SoylentNews

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

NASA finds evidence of "fresh ice" on Saturn's moon Enceladus:

By digging through detailed infrared images of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus — courtesy of NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which met its demise back in 2017 after 13 years of Saturn exploration — NASA scientists say they've found "strong evidence" of fresh ice in the moon's northern hemisphere.

The ice, thought to have originated and resurfaced from Enceladus' interior, could be good news for the prospect of life on Enceladus, which is considered by many scientists to be one of the most promising places to look for life in the solar system.

The dataset, the most detailed global infrared views ever produced of the moon according to the agency, was created using data collected by Cassini's Visible and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS). It includes scans of variable wavelengths, including visible light and infrared.

Also at NASA.

Photometrically-corrected global infrared mosaics of Enceladus: New implications for its spectral diversity and geological activity (DOI: 10.1016/j.icarus.2020.113848) (DX)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

World's smallest ultrasound detector is tinier than a blood cell:

Scientists in Germany have succeeded in developing the smallest ultrasound detector ever created, which is tinier than a blood cell and opens up new possibilities in what is known as super-resolution imaging. The researchers describe the results as "breathtaking," and hope the technology could allow for the study of biological tissue in unprecedented detail.

Developed by scientists at the Helmholtz Zentrum München (German Research Center for Environmental Health) and the Technical University of Munich, the new device represents something of a departure from the technology behind traditional ultrasound imaging, which usually relies on what are known as piezoelectric devices that take the pressure created by ultrasound waves and turn it into an electric voltage.

The image quality produced through this method is directly tied to the size of the piezoelectric detector, with the smaller the detector the higher the resolution, but this in turn compromises the sensitivity of the device. The authors of the new study detail a solution to this problem, by turning to a different type of imaging technology that relies on silicon photonics.

[...] The research was published in the journal Nature.

Journal Reference:
Rami Shnaiderman, Georg Wissmeyer, Okan Ülgen, et al. A submicrometre silicon-on-insulator resonator for ultrasound detection, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2685-y)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

NASA has figured out a new way to safely land on the Moon:

NASA has built a brand new system that could make landing on Moon and Mars a whole lot less risky — and it already has plans to test it out on an upcoming mission.

The agency's Safe and Precise Landing Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) project aims to improve landing safety by combining a suite of laser sensors, a camera, a high-speed computer, and some sophisticated algorithms — all of which, it says, is capable of foregoing the need for a human pilot.

"What we're building is a complete descent and landing system that will work for future Artemis missions to the Moon and can be adapted for Mars," project manager Ron Sostaric said in a NASA statement. "Our job is to put the individual components together and make sure that it works as a functioning system."

The system could allow for landers to touch down on a much wider variety of sites, including near boulders or craters. It can also identify safe target areas that are only half the size of a football field.

To put that into perspective, the landing area for Apollo 11 in 1968 was about 11 by three miles.

YouTube video.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

'Irreplaceable' books by Galileo, Newton found under house in Romania:

Police in Romania have uncovered a trove of "irreplaceable" books including first editions of works by Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton that were stolen in a sophisticated 2017 heist from a warehouse in London, police and the European Union's judicial co-operation agency said on Friday.

The stash of some 200 rare and valuable books was discovered on Wednesday hidden in a concealed space under a house in rural Romania.

London's Met Police said in a statement that the recovered books have a combined value of more than £2.5 million ($3.2 million).

"These books are extremely valuable, but more importantly they are irreplaceable and are of great importance to international cultural heritage," Detective Inspector Andy Durham said in a statement.

The books were stolen in a raid on a warehouse in west London. Burglars cut holes in the roof and abseiled down into the building to avoid motion detectors, loaded the books into 16 large bags and clambered back up the ropes to make their getaway through the roof, police said.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Nvidia RTX 3080 cards are selling for thousands on eBay, and people are pissed:

The Nvidia RTX 3080 graphics card was released at 9AM ET, and disappointment began only seconds later. All major online stores in the US are sold out, and there have been reports of brick-and-mortar stores each having as few as 10 units for sale. The end result: eBay scalpers are now trying to cash in, and very few people who want to enjoy the graphics card seem to have actually gotten their hands on a confirmed order.

The card is being listed on eBay for many hundreds of dollars — in some cases, even thousands of dollars — over its $699 sticker price. And PC gaming fans are mad, claiming that Nvidia held a sloppy launch just a day after US retailers similarly botched early preorders for Sony's upcoming PlayStation 5.

[Ed Note: The second link in the quoted material was copied from the source article as is]

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

$100,000 in bribes helped fraudulent Amazon sellers earn $100 million, DOJ says:

Six people were indicted on allegations of paying over $100,000 in bribes to Amazon employees and contractors as part of a scheme to give third-party sellers unfair advantages on the Amazon marketplace. Among other things, the indictment says that Amazon workers who accepted bribes reinstated sellers whose accounts had been suspended for offering dangerous products, and these workers suspended the seller accounts of fraudulent sellers' competitors.

