, T-Mobile and Sprint, have California subsidiaries that are public utility telephone corporations under state law, and subject to the jurisdiction of this agency. The merger of the companies' operations in California is therefore subject to CPUC approval," the order said.

But T-Mobile and Sprint argue that the CPUC does not have jurisdiction over wireless transactions and that the merger can be completed without the agency's approval. T-Mobile and Sprint previously received approval from the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice, and they defeated a lawsuit filed by California and other states that were trying to block the deal.

Regardless of the outcome at CPUC, the merger is happening. But the dispute between the companies and the Golden State could result in litigation and affect whether the state is able to impose conditions on the deal. T-Mobile claimed that some of CPUC's planned conditions are "practically impossible" and "unfair and discriminatory to T-Mobile vs our competitors."

T-Mobile warned investors that there is a "risk of litigation or regulatory actions" arising "from T-Mobile's consummation of the business combination during the pendency of the California Public Utility Commission's review of the business combination."

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

MongoDB's Field-Level Encryption Protects Private Data—Even From DBAs[:

In December 2019, popular document database MongoDB added a fairly radical new feature to the platform: field-level database encryption. At first glance, one might wonder whether this is a meaningful feature in a world that already has at-rest storage encryption and in-flight transport encryption—but after a little closer analysis, the answer is a resounding yes.

One of MongoDB's first customers to use the new technology is Apervita, a vendor that handles confidential data for well over 2,000 hospitals and nearly 2 million individual patients. Apervita worked side by side with MongoDB during development and refinement of the technology.

Since reaching general availability in December, the technology has also been adopted by several government agencies and Fortune 50 companies, including some of the largest pharmacies and insurance providers.

This is a good thing. Field Level Encryption (FLE) is a must for any DB these days.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[Editor's note: SN3 is SpaceX parlance for "Serial Number 3"; Elon Musk is not just working on building rockets, he's building an assembly line and plans to build one Starship a week. This helps explain the use of serial numbers. --martyb]

For almost a year now, SpaceX has been building a series of Starship prototypes that will test how the system fares when launched to orbit.

[...] Musk recently shared images of the components for the SN3 prototype undergoing assembly.

Shortly after these images were shared, the assembled components were seen on their way to the company's test facility at Boca Chica, Texas, on the morning of March 29th. They were then seen being transferred to the launch pad by roll-lift and crane as of late afternoon. Footage of both these events was captured by the LabPadre and shared via Twitter.

SN3 pic.twitter.com/bM1wzzd4Zg

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

Like its predecessors, the next step for the SN3 will be cryogenic loading trials in which the spacecraft's methane and oxygen tanks will be filled with a cryogenic liquid (most likely liquid nitrogen).

[...] In a previous statement, Musk announced that the SN3 would be used for static fire tests and short flights, whereas longer test flights will wait for the SN4. [...] There is [...] documentation that indicates that SpaceX will be conducting tests as early as next week.

The documents, which were shared on NASASpaceFlight, reference a permit issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the "Starhopper" vehicle, which is valid until June 2020. They further suggest that a static fire of the SN3's engines could take place between April 1st and 3rd, followed by a 150-meter (500 ft) hop test between April 6th and 8th. This was the maximum height achieved by the Starship Hopper.

[...] Once the Starship is finished and integrated with the Super Heavy booster, Musk hopes to begin conducting payload runs to the moon by 2022, followed by crewed missions to the surface by 2024. In between, Musk also intends to conduct the first lunar tourism mission (#dearmoon), which will involve sending a crew of artists around the moon in 2023.

-- submitted from IRC

Previously:
(2020-04-01) SpaceX Releases a Payload User's Guide for its Starship Rocket
(2020-03-10) Another Starship Prototype Explodes, but SpaceX Isn't Stopping
(2020-02-19) SpaceX Announces Partnership to Send Four Tourists Into Deep Orbit
(2020-01-18) Elon Musk Discloses Details for SpaceX Mars Mega-Colony

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for chromas:

Google's WaveNetEQ fills in speech gaps during Duo calls:

Google today detailed an AI system — WaveNetEQ — it recently deployed to Duo, its cross-platform voice and video chat app, that can realistically synthesize short snippets of speech to replace garbled audio caused by an unstable internet connection. It's fast enough to run on a smartphone while delivering state-of-the-art, natural-sounding audio quality, laying the groundwork for future chat apps optimized for bandwidth-constrained environments.

