SoylentNews

takyon writes:

AMD to Support Zen 3 and Ryzen 4000 CPUs on B450 and X470 Motherboards

In a surprising twist, AMD has today announced that it intends to enable Ryzen 4000 and Zen 3 support on its older B450 and X470 Motherboards. This is going to be a 'promise now, figure out the details later' arrangement, but this should enable most (if not all) users running 400 series AMD motherboards to upgrade to the Zen 3 processors set to be unveiled later this year.

[...] AMD came under a lot of fire. The company had originally promised that it would support the AM4 platform from 2016 through 2020 (or 'through to' 2020). A lot of users had assumed that this meant any AM4 platform based motherboard would be able to accept any processor made from 2016 to 2020, including the new Zen 3 processors set to be unveiled later this year. The fact that there was a discrepancy between what the users expected and what AMD had been saying essentially became a miscommunication or a misunderstanding, but one that had a negative effect on a number of users who were expecting to upgrade the system.

Ultimately the reason for the lockout was down to the BIOS size. Each generation of processors require a portion of the BIOS space for compatibility code – normally if you can support one processor from a generation, then you can support them all. We are also in the era of graphical interface BIOSes, and as a result some of the BIOS code was reserved for fancy menus and the ability to adjust fan curves or update the BIOS in a more intuitive way. All of this takes up space, and some vendors ditched the fancy graphics in order to support more processors.

Most AMD motherboards are outfitted with 128 megabit (16 megabyte) BIOS chips. The reason why this is the case is due to a limitation on some of AMD's early AM4 processors – due to design, they can only ever address the first 16 megabytes of a BIOS chip. So even if a motherboard vendor had a larger BIOS chip, say MSI had a 32 megabyte chip, then it would actually operate like two partitioned BIOSes and it would get very complicated. There is no easy way to support every AM4 processor with a simple 16 megabyte BIOS.

Also at Guru3D and Tom's Hardware.

Previously: AMD's Zen 3 CPUs Will Not be Compatible with X470, B450, and Older Motherboards

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Judge denies Shkreli's "delusional self-aggrandizing" plea to get out of jail

A federal judge on Saturday denied Martin Shkreli's request for a "compassionate release" from prison, which was pitched as a way to protect him from contracting the new coronavirus—and to help him work on a cure for COVID-19 so he could save the rest of the world.

Lawyers for the infamous ex-pharmaceutical executive filed an emergency motion April 22 in a bid to free him from the slammer. They argued that Shkreli is at high risk of contracting the virus in the close quarters of federal prison and could possibly become severely ill or die. They also argued that he is in a unique position to work on a cure for the devastating viral illness now sweeping the globe. Shkreli himself publicly made that claim in early April via a scientific document outlining his preliminary efforts to develop an antiviral drug.

In the emergency motion, his lawyers argued that "Current conditions of confinement threaten his health and life and prevent him from doing work that would contribute to the betterment of society worldwide."

Though Shkreli is best known for ruthlessly jacking up the price of a lifesaving generic drug, he is serving an 84-month sentence following his 2017 conviction on two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiring to commit securities fraud. The charges were in connection with an alleged Ponzi-like scheme involving two hedge funds he previously managed and his former pharmaceutical company, Retrophin. He has served 41 months of his sentence so far.

[...] [federal prosecutors] also noted that, at the time of their court filing, there were no cases of COVID-19 in staff or inmates at the facility in which Shkreli is being held, FCI Allenwood Low.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

AG Barr seeks 'legislative solution' to make companies unlock phones:

ACLU Senior Staff Attorney Brett Max Kaufman responded to [US Attorney General] Barr's comments, saying "Every time there's a traumatic event requiring investigation into digital devices, the Justice Department loudly claims that it needs backdoors to encryption, and then quietly announces it actually found a way to access information without threatening the security and privacy of the entire world. The boy who cried wolf has nothing on the agency that cried encryption." While Barr's push for backdoors and cooperation from phone manufacturers raises concerns, Kaufman's response doesn't address that the DoJ isn't seeking the ability to unlock phones, but to do so as quickly as possible.

Apple's refusal to work with law enforcement has been an issue for years. The company wants to ensure its users feel confident in trusting Apple with their data, yet police and the FBI say that the refusals to cooperate hinder investigations and put lives at risk. It sounds like Barr wants to put a system into law that would oblige Apple to comply in future cases. How realistic this plan is -- or how much buy-in from politicians it will get -- remains to be seen, though it would force Apple to rethink how it approaches user privacy.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for Bytram:

Celiac disease linked to common chemical pollutants:

According to NYU Grossman School of Medicine researchers who led the study, people with the immune disorder have severe gut reactions, including diarrhea and bloating, to foods containing gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. The only treatment is a gluten-free diet, with no bread, pasta, or cake, says lead investigator and doctoral student Abigail Gaylord, MPH.

