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An Anonymous Coward writes:

If you missed out on the last pre-order for the BraveHeart release of the PinePhone that shipped last January, you have another opportunity to buy now. What is it? According to their Wiki:

The PinePhone is a smartphone created by Pine64, capable of running mainline Linux and supported by many partner projects. The "BraveHeart" edition was the first publicly-available version of the phone, though it came without a fully functional OS (factory test image) and was geared specifically towards tinkerers and hackers. People looking for a stable consumer-grade phone should wait for the final release...

https://store.pine64.org/?product=pinephone-community-edition-ubports-limited-edition-linux-smartphone

The "Community Edition: UBports" Limited Edition PinePhone is aimed primarily at UBports community members, willing to run their OS on a mainline Linux and provide feedback to UBports developers.

The "Community Edition: UBports" Edition PinePhone comes with UBports OS build installed. Please note that the OS build is still in a beta stage, and while most core functionality (phone calls, SMS messages, LTE, GPS and GPU acceleration) works, some elements remain a work-in-progress.

The phone seems to be the same hardware as the Braveheart and the same price $149.99 + shipping. Pine will donate $10 to the UBPorts Foundation for every phone purchased.

It comes pre-installed with UBPorts, but there is nothing keeping you from re-flashing to whichever OS you want. Currently there are several ports in progress like, Debian, PostmarketOS, SailfishOS, Maemo Leste, etc. Some of these can even make phone calls and sms texts already :)

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

COVID-19 resurges in reopened countries; Wuhan sees first cluster in a month:

The World Health Organization on Monday called for continued vigilance as several areas that have eased lockdown restriction began to see a resurgence in COVID-19 cases—and the United States begins unbuttoning as well.

The Chinese city of Wuhan—where the pandemic began last December—saw its first cluster of cases in at least a month. The city began reopening in early April.

The cluster was just six cases: an 89-year-old symptomatic man and five asymptomatic cases. All of the infected lived in the same residential community.

[...] NPR's Emily Feng reported from Beijing that "The rise of such hard-to-detect asymptomatic cases has alarmed public health authorities in China, who have ramped up contact tracing and testing efforts."

China state media announced Tuesday that it has ordered all residents of Wuhan—roughly 11 million persons—to be tested within the next 10 days.

Likewise, the mayor of Seoul shut down bars and restaurants over the weekend—just days after South Korea had eased restrictions and allowed businesses to reopen—due to a spike of 86 new COVID-19 cases. Authorities identified a 29-year-old who visited five nightclubs and a bar while infected with the virus, sparking an outbreak of at least 54 cases, according to NPR. The uptick also led South Korean officials to delay the reopening of schools.

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

Australian Broadcast Corp

The Genesis II Church of Health and Healing has been claiming chlorine dioxide is a "miracle cure".

For years it has sold the industrial bleach as Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), stating it can cure things like autism, acne, cancer, diabetes and now COVID-19.

[...] Following an investigation [...] last week, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) today announced it had issued 12 infringement notices totalling $151,200 to MMS Australia for alleged unlawful advertising of Miracle Mineral Solution and other medicines.

... still a long way to injecting it, right? But maybe that's for The Genesis III Church of Health and Healing

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

SpaceX Crew Dragon simulator challenges you to dock with the ISS, and it's not easy:

It's a good thing I'm not on board the historic SpaceX Crew Dragon launch to the International Space Station scheduled for May 27. It turns out I suck at piloting a spacecraft.

SpaceX released a docking simulator online Tuesday that lets anyone try to safely connect the crew capsule with the ISS. Spoiler alert: I missed.

"This simulator will familiarize you with the controls of the actual interface used by NASA astronauts to manually pilot the SpaceX Dragon 2 vehicles to the International Space Station," SpaceX said, warning that the process "requires patience and precision." I had neither.

My attempt at the delicate dance of control and corrections didn't go well. "Do not use large movements near the ISS," SpaceX advised. I'm pretty sure I accidentally crashed into one of the ISS solar arrays.