Here's how it sounds compared with Duo's old solution (the first is WaveNetEQ):

https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/waveneteq_120_ms_2_63b829581a3291c144a030639139c199.wav
https://venturebeat.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/neteq_120_ms_2_8e86d7b2061dfb964b845ebefc1aebd9.wav

As Google explains, to ensure reliable real-time communication, it's necessary to deal with packets (i.e., formatted units of data) that are missing when the receiver needs them. (The company says that 99% of Duo calls need to deal with network issues, and that 10% of calls lose more than 8% of the total audio duration due to network issues.) If new audio isn't delivered continuously, audible glitches and gaps will occur, but repeating the same audio isn't ideal because it produces artifacts and reduces overall call quality.

Google's solution — WaveNetEQ — is what's called a packet loss containment module, which is responsible for creating data to fill in the gaps created by packet losses, excessive jitter, and other mishaps.

"I can['t] hear you now."

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

NASA brings back its iconic 'worm' logo for upcoming Falcon 9 Crew Dragon launch:

NASA is officially bringing back its iconic "worm" logo from the 1970s for SpaceX's upcoming Falcon 9 Crew Dragon launch, NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine announced today on Twitter. The organization is seeking to "mark the return of human spaceflight on American rockets from American soil."

[...] The worm logo[¹] was introduced in 1975 by design firm Danne & Black­burn as part of an effort to "upgrade" the space agency's graphics from the original "meatball" logo[²] that NASA had been using since 1959. The logo is practically synonymous with that era of spaceflight, adorning the Hubble Telescope and the original test flight shuttle, Enterprise. But despite the slick, modern design, the worm logo was officially retired in 1992 in favor of a return to the original meatball logo, which is still used today by NASA. (Although the worm logo did still stick around for merchandising opportunities.)

The return of the worm on the upcoming Crew Dragon launch — tentatively scheduled for sometime in May — will mark a major comeback for the iconic logo, which hasn't been to space in an official capacity in decades.

[¹] example of "worm" logo
[²] example of "meatball" logo.

Maybe manned space flight is a merchandising opportunity.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Apple buys Dark Sky weather app and shuts down the Android version, will also end API access for other apps that use it

Dark Sky for iOS is one of the most popular weather apps available, and Apple has clearly taken notice, because now the tech giant has officially acquired the "hyperlocal" weather app.

Compared with other contenders in the same category, Dark Sky is noted for having more granular detail on the weather at a user's actual location, offering "down-to-the-minute forecasts" via a pleasing user interface.

[...] News of the acquisition was announced via a blog post from the app developers which also outlined the key changes that the purchase will bring. Most notably among them will be the discontinuation of the Android and Wear OS version of the Dark Sky apps.

"The app will no longer be available for download. Service to existing users and subscribers will continue until July 1, 2020, at which point the app will be shut down. Subscribers who are still active at that time will receive a refund."

That same July 1, 2020 cutoff applies to weather forecasts, maps and embeds from the Dark Sky website, which will be shut down on that date.

Along with the death of the Android app, Dark Sky's API (application programming interface) will no longer be available for others to use, meaning that other popular apps like Carrot Weather that rely on the API will have to find an alternative solution, although they'll be given until the end of 2021 to do so.

Also a similar article on The Verge.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

The Register:
Boeing 787s must be turned off and on every 51 days to prevent 'misleading data' being shown to pilots

US air safety bods call it 'potentially catastrophic' if reboot directive not implemented

[...] The US Federal Aviation Administration has ordered Boeing 787 operators to switch their aircraft off and on every 51 days to prevent what it called "several potentially catastrophic failure scenarios" – including the crashing of onboard network switches.

The airworthiness directive[*], due to be enforced from later this month, orders airlines to power-cycle their B787s before the aircraft reaches the specified days of continuous power-on operation.

The power cycling is needed to prevent stale data from populating the aircraft's systems, a problem that has occurred on different 787 systems in the past.

[*] The link in the article from The Register was copied correctly, and points to https://ad.easa.europa.eu/ad/US-2020-06-14. The actual FAA Airworthiness Directive appears to be: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/03/23/2020-06092/airworthiness-directives-the-boeing-company-airplanes.

