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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Light shaken and stirred to help autonomous vehicles better scan for nearby fast-moving objects:

A self-driving car has a hard time recognizing the difference between a toddler and a brown bag that suddenly appears into view because of limitations in how it senses objects using lidar.

The autonomous vehicle industry is exploring “frequency modulated continuous wave” (FMCW) lidar to solve this problem.

[...] FMCW lidar detects objects by scanning laser light from the top of an autonomous vehicle. A single laser beam splits into a comb of other wavelengths, called a microcomb, to scan an area. Light bounces off of an object and goes to the detector through an optical isolator or circulator, which ensures all reflected light ends up at the detector array.

[...] The technology integrates microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) transducers made of aluminum nitride to modulate the microcomb at high frequencies ranging from megahertz to gigahertz. The optical isolator that the team developed as part of this process is further described in a paper published in Nature Communications.

[...] “The stirring motion modulates light such that it can only travel in one direction,” said Sunil Bhave, a Purdue professor of electrical and computer engineering.

[...] Other transducers in the same technology excite an acoustic wave that shakes the chip at megahertz frequencies, demonstrating sub-microsecond control and tuning of the laser pulse microcomb or soliton.

Journal Reference:
Junqiu Liu, Hao Tian, Erwan Lucas, et al. Monolithic piezoelectric control of soliton microcombs, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2465-8)
Hao Tian, Junqiu Liu, Bin Dong, et al. Hybrid integrated photonics using bulk acoustic resonators [open], Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16812-6)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AMD Launches 12 Desktop Renoir Ryzen 4000G Series APUs: But You Can't Buy Them

Today AMD is finally lifting the lid on its long-awaited desktop Zen2 based APU family. Using the same silicon as in the Ryzen Mobile 4000 family, AMD is pumping it up into 35 W and 65 models in the same AM4 platform that is in use today. There has been strong demand from PC builders to release these chips, which were on the topics of forum conversation all the way back at CES. There's only one downside to these new processors: you can't buy them on their own. AMD states that the initial release of Ryzen 4000G hardware is for OEMs like Dell and HP only for their pre-built systems.

The new processors use the same 8-core Zen2 plus 8 compute unit Vega that we saw in Ryzen Mobile 4000 at the beginning of the year, but as with previous APU launches, the frequency and power thermals have been pushed up into more manageable desktop environments. To that end, AMD will be launching hardware in the Ryzen 7, Ryzen 5, and Ryzen 3 product lines at both 65 W and 35 W, all on the AM4 platform.

[...] Just to be clear, AMD specified OEM and not system integrators (SIs). On our call, AMD clarified that the market for its APUs is skewed very heavily towards the big mass-market prebuilt customers like HP and Dell, rather than custom home builds. The numbers quoted were around 80% of all APU sales end up in these systems, and by working with OEMs only, AMD can also help manage stock levels of the Renoir silicon coming out of the fabs between desktops and notebooks.

[...] AMD says that they are planning a consumer-grade release of APUs 'soon'. It was stated in our briefing call that there will be a launch of a future Zen2 APU for the consumer market compatible with 500-series motherboards. The company specifically did not say 400-series, but did clarify that the 4000G series announced today was for 400 and 500 series.

Also at Tom's Hardware, TechRadar, Guru3D, and Ars Technica.

See also: AMD Ryzen 4000 Renoir APUs Have Started Invading AIO PCs
AMD Ryzen 7 4700G Renoir APU With Vega 8 GPU Is Almost As Fast As Entry-Level Discrete Graphics When Overclocked
AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750G Renoir 8 Core CPU Benchmarks Leak Out, On Par With Ryzen 7 3800X & Core i7-10700K
AMD Ryzen 7 4700G APU Overclocked To 4.8 GHz Across All 8 Cores, DDR4-4400 & 2200 MHz FCLK Achieved Too – Blows Away The Ryzen 7 3700X

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

It's FOSS has an overview of 13 Raspberry Pi-like single board computers.

The Raspberry Pi Zero and the Raspberry Pi Zero W were added to the line up of Raspberry Pi's in the last few years. These ultra-small form-factor SBC's have been a big hit and continue to be a part of Raspberry Pi projects from the maker and DIY communities.

Due to the smaller form factor and the prices these boards are targeting, they have had to cut down on many features like a dedicated Ethernet port, slower processor (compared to their full-fledged cousins).

In an earlier article, we listed the best alternatives to Raspberry Pi. In this one, I'll list some alternatives to Raspberry Pi Zero and Zero W.