Fortunately, the upcoming SpaceX Demo-2 mission will be crewed by NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, who are trained experts at this whole complicated docking thing.

The astronauts probably won't have to call on their training. "Crew Dragon missions will autonomously dock and undock with the space station, but crew can take manual control of the spacecraft if necessary," SpaceX tweeted.

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine also took to Twitter on Tuesday to remind everyone that he aced the simulator on his first try last year. Show-off.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

AI techniques in medical imaging may lead to incorrect diagnoses:

A team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and Simon Fraser University, designed a series of tests for medical image reconstruction algorithms based on AI and deep learning, and found that these techniques result in myriad artefacts, or unwanted alterations in the data, among other major errors in the final images. The effects were typically not present in non-AI based imaging techniques.

The phenomenon was widespread across different types of artificial neural networks, suggesting that the problem will not be easily remedied. The researchers caution that relying on AI-based image reconstruction techniques to make diagnoses and determine treatment could ultimately do harm to patients. Their results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"There's been a lot of enthusiasm about AI in medical imaging, and it may well have the potential to revolutionise modern medicine: however, there are potential pitfalls that must not be ignored," said Dr Anders Hansen from Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, who led the research with Dr Ben Adcock from Simon Fraser University. "We've found that AI techniques are highly unstable in medical imaging, so that small changes in the input may result in big changes in the output."

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Researchers engineer photosynthetic bacteria to produce hydrogen:

The price of photovoltaic power has plunged, making it competitive with fossil fuel-powered electrical generation. But there is still a range of applications, like ships and aircraft, where electrical power doesn't help much. And storing the electricity produced by solar power so that it can be used at night remains an unsolved problem. For those reasons, there's been continued interest in converting solar power to a fuel that can be stored, either through the use of electricity generated by photovoltaics or by using light to directly power fuel generation.

There's obviously a means of generating fuel through light that's been in use for roughly 3 billion years: photosynthesis. But photosynthesis requires a large and complex suite of proteins that's hard to maintain outside of cells. And inside of cells, the products of photosynthesis are quickly put to use to help the cells grow. So, engineering a version of photosynthesis that might be useful for fuel production has been challenging.

Earlier this week, however, researchers from the University of Kiel described how they've rearranged some photosynthetic proteins to make bacteria that emit hydrogen when exposed to light.

[...] The engineered cyanobacteria produced the highest levels of hydrogen yet seen in these organisms, and they could continue producing hydrogen for hours. Presumably, they'd eventually scavenge enough hydrogen ions from the solution they were growing in to change its pH, but this didn't seem to be a problem during several hours of illumination.

The researchers behind the work say there are a number of ways they can potentially improve the flow of electrons within their engineered complex. And, ultimately, it would be ideal to make the process less sensitive to oxygen in general.

But they argue that their approach provides a big benefit over previous efforts in this area. Many of these have focused on removing the photosynthesis components from a living cell in order to precisely control the pathways that are active in order to bias production toward hydrogen or other fuels. But, outside the cell, these components quickly pick up damage and can't be replaced. Alternatives that operate in an intact cell face the challenge of keeping the cell from diverting energy into the pathways it needs for rapid reproduction. This work, the researchers argue, confirms that you can have the benefits of working in living cells while at the same time engineering away some of those competing pathways.

Journal Reference
Jens Appel, Vanessa Hueren, Marko Boehm, et al. Cyanobacterial in vivo solar hydrogen production using a photosystem I–hydrogenase (PsaD-HoxYH) fusion complex, Nature Energy (DOI: 10.1038/s41560-020-0609-6)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Facebook to pay $52m to moderators over PTSD:

Facebook has agreed to pay $52m (£42m) to content moderators as compensation for mental health issues developed on the job.

The agreement settles a class-action lawsuit brought by the moderators, as first reported by The Verge.

Facebook said it is using both humans and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect posts that violate policies.

The social media giant has increased its use of AI to remove harmful content during the coronavirus lockdown.

In 2018, a group of US moderators hired by third-party companies to review content sued Facebook for failing to create a safe work environment.