The US Department of Justice today announced the indictment handed down by a grand jury in the Western District of Washington. The "defendants paid bribes to at least ten different Amazon employees and contractors," the DOJ said. In one case, a 31-year-old defendant named Nishad Kunju "accepted bribes as a seller-support associate in Hyderabad, India, before becoming an outside consultant who recruited and paid bribes to his former colleagues," the DOJ said.

In exchange for bribes, Amazon workers "baselessly and fraudulently conferred tens of millions of dollars of competitive benefits upon hundreds of [third-party] seller accounts that the Defendants purported to represent," the indictment said. The DOJ said that workers "helped reinstate products and merchant accounts that Amazon had suspended or blocked entirely from doing business on the Amazon Marketplace" and that "the fraudulently reinstated products included dietary supplements that had been suspended because of customer-safety complaints, household electronics that had been flagged as flammable, consumer goods that had been flagged for intellectual-property violations, and other goods." These fraudulently reinstated seller accounts included ones Amazon had "suspended for manipulating product reviews to deceive consumers, making improper contact with consumers, and other violations of Amazon's seller policies and codes of conduct," the DOJ said.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Facial reconstruction reveals Egyptian 'mummy portrait' was accurate except for one detail:

Just after the turn of the first millennium A.D., a young child living in Egypt contracted a deadly illness — most likely pneumonia — and died. His tiny body was prepared for mummification and burial; some of his organs were removed, his remains were wrapped in criss-crossed linen bindings and a portrait of his face was affixed to the front of his mummy.

This so-called "mummy portrait" was part of a popular tradition among some Egyptians in Greco-Roman times, from about the first through the third centuries A.D. But how accurate were these portraits? To find out, a team of scientists in Austria and Germany CT scanned this little boy's body and created a 3D digital reconstruction of his face.

The results show that the portrait was fairly accurate, except for one aspect — the artist made the youngster look older than his 3 or 4 years.

"The portrait shows slightly 'older' traits, which may have been the results of an artistic convention of that time," study lead researcher Andreas Nerlich, the director of the Institute of Pathology at the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen in Germany, told Live Science in an email.

This single portrait, however, doesn't reveal whether it was a common practice for ancient Egyptian artists to make younger people look older in their mummy portraits.

Journal Reference:
Andreas G. Nerlich, et. al. The infant mummy's face—Paleoradiological investigation and comparison between facial reconstruction and mummy portrait of a Roman-period Egyptian child. PLOS ONE. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0238427

Original Submission

DeathMonkey writes:

US will ban WeChat and TikTok downloads on Sunday

The Commerce Department plans to restrict access to TikTok and WeChat on Sunday as the Trump administration's executive orders against the two apps are set to take effect.

The Department said Friday that as of Sunday, any moves to distribute or maintain WeChat or TikTok on an app store will be prohibited. Apple and Google didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

While users who have already downloaded the apps may be able to continue using the software, the restrictions mean updated versions of the apps cannot be downloaded.

The restrictions targeting WeChat are more extensive. Beginning Sunday, it will be illegal to host or transfer internet traffic associated with WeChat, the Department said in a release. The same will be true for TikTok as of Nov. 12, it said. (The Trump administration is currently weighing a proposal involving ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent, and Oracle, designed to resolve the administration's national security concerns related to TikTok; the deadline for a deal is Nov. 12.)

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

What the hell is going on with .uk? Dozens of domain names sold in error, then reversed, but we'll say no more about it, says oversight org:

The perilous state of the UK's internet space has been exposed once again, as the second largest seller of .uk domain names admitted last night it wrongly sold dozens of valuable internet addresses.

Eagle-eyed dot-UK registry watchers noticed unexpected changes in ownership of various .uk names over the weekend – including sunset.uk, waterfall.uk, pad.uk and trending.uk: all of which were sold by Fasthosts to one or more industry insiders rather than going through the proper public process.

The domain names were supposed to expire and drop onto the open market, after which all domain-name traders could compete to catch the addresses and resell them later on. Instead, though, Fasthosts allowed at least one of its customers to renew and obtain the domain names on the day of their expiry, just before they were due to drop.

That meant certain folk had a mile-long head start snapping up valuable domains before the rest of the industry could have a fair crack at acquiring the dot-uk addresses. We dived into the world of catching expired .uk domains here if you want to know more about how it works.

Fasthosts said the sales were "a mistake," with its head of sales and marketing Michelle Stark telling The Register on Wednesday that 38 expiring domains had been renewed and shifted before they publicly dropped in a "one-off online transaction" due to "human error."

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

A bevy of new features makes iOS 14 the most secure mobile OS ever:

Eleven months ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook declared privacy a "fundamental human right." The affirmation came as the iPhones his customers carry in their pockets store ever more sensitive information and the company seeks to make privacy a key differentiator as it competes with Google and other rivals.

On Wednesday, the company sought to make good on its commitment with the release of iOS 14. It introduces a bevy of privacy features designed to give iPhone users more control over their personal information. The protections are intended to rein in app developers, online providers, and advertisers who all too often push the limits of acceptable data collection, assuming they don't fully step over the line.

