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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Europe tightens virus curbs as global cases top 40 million:

A number of European countries took urgent new measures on Monday to combat a second wave of coronavirus infections, as the World Health Organization blamed the surge in worldwide cases—now more than 40 million—on countries' failure to quarantine infected people properly.

Ireland and Wales became the first countries on the continent to re-enter lockdown as the number of people who have died from COVID-19 in Europe passed 250,000, according to an AFP tally.

Irish prime minister Micheal Martin issued a nationwide "stay at home" order from midnight Wednesday, with all non-essential retail businesses to close and bars and restaurants limited to takeaway service only, although schools will remain open.

Wales also announced "firebreak" confinement measures for two weeks, ordering the territory's three million residents to stay at home except for very limited purposes such as exercise or work, and banning people from mixing indoors or outdoors.

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan blamed soaring transmission rates in the northern hemisphere on a failure to enforce quarantines rigorously.

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for c0lo:

Losing control? Norway's oil workers fear for future as rigs go remote:

OSLO (Reuters) - A shift to operating oil rigs remotely from land, which has been accelerated by lower crude prices, has rekindled concerns among Norwegian unions over the impact on the safety of offshore workers and the loss of well-paid jobs.

These fears were highlighted by Lederne, one of three unions representing offshore workers, which this month shut six fields in a strike that threatened a quarter of Norway's oil and gas output, rattling global oil markets.

"The strike was not against moving controls onshore. But we needed to get the deal for our members to also be a part of the discussions about moving controls onshore and their safety," Lederne leader Audun Ingvartsen told Reuters.

Lederne, whose strike ended on Oct. 9, is the only Norwegian oil and gas workers union which did not have an agreement for its members at onshore control rooms. Oil companies started experimenting with remote controls about seven years ago, first with smaller, unmanned installations off the coast of Norway.

Europe's largest oil and gas producer has since become a testing ground for industry attempts to turn this technology to larger, manned platforms.

Lower oil prices and the coronavirus crisis are accelerating this shift, prompting concerns about the safety of staff still working offshore on rigs.

"Our members still wonder whether this (onshore controls) is good enough, whether it is safe enough," Ingvartsen said.

Both Ingvartsen and Hilde-Marit Rysst, head of another union, Safe, said their member concerns relate to situational awareness of those working offshore and on land.

"When you sit on the bomb, you will react differently than when you are far away from it," Rysst said.

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takyon writes:

It's Official, Intel Sells NAND Fab, SSD Business to SK hynix for $9 Billion

Today, SK hynix issued a press release stating that it has signed an agreement to buy Intel's NAND memory and storage business. The sale includes Intel's SSD business, NAND IP, and wafer production, all for a tidy sum of USD 9 billion - but it comes in the form of two payments. The sale includes Intel's Dalin fab in China, but the deal's final step won't complete until March 2025. In the meantime, Intel will still manufacture NAND wafers at the Dalian facility.

Intel has yet to comment on the matter, but it appears that it will soon exit the NAND flash SSD business entirely. Intel will retain its Optane memory business and IP, which isn't surprising given that the exotic underlying 3D XPoint technology is jointly-designed by Intel and Micron and not available to other memory producers. Intel currently doesn't manufacture Optane memory in high volumes – it simply purchases the memory from Micron.

SK hynix and Intel will seek governmental approvals and hope to gain permission for the sale in late 2021. At that time, SK hynix will issue an initial $7 billion payment and gain Intel's NAND SSD-associated IP, SSD business, employees, and Dalian facility.

The second payment of $2 billion in March 2025 will grant SK hynix the remaining assets, including NAND manufacturing IP, R&D employees, and the remainder of the Dalian workforce. At that point, Intel will stop manufacturing wafers at the Dalian plant.

Also at AnandTech, CNN, and Wccftech.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Spacecraft design could get to Titan in only 2 years using a direct fusion drive:

The concept fusion drive, called a direct fusion drive (or DFD), is in development at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). Scientists and Engineers there, led by Dr. Samuel Cohen, are currently working on the second iteration of it, known as the Princeton field reversed configuration-2 (PFRC-2). Eventually, the system's developers hope to launch it into space to test, and eventually become the primary drive system of spacecraft traveling throughout the solar system.