The moderators alleged that reviewing violent and graphic images - sometimes of rape and suicide - for the social network had led to them developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The agreement, filed in court in California on Friday, settles that lawsuit. A judge is expected to sign off on the deal later this year.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:

How to find free ebooks while libraries are closed:

Shelter in place orders throughout the country haven't just brought the economy to a grinding halt, but frozen civic infrastructure as well. Sure, water still flows from our taps, police and firefighters are still on the job, but your local library likely isn't considered an essential service. But that doesn't mean you can't ride out this plague with a stack of good books by your side, they just might be of the digital variety.

Your first order of business should be to check in on your neighborhood library branch. Systems throughout the US have begun offering "second line" services -- from 24-hour free wifi and homeless services to emergency childcare and foodbank distributions -- to help their communities through these difficult times.

What's more, even if your local doesn't have physical books for borrowing, many now offer a variety of online services to augment their closed locations. A recent study by the Public Library Association found that while 98 percent of the 2,500-system respondents did have to close their buildings to some extent, among them 76 percent continued, expanded, or added online renewals for already-borrowed books while 74 percent built or expanded their e-book and streaming media collections.

The San Francisco Public Library, for example offers a smorgasbord of online classes and workshops, e-books and e-magazines, newspapers, streaming music, and virtual storytimes for the smol ones. LA County shut down its central branch and all 72 satellites in response to COVID-19 but is similarly offering music, movies, books, magazines, remote learning resources and workshops through its web portal. Chicago's public library system has also shuttered its branches but is offering to pipe ebooks directly to your Kindle for anywhere from 1 - 3 weeks. You don't even need to worry about "returning" them, they'll automatically remove themselves from the device once the borrowing window has closed. The public libraries of both Boston and New York have followed suit.

martyb writes:

Scrabble fans slam 'sparkly abomination' new app:

Scrabble Go, a new game which will replace the existing official Scrabble mobile app made by Electronic Arts (EA) has sparked hundreds of complaints.

[...] The EA game will be discontinued on 5 June because the official franchise is now owned by games firm Scopely.

Scrabble Go was launched on 5 March and had been downloaded more than 10 million times by the end of April.

[...] A digital petition on the website Change.org calling for EA to keep the original app going has nearly 1,200 signatures.

"I don't want jewels, cartoons, or potential dates. I want to play Scrabble against my friends and family. That's it. Nothing else," wrote one signatory.

"They've turned it into some sparkly Candy Crush abomination," Ian Pym from Fareham, Hampshire, told the BBC. "I defy any adult to play it for longer than 10 minutes and not feel physically sick."

[...] There are alternative apps to the official game such as Words with Friends and Wordmaster, which have similar rules to traditional Scrabble, but are not licensed by its owners.

[...] EA released a statement in March explaining its plan to discontinue its version of the game, which had been licensed by Scrabble owners Hasbro and Mattel since 2008.

[...] EA players will be unable to migrate their profiles and data to Scrabble Go, but they will be able to connect with friends.

I think this is what the detractors are trying to say:

   P
  NO
   T
JEWELS
U  N
S  T D
T  I A
  CARTOONS S
   L E     A
     SPARKLY

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Branson to sell part of Virgin Galactic stake

Richard Branson, the founder and largest shareholder of suborbital spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, will sell more than a fifth of Virgin Group's majority stake in the company to raise funds to aid its other companies affected by the pandemic.

In a statement May 11, the company announced that Vieco 10, the Virgin Group holding company that owns the majority of Virgin Galactic, planned to sell up to 25 million shares, accounting for about 22% of its overall stake in the company. That sale would generate $485 million for Virgin at the price of $19.40 per share at the close of trading May 11.

Virgin Group said the sale of stock, the company said in a statement and in its S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), was "to support its portfolio of global leisure, holiday and travel businesses that have been affected by the unprecedented impact of COVID-19."