Original Submission

chromas writes:

GitHub buries 21 TB of open source data in an Arctic archive:

While it might seem like the internet is leaving a detailed record of history, the world's knowledge is all surprisingly vulnerable to being lost in a disaster. To help keep a backup, GitHub has now archived 21 TB of public open source data and buried it in a vault in the Arctic designed to preserve it for a thousand years.

[...] The Arctic World Archive is located in a decommissioned coal mine on an island in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard.

On July 8, 2020, GitHub deposited 21 TB of data into the Archive, beneath 250 m (820 ft) of permafrost. This data drop consisted of a snapshot of all active public repositories on GitHub as of February 2, 2020, encoded in the form of tiny QR codes imprinted on 186 archival film reels.

These specially-designed film reels are developed by a company called Piql. They're made of silver halides on polyester and, according to simulated aging tests conducted by Piql, this material can last for up to 1,000 years.

GitHub's promotional YouTube video.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A Nixon Deepfake, a 'Moon Disaster' Speech and an Information Ecosystem at Risk

What can former U.S. president Richard Nixon possibly teach us about artificial intelligence today and the future of misinformation online? Nothing. The real Nixon died 26 years ago.

But an AI-generated likeness of him shines new light on a quickly evolving technology with sizable implications, both creative and destructive, for our current digital information ecosystem. Starting in 2019, media artists Francesca Panetta and Halsey Burgund at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teamed up with two AI companies, Canny AI and Respeecher, to create a posthumous deepfake. The synthetic video shows Nixon giving a speech he never intended to deliver—half a century after the subject it addresses.

Here's the (real) backstory: In July 1969, as the Apollo 11 astronauts glided through space on their trajectory toward the moon, William Safire, then one of Nixon's speechwriters, wrote "In Event of Moon Disaster" as a contingency. The speech is a beautiful homage to Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, the two astronauts who descended to the lunar surface—never to return in this version of history. It ends by saying, "For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind."

The full deepfake speech can be viewed at https://moondisaster.org.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

African grey parrot outperforms children and college students:

Harvard researchers compared how 21 human adults and 21 6- to 8-year-old children stacked up against an African grey parrot named Griffin in a complex version of the classic shell game.

It worked like this: Tiny colored pom-poms were covered with cups and then shuffled, so participants had to track which object was under which cup. The experimenter then showed them a pom-pom that matched one of the same color hidden under one of the cups and asked them to point at the cup. (Griffin, of course, used his beak to point.) The participants were tested on tracking two, three, and four different-colored pom-poms. The position of the cups were swapped zero to four times for each of those combinations. Griffin and the students did 120 trials; the children did 36.

[...] So how did the parrot fare? Griffin outperformed the 6- to 8-year-olds across all levels on average, and he performed either as well as or slightly better than the 21 Harvard undergraduates on 12 of the 14 of trial types.

[...] "Think about it: Grey parrot outperforms Harvard undergrads. That's pretty freaking awesome," said Hrag Pailian, the postdoctoral fellow at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences who led the experiment. "We had students concentrating in engineering, pre-meds, this, that, seniors, and he just kicked their butts."

[...] To be fair, the Harvard students did manage to keep (some) of their Crimson pride intact. On the final two tests, which involved the most items and the most movement, the adults had the clear edge. Griffin's average dipped toward the children's performance — though never below it. The researchers were unable to determine the precise reason for this drop, but they believe it has something to do with the way human intelligence works (arguably making the Harvard students' victory a matter of performance enhancement of the genetic variety).

Journal Reference:
Hrag Pailian, Susan E. Carey, Justin Halberda, et al. Age and Species Comparisons of Visual Mental Manipulation Ability as Evidence for its Development and Evolution [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-64666-1)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Scientists Discover Volcanoes on Venus Are Still Active

A new study identified 37 recently active volcanic structures on Venus. The study provides some of the best evidence yet that Venus is still a geologically active planet. A research paper on the work, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland and the Institute of Geophysics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, was published in the journal Nature Geoscience on July 20, 2020.

[...] Scientists have known for some time that Venus has a younger surface than planets like Mars and Mercury, which have cold interiors. Evidence of a warm interior and geologic activity dots the surface of the planet in the form of ring-like structures known as coronae, which form when plumes of hot material deep inside the planet rise through the mantle layer and crust. This is similar to the way mantle plumes formed the volcanic Hawaiian Islands.

But it was thought that the coronae on Venus were probably signs of ancient activity, and that Venus had cooled enough to slow geological activity in the planet's interior and harden the crust so much that any warm material from deep inside would not be able to puncture through. In addition, the exact processes by which mantle plumes formed coronae on Venus and the reasons for variation among coronae have been matters for debate.

Also at EarthSky.