There's already one particularly interesting target in the outer solar system that is similar to Earth in many ways—Titan. Its liquid cycles and potential to harbor life have fascinated scientists since they first started collecting data on it. And if we properly used the DFD, we could send a probe there in a little under two years, according to research done by a team of aerospace engineers at the Physics Department of the New York City College of Technology, led by Professor Roman Kezerashvili and joined by two fellows from the Politecnico di Torino in Italy—Paolo Aime and Marco Gajeri.

[...] Cassini, the last famous mission to visit the Saturnian system, used a series of gravity assists between Venus and Earth to reach its destination, a journey which took almost seven years. One important thing to note, says Marco Gajeri, the paper's corresponding author, is that the window that makes these short-trip durations the most efficient opens up around 2046. While not quite 30 years from now, it does give the team at PPPL a lot more time to improve upon their current design.

More information:
Trajectory design for a Titan mission using the Direct Fusion Drive: webthesis.biblio.polito.it/15184/1/tesi.pdf

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

U.S. Army seeks a new light tank for quickly deployed force:

According to a recent service statement, the Army will begin independent operational testing and evaluation of two light tank prototypes developed by the General Dynamics and BAE Systems under the Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) program in January 2021 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The MPF program is the first under the Army Futures Command Cross-Functional Team for Next Generation Combat Vehicle that fills a critical capability gap.

[...] The 'light tanks' would help infantry Soldiers blast through obstacles, take out machine-gun nests and defend against other armored vehicles.

At least two of them would need to fit on a C-17 cargo aircraft[*], and each vehicle would weigh less than 40 tons, much lighter than an M1 Abrams tank that can weigh 60 tons or more.

[*] Boeing C-17 Globemaster III.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Action-Packed Footage Shows Royal Navy Using Iron Man-Style Jet Suits to Practice Storming Vessels:

The UK's Royal Navy has been seen practising storming potential enemy vessels with the use of real-life Iron Man-style jet suits.

With a flight time of eight minutes, the suits give the wearer the ability to fly using five mini jet engines, with four strapped to his hands and one on his back.

The jets are said to be able to reach a speed capacity of 55 mph (88.51 kph). They are also able to generate a stunning brake horsepower of 1000bhp.

#FunFactFriday - The Royal Navy has been testing Jet Suit assault teams to determine if the Iron Man-like suits could be used to rapidly swarm and board ships. U.S. Special Operations Command is also evaluating a jetpack that can reach speeds of more than 200 mph. pic.twitter.com/mo5FoGWkDu

— U.S. Naval Institute (@NavalInstitute) October 16, 2020

​The action-packed footage was widely shared on the Twitter page of the US Naval Institute, showing one man clad in the suit flying through the air from a sea vessel and successfully landing on a ship, only to return back to the vessel he took off from.

Another video shows four men in jet suits "levitating" effortlessly towards a vessel, as they soar through the sky, and shaking hands to congratulate each other after accomplishing the feat.

[...] The Institute added that US Special Operations Command was currently evaluating a jet pack that could potentially "reach speeds of more than 200 mph".

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2020/10/nikola-ceo-downplays-badger-truck-as-gm-negotiations-drag-on/

Nikola CEO Mark Russell downplayed the company's Badger pickup truck in comments to the Financial Times on Thursday.

"The Badger was an interesting and exciting project to some shareholders, but our institutional shareholders are mostly focused on the business plan," Russell said. "Our core business plan since before we became publicly listed always focused on heavy trucks and hydrogen infrastructure."

Russell's comments were published after markets closed on Thursday. Nikola's stock price plunged on Friday morning and is currently down about 14 percent for the day.

Previously:
Nikola's Deal With GM Was Supposed to Close Today—It Didn't
Nikola Founder Bought Truck Designs From Third Party

As recently as September 8, 2020 the stock was trading at $50.50

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/if-recycling-plastics-isnt-making-sense-remake-the-plastics/

A few years back, it looked like plastic recycling was set to become a key part of a sustainable future. Then, the price of fossil fuels plunged, making it cheaper to manufacture new plastics. Then China essentially stopped importing recycled plastics for use in manufacturing. With that, the bottom dropped out of plastic recycling, and the best thing you could say for most plastics is that they sequestered the carbon they were made of.