Related: Virgin Galactic Shows Off its Spaceport
Virgin Galactic Unveils Commercial Space Suits
Virgin Galactic Begins 'Astronaut Readiness Program' for First Paying Customers
Nevada-Based Bigelow Aerospace Lays Off Entire Workforce
OneWeb Goes Bankrupt, Lays Off Staff, Will Sell Satellite-Broadband Business
Virgin Galactic's Spaceship Flies from its New Home Base for the First Time

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Zhaoxin's Homegrown CPUs Power Full Range of x86 PCs For China – 16nm Chips With Up To 8 Cores For Chinese Consumer Desktops, Notebooks & AIOs

Zhaoxin is ready to enter the domestic (Chinese) consumer market with its homegrown x86 CPUs, the KaiXian KX-6000 series. The CPUs will be used by Chinese ODM, IP3 Technology, in more than 50 products which include desktop PCs, notebook PCs, all-in-ones, Mini PCs & even industrial machines.

The Zhaoxin x86 CPU powered product portfolio was announced by IP3 Technology (Yingzhong Technologies) at an event hosted by the ODM. As mentioned above, there are a range of PC devices that will make use of Zhaoxin's KX-6000 series processors which are the only chips besides AMD & Intel to make use of an x86 architecture. While several products were showcased, IP3 Technology didn't unveil their respective specifications and prices yet.

[...] As for performance numbers, Zhaoxin x86 CPUs, while offering a 50% boost in performance per watt, don't necessarily have to come close to current Intel and AMD CPUs. Beijing primarily wants replacement of hardware made by international vendors with its homegrown Zhaoxin CPUs in various government organizations.

Previously: Zhaoxin KaiXian KX-6000: A Chinese x86 SoC
Zhaoxin x86 CPUs Available to PC Makers in China
China's Homegrown Zhaoxin KaiXian CPU Used in a Mini-PC

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AMD Ryzen 4000 Zen 3 will be compatible with Socket AM4, but it is end of the road for X470, B450, and below motherboard owners

AMD's Robert Hallock has confirmed that the upcoming AMD Ryzen 4000 Zen 3 processors will be compatible with Socket AM4 as long as the motherboard features an X570 or B550 chipset. Zen 3 will not support older chipsets owing to lower space on the EEPROM of these motherboards. Future prospects of Socket AM4 depend on the industry's I/O innovation.

[...] In a blog post, Hallock confirmed that current AMD X570 and B550 chipset motherboards will support Zen 3 processors after a BIOS update. However, Zen 3 processors will not be compatible with any chipset prior to X570 or B550. This means end of the road for all those who have X470, B450 and below chipset boards. Hallock says that this decision had to be taken as due to BIOS capacity limitations on older platforms.

We've seen AMD taking a similar stance with Zen 2 as well by removing drop-in support for motherboards that have just a 16 MB EEPROM. X570 motherboards have a 32 MB EEPROM thereby enabling larger a AGESA[*] codebase to be comfortably accommodated.

Wikipedia explains that AGESA:

AMD Generic Encapsulated Software Architecture (AGESA), is a procedure library developed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), used to perform the Platform Initialization (PI) on mainboards using their AMD64 architecture. As part of the BIOS of such mainboards, AGESA is responsible for the initialization of the processor cores, memory, and the HyperTransport controller.

AMD blog post.

See also: AMD axes Zen 3 support on 400-series motherboards: Is AMD pulling an Intel?
AMD will use the AM4 socket through its 'Zen 3' CPUs, but it will drop older chipset support
B450 and X470 chipsets won't support AMD Ryzen 4000 processors
Hardware Unboxed: No AMD Zen 3 Support on 400 and 300 Series Motherboards
AMD Zen 3 Based Ryzen 4000 'Vermeer' Desktop CPUs Will Be Compatible With Existing AM4 (X570, X470, B550, B450) Motherboards, Confirmed By XMG (from April 16, fake news or specific to the motherboard manufacturer?)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

U.S. Officials: Beware Of China And Others Trying To Steal COVID-19 Research

As researchers around the globe race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, U.S. authorities are warning American firms to exercise extreme caution in safeguarding their research against China and others with a track record of stealing cutting-edge medical technology.