Reporting in the journal Environmental Research online May 12, the NYU Langone team found that children and young adults with high blood levels of pesticides -- and with high levels of pesticide-related chemicals called dichlorodiphenyldichlorethylenes (DDEs) -- were twice as likely to be newly diagnosed with celiac disease as those without high levels.

The study also found that gender differences existed for celiac disease related to toxic exposures. For females, who make up the majority of celiac cases, higher-than-normal pesticide exposure meant they were at least eight times more likely to become gluten intolerant. Young females with elevated levels of nonstick chemicals, known as perflouoroalkyls, or PFAs, including products like Teflon, were five to nine times more likely to have celiac disease.

Young males, on the other hand, were twice as likely to be diagnosed with the disease if they had elevated blood levels of fire-retardant chemicals, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, or PBDEs.

Abigail Gaylord, Leonardo Trasande, Kurunthachalam Kannan, Kristen M. Thomas, Sunmi Lee, Mengling Liu, Jeremiah Levine. Persistent organic pollutant exposure and celiac disease: A pilot study. Environmental Research, 2020; 109439 DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.109439

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Research takes electrons for a spin in moving toward more efficient, higher density data:

"One of the major goals of spintronics research is to control the direction of the spin of electrons in materials," explains Andrew Kent, a professor in NYU's Department of Physics and one of the paper's senior authors. "This research shows a new and fundamental mechanism for setting the electron spin direction in a conducting material."

"This advance in spintronics offers a novel way to exert torques on a magnetic layer," adds senior co-author Jonathan Sun of IBM Research and a visiting scholar at NYU. "It's a promising advance that has the potential to reduce energy and space requirements for device data storage."

The work, conducted with Junwen Xu, an NYU graduate student, and Christopher Safranski of IBM Research, is the latest example of a phenomenon central to the transmission of information: altering it from one form to another.

[...] In the Physical Review Letters research, Safranski, Sun, Xu, and Kent focused on demonstrating a novel mechanism for the control of spin direction—the direction that controls the stored bits of information.

Historically, current flow in non-magnetic heavy metals has been shown to lead to spin polarization, or a direction of its net magnetic moment, at the surface of the conductor, an effect known as the spin Hall effect. However, the direction of the spin polarization in the spin Hall effect is always parallel to the surface of the conductor. This limits its applications because it provides only one possible axis of spin polarization, limiting storage density.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

The FBI Successfully Broke into a Gunman's iPhone, but Still Angry at Apple:

After months of trying, the FBI successfully broke into iPhones belonging to the gunman responsible for a deadly shooting at Pensacola Naval Air Station in December 2019, and it now claims he had associations with terrorist organization al-Qaeda. Investigators managed to do so without Apple's help, but Attorney General William Barr and FBI director Christopher Wray both voiced strong frustration with the iPhone maker at a press conference on Monday morning.

Both officials say that encryption on the gunman's devices severely hampered the investigation. "Thanks to the great work of the FBI — and no thanks to Apple — we were able to unlock Alshamrani's phones," said Barr, who lamented the months and "large sums of tax-payer dollars" it took to get into devices of Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, who killed three US sailors and injured eight other people on December 6th.

Apple has said it provided investigators with iCloud data it had available for Alshamrani's account and other technical assistance, though it wasn't enough to bypass the encryption of Alshamrani's iPhones. So authorities spent many weeks trying to break in on their own.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Corkscrew light promises higher optical-communication data rates:

The modern world depends on good communication. If you were one of the few who didn't believe that, the recent obsession with video conferences should have convinced you otherwise. The key for video is volume: huge streams of data facilitated by high-capacity optical-fiber communications networks.

It might surprise you to hear that, actually, optical communication is not very efficient. A recent paper shows off a laser that may allow the information density to be increased by using something called orbital angular momentum (OAM).

[...] Our low data rates are due to the limitations of how we manipulate light. Electronics and materials only respond so fast, and that sets limits on what we can do. To get around this, we use multiple tricks. For instance, when we modulate the light, we do not send a single bit but rather a single symbol that corresponds to multiple bits. Depending on how that symbol is encoded, however, you cannot increase the data rate continuously.

Platelets not only play a key role in blood clotting, but can also significantly intensify inflammatory processes. This is shown by a new study carried out by scientists from the University of Bonn together with colleagues from Sao Paulo (Brazil). In the medium term, the results could open up new ways to treat autoimmune diseases. They have now been published in the journal Cell Reports.

For a long time, the role of platelets appeared to be clear: in the event of an injury, they adhere to the wound and stick to each other to rapidly stop the bleeding. This wound closure mechanism works quickly and efficiently, but its protagonists were not considered to have any other functions.