At least I can take comfort that software in aircraft is probably more reliable than software in automobiles.

Previously:
(2019-07-25) Airbus A350 Software Bug Forces Airlines to Turn Planes Off and On Every 149 Hours
(2015-05-02) 787 Software Bug Can Shut Down Planes' Generators.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

The Dangers of Moving All of Democracy Online:

To protect governments as well as people's rights from coronavirus, we need to use tech as a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.

[...] Governments around the world are struggling to deal with the public health and economic challenges of coronavirus. While many have pointed to how authoritarian regimes exacerbated the pandemic, we've so far paid dangerously little attention to coronavirus's challenge to democracy.

In a democracy, citizens need to be able to vote, politicians to deliberate, and people to move about, meet, and act collectively. Democratic politics is a mixture of mass involvement and endless meetings. All this is hard when people can be infected with a potentially deadly virus if someone simply coughs nearby. The obvious answer might seem to be to move democracy to the internet, but some parts of democracy translate badly to an online world, while others are already being undermined by emergency powers (for example, Hungary's parliament just passed a law that allows the prime minister to rule by decree) and by the rise of digital surveillance.

[...] Democratic politics also happens in the streets, at political rallies, public meetings, and demonstrations. It is hard to see how such mass gatherings will return any time soon if they continue to be dangerous, or even banned, on grounds of public health.

[...] state efforts to fight the virus by tracking citizens might undermine democracy by concentrating power in the hands of an unaccountable authority. This might even happen from the bottom up. Citizens in fear of contagion might start liking the idea of ubiquitous and decentralized surveillance as a service, as evidenced by the popularity of coronavirus symptom-tracking apps in the UK and elsewhere.

[...] Some pundits argue that information technology is the answer to democracy's problems. There would be no risk of catching coronavirus if physical democracy became virtual.

[...] online voting systems, such as Voatz, which was used in the 2018 midterms in West Virginia, have critical security vulnerabilities. As cryptographer Matt Blaze says, many experts believe internet voting is a bad idea.

Online voting may one day provide the illusion of democracy while actually destroying it.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Elon Musk's SpaceX bans Zoom over privacy concerns-memo

[...] In an email dated March 28, SpaceX told employees that all access to Zoom had been disabled with immediate effect.

"We understand that many of us were using this tool for conferences and meeting support," SpaceX said in the message. "Please use email, text or phone as alternate means of communication."

[...] NASA, one of SpaceX's biggest customers, also prohibits its employees from using Zoom, said Stephanie Schierholz, a spokeswoman for the U.S. space agency.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Boston office on Monday issued a warning about Zoom, telling users not to make meetings on the site public or share links widely after it received two reports of unidentified individuals invading school sessions, a phenomenon known as "zoombombing."

Also consider that one way to claim to have "end to end encryption" is to simply re-define the term. Zoom Meetings Aren't End-to-End Encrypted, Despite Misleading Marketing:

Zoom, the video conferencing service whose use has spiked amid the Covid-19 pandemic, claims to implement end-to-end encryption, widely understood as the most private form of internet communication, protecting conversations from all outside parties. In fact, Zoom is using its own definition of the term, one that lets Zoom itself access unencrypted video and audio from meetings.

With millions of people around the world working from home in order to slow the spread of the coronavirus, business is booming for Zoom, bringing more attention on the company and its privacy practices, including a policy, later updated, that seemed to give the company permission to mine messages and files shared during meetings for the purpose of ad targeting.

DannyB writes:

Open Access to ACM[*] Digital Library During Coronavirus Pandemic:

ACM Members:

[...] We believe that ACM can help support research, discovery and learning during this time of crisis by opening the ACM Digital Library to all. For the next three months, there will be no fees assessed for accessing or downloading work published by ACM. We hope this will help researchers, practitioners and students maintain access to our publications as well as increasing visibility and awareness of ACM's journals, proceedings and magazines. Please be sure to inform your colleagues that the ACM DL is now open, and will continue that way through June 30, 2020.

[*] ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery

[...] a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947, and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membership group, claiming nearly 100,000 student and professional members as of 2019. Its headquarters are in New York City.

The ACM is an umbrella organization for academic and scholarly interests in computer science. Its motto is "Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession".

Their home page is located at http://acm.org/

Original Submission