"We are imploring all those research facilities and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that are doing really great research to do everything in their power to protect it," Bill Evanina, the director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, said in an interview with NPR.

"We don't want that company or the research hospital to be the one a year from now, two years from now, identified as having it all stolen before they finished it," said Evanina, whose center falls under the director of national intelligence.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Britain's National Cyber Security Center recently issued a statement saying hackers are "actively targeting organisations ... that include healthcare bodies, pharmaceutical companies, academia, medical research organisations, and local government."

The statement did not name China or any other country. Reuters reported that hackers linked to Iran tried to break into email accounts at the U.S. drugmaker Gilead Sciences, which has a potentially promising drug to treat the COVID-19 virus. Iran denied the report.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/05/musk-dares-county-officials-to-arrest-him-as-he-re-opens-fremont-factory/

Elon Musk is planning to defy county officials as he battles to reopen Tesla's Fremont factory in the face of a continued shelter-in-place order in Alameda County, California, Musk announced on Twitter on Monday.

"Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules," Musk tweeted. "I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me."
[...]
On May 7, California public health officer Sonia Angell issued a new order lifting some statewide restrictions. The order stated that "a local health jurisdiction may implement or continue more restrictive public health measures if the jurisdiction's Local Health Officer believes conditions in that jurisdiction warrant it."

During a Monday press briefing, reporters peppered Newsom with questions about the dispute. Newsom answered like a politician, expressing admiration for both sides and confidence that they'd work out a deal. Speaking of Tesla, Newsom said he had "great reverence for their technology, for their innovative spirit, for their leadership."

But he also stressed that "it's county-led enforcement in these cases." He didn't endorse Tesla's view that Alameda County's order was inconsistent with Newsom's own order.

Tesla Fremont Factory: Alameda Deescalates Issue, Doesn’t Fall Into Elon Musk’s Martyr Trap:

May. 12th 2020 9:26 am ET

In [a] new comment, the Alameda county seems to have deescalated the issue around Tesla reopening its Fremont factory despite the county’s order as CEO Elon Musk set an obvious martyr trap.

As we reported yesterday, Tesla went ahead with the reopening of Fremont factory despite a local order from the Alameda County to wait until they approved a safe reopening plan.

CEO Elon Musk said that he would himself be on the production lines and he asked that if Alameda County were to enforce the rules and arrest anyone, it should be him:

“Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me.”

But the county didn’t fall for the martyr trap set by Musk and didn’t go into Fremont factory to put anyone in handcuffs.

County officials claim to have been in continuous contact with Tesla last week to approve the automaker’s plan to reopen the factory by May 18, but Musk apparently wanted to do it sooner – leading to Tesla filling a lawsuit and stalling the talks.

The Sheriff’s Office instead issued a statement stating that they are aware Tesla is breaking the order and they will take the same action that they do for other businesses who have been violating the order:

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:

The earliest known humans in Europe may have been found in a Bulgarian cave:

A tooth and six bone fragments found in a Bulgarian cave are the oldest directly dated remains of Homo sapiens in Europe, scientists say.

Until now, most of the earliest fossils of humans on the continent ranged in age from around 45,000 to 41,500 years old. But those ages are based on dates for sediment and artifacts associated with the fossils, not the fossils themselves. The newfound remains date to between roughly 46,000 and 44,000 years ago, researchers report May 11 in Nature.

A previous report of the earliest human fossil in Europe centered on a skull fragment from what's now Greece (SN: 7/10/19). That fossil may date to at least 210,000 years ago, which would make it the oldest by far, but the dating and species identification of that find are controversial.

The new discoveries at Bulgaria's Bacho Kiro Cave have added evidence for a scenario in which African H. sapiens reached the Middle East approximately 50,000 years ago (SN: 1/28/15) and then rapidly dispersed into Europe (SN: 11/2/11) and Central Asia (SN: 10/22/14), the scientists conclude.