Corona structures driven by plume–lithosphere interactions and evidence for ongoing plume activity on Venus (DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0606-1) (DX)

Journal Reference:
Anna J. P. Gülcher, Taras V. Gerya, Laurent G. J. Montési, et al. Corona structures driven by plume–lithosphere interactions and evidence for ongoing plume activity on Venus, Nature Geoscience (DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0606-1)

Original Submission

chromas writes:

Study uncovers hair cell loss as underlying cause of age-related hearing loss:

In a new study of human ear tissues, hearing scientists have demonstrated that age-related hearing loss, also called presbycusis, is mainly caused by damage to hair cells, the sensory cells in the inner ear that transform sound-induced vibrations into the electrical signals that are relayed to the brain by the auditory nerve. Their research challenges the prevailing view of the last 60 years that age-related hearing loss is mainly driven by damage to the stria vascularis, the cellular "battery" that powers the hair cell's mechanical-to-electrical signal conversion.

The inner ear, where most types of hearing impairment originate, cannot be biopsied, and its delicate structures can only be resolved in specimens removed at autopsy. Understanding the true cellular causes of age-related hearing loss impacts how future treatments are developed and how appropriate candidates will be identified, and can also suggest how to prevent or minimize this most common type of hearing damage, according to the study authors, led by Pei-zhe Wu, MD, a postdoctoral research fellow in Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery in the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.

"Our study upends the dogma about the major cause of age-related hearing loss," said Dr. Wu. "Documenting the dominant role of progressive hair cell loss in the hearing impairment of normal aging means that the millions who suffer with this condition could benefit from the hair cell regenerative therapies that are the focus of ongoing research across the world. No one is focusing on approaches to regenerate the stria."

Journal Reference:
Pei-zhe Wu, Jennifer T. O'Malley, Victor de Gruttola, et al. Age-related hearing loss is dominated by damage to inner ear sensory cells, not the cellular battery that powers them [$], Journal of Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0937-20.2020)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Synapse-saving proteins discovered, opening possibilities in Alzheimer's, schizophrenia:

Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) have discovered a new class of proteins that protect synapses from being destroyed. Synapses are the structures where electrical impulses pass from one neuron to another.

The discovery, published July 13 in the journal Nature Neuroscience, has implications for Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. If proven, increasing the number of these protective proteins could be a novel therapy for the management of those diseases, researchers said.

In Alzheimer's disease, loss of synapses leads to memory problems and other clinical symptoms. In schizophrenia, synapse losses during development predispose an individual to the disorder.

"We are studying an immune system pathway in the brain that is responsible for eliminating excess synapses; this is called the complement system," said Gek-Ming Sia, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology in UT Health San Antonio's Long School of Medicine and senior author of the research.

"Complement system proteins are deposited onto synapses," Dr. Sia explained. "They act as signals that invite immune cells called macrophages to come and eat excess synapses during development. We discovered proteins that inhibit this function and essentially act as 'don't eat me' signals to protect synapses from elimination."

Journal Reference:
Qifei Cong, Breeanne M. Soteros, Mackenna Wollet, et al. The endogenous neuronal complement inhibitor SRPX2 protects against complement-mediated synapse elimination during development, Nature Neuroscience (DOI: 10.1038/s41593-020-0672-0)

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4ay4kb/guillotine-emoji-unicode

When you want to express your complete rage at the incompetence of leadership over text, in a way that says "I would like to see their heads removed at the neck with a large falling blade and rolled into little baskets" but less literal and more succinct, an emoji would help a lot.

Sadly, there is no guillotine emoji, despite "guillotine them" being the ruling sentiment of the pissed-off proletariat for the last... well, probably many years, but more lately, as tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in protests around the world.

Lisbon-based artist Carrozo is lobbying the Unicode Consortium to include a guillotine in its next emoji update, and has sent an application outlining why the people need the 18th century execution machine in their emoji lexicon.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

U.S. government to allow sale of high-resolution commercial satellite images of Israel

The federal government will soon allow U.S. commercial remote sensing companies to sell high-resolution satellite images of Israel, changing resolution limits that have been in place for more than two decades.

In a draft of a Federal Register notice obtained by SpaceNews, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which hosts the office that licenses U.S. commercial remote sensing satellite systems, says it will reduce the resolution limit on satellite imagery of Israel from 2 meters to 0.4 meters. It is also available as an "unpublished notice" available for public inspection on the Federal Register website, with a note that it is scheduled for formal publication July 21.