For some years now, this picture has begun to change significantly: these tiny cells, each of which is about the size of an intestinal bacterium, are also believed to perform important functions in the immune system. The current study by the universities of Bonn and Sao Paulo supports this thesis: it shows that platelets ensure that the white blood cells (the leukocytes) secrete significantly more inflammatory messengers. "It is possible that this effect contributes to the often severe course of autoimmune diseases," explains Prof. Dr. Bernardo Franklin from the Institute of Innate Immunity at the University Hospital Bonn. "These are diseases in which the immune system attacks and destroys the body's own tissue."

[20200519_114228 UTC: Updated to remove possible loss as my perceived implication of the original question.--martyb]

martyb writes:

If you were given $1,000 to play a game, would you accept a 50 percent chance to double your money or a 100 percent guarantee of gaining an additional $500?

Implied in the question was that a 50% chance to double the $1,000 was also a 50% chance to lose all of the $1,000. Put that way, I'd take the 100% guarantee of gaining $500 more. Hmm. But why did I make that choice? What if I started with just $10? Or even $1? Would I choose differently? What if I started with $100,000 or even $1,000,000? Then what would my choice be — and why?

That opening question was one of 17 hypotheticals posed when attempting to replicate 1979 foundational research on loss aversion and prospect theory.

Global Study Confirms Influential Theory Behind Loss Aversion:

A new global study offers a powerful confirmation of one of the most influential frameworks in all of behavioral sciences and behavioral economics: prospect theory, which when introduced in 1979 led to a sea change in understanding the irrational and paradoxical ways individuals make decisions and interpret risk with major impacts for science, policy, and industry. Led by a Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health researcher, the new study in 19 countries and 13 languages replicates the original study that provided the empirical basis for prospect theory. Results appear in Nature Human Behaviour.

Developed by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, prospect theory has been called the most influential theoretical framework in all of the social sciences and popularized the concept of loss aversion, which says that people prefer small guaranteed outcomes over larger risky outcomes. The 1979 paper that launched the theory is today the most cited paper in economics and is among the most cited in psychological science.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage:

In March 2019 a good friend who owns a few pizza restaurants messaged me [...]. For over a decade, he resisted adding delivery as an option for his restaurants. He felt it would detract from focusing on the dine-in experience and result in trying to compete with Domino's.

But he had suddenly started getting customers calling in with complaints about their deliveries.

Customers called in saying their pizza was delivered cold. Or the wrong pizza was delivered and they wanted a new pizza.

[...] He realized that a delivery option had mysteriously appeared on their company's Google Listing. The delivery option was created by Doordash.

[...] Doordash was causing him real problems. The most common was, Doordash delivery drivers didn't have the proper bags for pizza so it inevitably would arrive cold. It led to his employees wasting time responding to complaints and even some bad Yelp reviews.

But he brought up another problem - the prices were off. He was frustrated that customers were seeing incorrectly low prices. A pizza that he charged $24 for was listed as $16 by Doordash.

[...] He called in and placed an order for 10 pizzas to a friend's house and charged $160 to his personal credit card. A Doordash call center then called into his restaurant and put in the order for those 10 pizzas. A Doordash driver showed up with a credit card and paid $240 for the pizzas.

takyon writes:

TSMC reportedly stops taking orders from Huawei after new U.S. export controls

Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the world's largest contract semiconductor maker, has stopped taking new orders from Huawei Technologies, one of its largest customers, according to the Nikkei Asian Review. The report said the decision was made to comply with new United States export controls, announced last Friday, that are meant to make it more difficult for Huawei to obtain chips produced using U.S. technology, including manufacturing equipment.

Huawei hits back at US as TSMC cuts off chip orders

Huawei rotating chairman Guo Ping has hit back at the US government's stricter export controls intended to stop the Chinese tech giant from obtaining essential chips, following reports that its biggest supplier has already cut it off. "We still haven't figured it out," Guo said on stage at Huawei's annual analyst summit. "The US government still persists in attacking Huawei, but what will that bring to the world?"

"In its relentless pursuit to tighten its stranglehold on our company, the US government has decided to proceed and completely ignore the concerns of many companies and industry associations," Huawei adds in an official statement. "This decision was arbitrary and pernicious, and threatens to undermine the entire industry worldwide. This new rule will impact the expansion, maintenance, and continuous operations of networks worth hundreds of billions of dollars that we have rolled out in more than 170 countries."

"We expect that our business will inevitably be affected," Huawei's statement continues. "We will try all we can to seek a solution."

See also: Huawei Braces for Latest U.S. Hit, but Some Say Loopholes Remain
TSMC Accepts US Kill Order & Suspends Future Huawei Contracts

Previously: U.S. Attempting to Restrict TSMC Sales to Huawei
Washington in Talks with Chipmakers about Building U.S. Factories
TSMC Will Build a $12 Billion "5nm" Fab in Arizona

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Apple Issued Warrant by FBI to Provide Access to iCloud Account for Sen. Richard Burr for Stock Sales Investigation

FBI recently obtained iCloud data access from Apple for Senator Richard Burr, as part of an on-going investigation regarding stock sales.