[...] Anti-tracking delayed is anti-tracking denied One of the most anticipated privacy features was one requiring app developers to get a user's consent before tracking their activities on third-party apps and websites. Alas, Apple delayed implementing the feature until at least next year after app developers, particularly those from Facebook-owned Instagram, bitterly complained.

For a company that says privacy is a fundamental human right, Apple's postponement is a surprise.

Original Submission

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Champion Of Gender Equality, Dies At 87

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the demure firebrand who in her 80s became a legal, cultural and feminist icon, died Friday. The Supreme Court announced her death, saying the cause was complications from metastatic cancer of the pancreas.

The court, in a statement, said Ginsburg died at her home in Washington surrounded by family. She was 87.

"Our nation has lost a justice of historic stature," Chief Justice John Roberts said. "We at the Supreme Court have lost a cherished colleague. Today we mourn but with confidence that future generations will remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg as we knew her, a tired and resolute champion of justice."

Architect of the legal fight for women's rights in the 1970s, Ginsburg subsequently served 27 years on the nation's highest court, becoming its most prominent member. Her death will inevitably set in motion what promises to be a nasty and tumultuous political battle over who will succeed her, and it thrusts the Supreme Court vacancy into the spotlight of the presidential campaign.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

DeathMonkey writes:

U.S. Admits That Congressman Offered Pardon to Assange If He Covered Up Russia Links

Lawyers representing the United States at Julian Assange's extradition trial in Britain have accepted the claim that the WikiLeaks founder was offered a presidential pardon by a Congressman on the condition that he would help cover up Russia's involvement in hacking emails from the Democratic National Committee.

Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer, told the court that she had attended a meeting between Assange, then Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, and pro-Trump troll Charles Johnson at Assange's hide-out, the Ecuadorian embassy in London, on August 15, 2017.

Robinson said the two Americans claimed to be emissaries from Washington and "wanted us to believe they were acting on behalf of the president." The pair allegedly told Assange that they could help grant him a pardon in exchange for him revealing information about the source of the WikiLeaks information that proved it was not the Russians who hacked Democratic emails.

"They stated that President Trump was aware of and had approved of them coming to meet with Mr. Assange to discuss a proposal—and that they would have an audience with the president to discuss the matter on their return to Washington, D.C.," Robinson said.

After Robinson read her testimony in a London courtroom on Friday, lawyers representing the U.S. accepted the witness statement as accurate and confirmed they had no intention of cross-examining the claim. They did dispute, however, that President Donald Trump gave his blessing for the pardon offer.

Additional coverage at Reuters,The Guardian, The BBC, and others.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Once again, supermarkets are enhancing the customer experience by engaging automation to replace humans. Since the COVID pandemic started many stores have had to count how many people enter and leave the store. Woolworths will introduce customer counting devices to do this task instead of human staff, taking care to avoid the debacle experienced by the TSA by storing the images as blocks to ensure a level of privacy is afforded customers.

Can I apply for a job to be a machine?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Arm Officially Supports Panfrost Open-Source Mali GPU Driver Development

Most GPU drivers found in Arm processors are known to be closed-source making it difficult and time-consuming to fix some of the bugs since everybody needs to rely on the silicon vendor to fix those for them, and they may even decide a particular bug is not important to them, so you'd be out of luck.

So the developer community has long tried to reverse-engineer GPU drivers with projects like Freedreno (Qualcomm Adreno), Etnaviv (Vivante), as well as Lima and Panfrost for Arm Mali GPUs. Several years ago, Arm management was not interested at all collaborating with open-source GPU driver development for Mali GPUs, but as noted by Phoronix, Alyssa Rosenzweig, a graphics software engineer employed by Collabora, explained Panfrost development was now done in partnership with Arm during a talk at the annual X.Org Developers' Conference (XDC 2020).

[...] So that means a stable Panfrost driver should be expected quite earlier, and possibly with higher quality, than if the company still had to spend time and resources on reverse-engineering.

Related: Pagamigo: FOSS Python Script for PayPal Payments (Alyssa Rosenzweig)
Nvidia Announces $40 Billion Acquisition of Arm Holdings
Nvidia-Branded ARM CPUs; UK Trade Union Speaks Out Against Deal

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

Billions of devices vulnerable to new 'BLESA' Bluetooth security flaw:

Billions of smartphones, tablets, laptops, and IoT devices are using Bluetooth software stacks that are vulnerable to a new security flaw disclosed over the summer.

Named BLESA (Bluetooth Low Energy Spoofing Attack), the vulnerability impacts devices running the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol.

[...] In a research project at Purdue University, a team of seven academics set out to investigate a section of the BLE protocol that plays a crucial role in day-to-day BLE operations but has rarely been analyzed for security issues.

Their work focused on the "reconnection" process. This operation takes place after two BLE devices (the client and server) have authenticated each other during the pairing operation.

Original Submission