A provision of the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act known as the Kyl-Bingaman Amendment limits commercial satellite imaging systems licensed by the federal government to providing imagery of Israel that is "no more detailed or precise than satellite imagery of Israel that is available from commercial sources." Since 1998, NOAA has interpreted that to mean images with a resolution no sharper than 2 meters, a limit reviewed and upheld by NOAA in 2018.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for GrandFireWizard:

Abusive partners have found new and ‘nasty’ ways to target their victims:

It’s a bizarre and “nasty” new form of psychological abuse and thousands of Australians are doing it every day.

Commonwealth Bank has said it uncovered at least 8000 separate individuals sending threatening and abusive messages to people via its apps and online banking systems.

In one instance, CBA’s general manager of customer vulnerability Catherine Fitzpatrick told news.com.au, a single person sent their victim hundreds of abusive messages, one every few seconds, over a two-hour period.

[...] Ms Fitzpatrick spoke to news.com.au at the launch of a new initiative launched by CommBank that aims to support people impacted by domestic and family violence, including financial abuse.

[...] As part of CBA’s research prior to the program’s launch it found a number of its customers were being harassed by people during the process of sending them low value online payments, often as low as one cent.

[Ed. note: I had mixed feelings about running this story. It reads like a slashvertisement, but might be of genuine use to some members of our community (or people whose systems they help support). Decided to give it a try — please provide feedback in the comments.]

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Kaspersky Anti-Ransomware review: A free tool that actually works:

Ransomware is malicious software that can lock your computer and files while demanding a ransom be paid to unlock it. This sort of attack can be much more serious than a typical virus or malware attack because much of the time, you end up losing all of your files that weren't backed up. Ransomware can be especially hard to prevent because it typically comes disguised as another trusted file.

Anti-ransomware software comes packed in with most of the best antivirus software or PC security packages including Windows Security. Anti-ransomware software needs to get very frequent updates to stay in front of threats. Since ransomware often comes disguised as something a user wants, they can let it through the first lines of security before they know there's a problem.

Kaspersky's Anti-Ransomware Tool looks for behavior and commonly infected files to offer a last line of defense on your system. It's also backed by a cloud-connected set of definitions to stay updated without waiting for a scheduled definitions update.

Always updated Kaspersky Anti-Ransomware Tool

Bottom line: When it comes to PC security, you can never be 100% sure your PC is risk-free, Kaspersky Anti-Ransomware Tool adds another layer of security with an up-to-date and well-reviewed knowledgebase of safe and risky applications. It's also able to watch out for suspicious app behavior in case a threat is new enough that it hasn't been detected yet.

The author notes some shortcomings in the tool, as well, so it's a mixed recommendation. Read the full article for details. Would you get/use it?

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Launch time: one hour from now: 2100-0055 GMT (5:00-8:55 p.m. EDT)
Launch site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida
Weather Forecast: 70% favorable
Drone Ship: Just Read the Instructions
Fairing Recovery Attempt: Unknown
Live Stream: YouTube (Starts approximately 15 minutes before launch).

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Anasis 2, or KMilSatCom 1, communications satellite for the South Korean military. The spacecraft was built by Airbus Defense and Space. Delayed from July 14. [July 14]

Notable: If successful, at 51 days this would be the fastest turnaround ever for an orbital rocket (beating the 54 day turnaround for the Space Shuttle Atlantis).

Also at Ars Technica.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Another cyber warning has been issued about the risk from compromised chargers—but this time data theft is not the issue...

Hackers Can Now Trick Usb Chargers To Destroy Your Devices—This Is How It Works:

Not all cyber attacks focus on data theft. Sometimes the intent is "to achieve destruction of the physical world through digital means," Chinese tech giant Tencent warns. The company's researchers have just disclosed a serious new vulnerability in many of the mass-market fast chargers now used around the world.

[...] Tencent’s researchers have now proven that a compromised charger can override this negotiation, pushing more power down the cable than the device can safely handle, likely destroying the device and potentially even setting it on fire.

Because the fast charger is essentially a smart device in its own right, it is open to a malicious compromise. An attack is very simple. With malware loaded onto a smartphone, an attacker connects to the charger, overwriting its firmware and essentially arming it as a weapon for whatever plugs in to it next.

The interesting twist here is that the malware might even be on the target device. An attacker pushes that malicious code to your phone. The first time you connect to a vulnerable fast charger, the phone overwrites its firmware. The next time you connect to that same charger to [recharge] your device, your phone will be overloaded.

Tencent has produced a demo video, showing how a charger can be compromised and then used to overload a device.

Tencent have dubbed this issue "BadPower," and warn that "all products with BadPower problems can be attacked by special hardware, and a considerable number of them can also be attacked by ordinary terminals such as mobile phones, tablets, and laptops that support the fast charging protocol."