Richard Burr is under investigation for selling his stock portfolio while he was receiving updates from government health officials regarding coronavirus pandemic. The timing of his stock sales preceded the sharp decline in the stock market, just a week later. He had heavily invested in businesses that suffered the most due to the pandemic.

[...] Burr sold between $628,000 and $1.72 million worth of stocks. He was not the only senator to do so, as a few others are also under investigation. His brother in law also sold his shares worth between $97,000 and $280,000, on the same day as Burr's sell-off.

It is against the law for lawmakers to make trading decisions based on classified intelligence briefings that they receive due to their position in the government.

Also at 9to5Mac.

Previously: US Rep Chris Collins Resigns Ahead of Insider Trading Plea Involving Australian Biotech Company
This Website Tracks Which Shares US Senators Are Unloading Mid-Pandemic

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Crypto-Mining Campaign Hits European Supercomputers:

Several supercomputers across Europe were taken offline last week after being targeted in what appears to be a crypto-mining campaign.

In a notice on Saturday, the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) revealed that it too has been hit, along with other “HPC [High Performance Computing] and academic data centres of Europe and around the world.”

CSCS said it detected malicious activity related to these attacks and it has decided to suspend external access until the issue is addressed.

[...] While CSCS’ notice says that the background of the attack is currently unclear, the European Grid Infrastructure (EGI) security team issued an alert claiming that the purpose of the attack is cryptocurrency mining.

EGI mentions two security incidents “that may or may not be correlated,” which impact academic data centers, revealing that compromised SSH credentials are being used by the attackers to jump from a victim to another.

As part of the assaults, compromised hosts are being used as Monero (XMR) mining hosts, as XMR-proxy and SOCKS-proxy hosts, and as tunnel hosts (for SSH tunneling), EGI’s team explains.

[...] The attacks targeted multiple victims in Germany, including the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC)-maintained JURECA, JUDAC, and JUWELS, the HPC systems at Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ), the Taurus supercomputer at the Technical University in Dresden, and five HPC clusters coordinated by bwHPC, among others.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Report: Tesla plans to build a new car factory in Texas:

Elon Musk's recent clashes with officials in Alameda County, home of Tesla's Fremont factory, may have given him a heightened sense of urgency to find Tesla's next US factory. On Friday, several news outlets reported that Tesla was narrowing in on a new location to build the Model Y crossover and Tesla's forthcoming Cybertruck.

The reports started with Electrek, a pro-Tesla site whose co-founder Fred Lambert has good connections inside the company. Just before 3pm Eastern time, Lambert reported that Tesla had settled on Austin, Texas as the site of its next factory.

"We are told that the decision for the site is not set in stone since Tesla was apparently given a few options in the greater Austin area," Lambert wrote. "But Musk is said to want to start construction extremely soon and aims to have Model Y vehicles coming out of the plant by the end of the year."

That would be a remarkably short amount of time for any car company to build a new factory from scratch. Last year, it took Tesla almost a year to build its Shanghai factory—and that was considered unusually fast.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for carny:

'Mandrake' Android Spyware Remained Undetected for 4 Years:

Security researchers at Bitdefender have identified a highly sophisticated Android spyware platform that managed to remain undetected for four years.

Dubbed Mandrake, the platform targets only specific devices, as its operators are keen on remaining undetected for as long as possible. Thus, the malware avoids infecting devices in countries that might bring no benefit for the attackers.

Over the past four years, the platform has received numerous updates, with new features being constantly added, and obsolete ones being removed. Under continuous development, the malware framework is highly complex, Bitdefender’s security researchers say.

Mandrake provides attackers with complete control over an infected device, allowing them to turn down the volume, block calls and messages, steal credentials, exfiltrate data, transfer money, record the screen, and blackmail the victim.

“Considering the complexity of the spying platform, we assume that every attack is targeted individually, executed with surgical precision and manual rather than automated. Weaponization would take place after a period of total monitoring of the device and victim,” Bitdefender explains.

Mandrake looks like an advanced espionage platform, but the security researchers believe the campaign is rather financially motivated. During their investigation, they observed phishing attacks targeting an Australian investment trading app, crypto-wallet apps, the Amazon shopping application, banking software, payment apps, an Australian pension fund app, and Gmail.

[...] Seven malicious applications delivering Mandrake were identified in Google Play alone, namely Abfix, CoinCast, SnapTune Vid, Currency XE Converter, Office Scanner, Horoskope and Car News, each of them having hundreds of thousands of downloads.

[...] The malware avoids about 90 countries from infection and does not run on devices with no SIM or with SIM cards issued by certain operators, including Verizon and China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC).

Original Submission