[...] The first paper, done by an international collaboration, actually obtained the plastics it tested from a supermarket chain, so we know it works on relevant materials. The upcycling it describes also has the advantage of working with very cheap, iron-based catalysts.

[...] Compared to traditional heating, the microwave heating released over 10 times as much hydrogen from the plastic, leaving very little other than pure carbon and some iron carbide behind. Better yet, the carbon was almost entirely in the form of carbon nanotubes, a product with significant value.

[...] The utility of this is that, by adjusting the average length of the population that comes out of the reaction, it's possible to produce mixtures of hydrocarbons that will work better as fuel, or as lubricants. In other words, you can turn polyethylene into whatever type of hydrocarbon mixture that's most valuable at the time.

Overall, however, there are more significant drawbacks here. Platinum, used in the catalyst, is quite expensive, and it only works on a single type of plastic—although other catalysts might be amenable to being placed at the end of pores. The reactions have to be run at an elevated temperature, and it requires a supply of hydrogen to work. So, it's substantially less flexible than the one run by microwaved iron. But the ability to turn any plastics into liquid fuel certainly has potential utility.

Journal References:
(1) Xiangyu Jie, Weisong Li, Daniel Slocombe, et al. Microwave-initiated catalytic deconstruction of plastic waste into hydrogen and high-value carbons, Nature Catalysis (DOI: 10.1038/s41929-020-00518-5)
(2) Akalanka Tennakoon, Xun Wu, Alexander L. Paterson, et al. Catalytic upcycling of high-density polyethylene via a processive mechanism, Nature Catalysis (DOI: 10.1038/s41929-020-00519-4)

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takyon writes:

Raspberry Pi Trading has launched the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 and Compute Module 4 Lite, which integrate the Broadcom BCM2711 SoC of the Raspberry Pi 4 into a new form factor:

Compute Module 4 introduces a brand new form factor, and a compatibility break with earlier Compute Modules. Where previous modules adopted the JEDEC DDR2 SODIMM mechanical standard, with I/O signals on an edge connector, we now bring I/O signals to two high-density perpendicular connectors (one for power and low-speed interfaces, and one for high-speed interfaces).

This significantly reduces the overall footprint of the module on its carrier board, letting you achieve smaller form factors for your products.

The Compute Module 4 IO Board is $35, and it includes a PCIe 2.0 x1 connector in lieu of the two USB 3.0 ports included on the standard RPi 4B.

Prices for the modules range from $25 to $90 based on the choice of 1/2/4/8 GB of RAM, 8/16/32 GB of on-board eMMC flash storage (or no eMMC in the "CM4Lite" modules), and inclusion of wireless functionality. An external antenna kit is also being sold.

Also at CNX Software, Hackaday, and Tom's Hardware.

See also: Gumstix Introduces CM4 to CM3 Adapter, Carrier Boards for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for guy_:

San Diego Zoo scientists revive cells from 40-year deep-freeze to clone endangered Przewalski's horse:

Kurt looks and acts like any other young horse. He scampers and strides on springy legs, testing their strength. When it's time to recharge, he nuzzles up to his mother for some nourishing milk.

But Kurt is no ordinary horse. Kurt is a clone.

The 2-month-old colt is a Przewalski's horse[*], a species native to central Asia that once went extinct in the wild and is still critically endangered, with only about 2,000 remaining.

San Diego Zoo Global researchers have high hopes that Kurt can help turn things around for his species. He was cloned from skin cells taken from a stallion in 1980 and safeguarded at the Frozen Zoo, San Diego Zoo Global's vast repository of 10,000 cell lines from more than 1,100 species and subspecies.

"By 'bringing cells to life,' if you will, making an animal out of a cell, we can bring back a portion of the gene pool that would otherwise be lost," said Oliver Ryder, director of genetics at San Diego Zoo Global.

It's the first time anyone has successfully cloned a Przewalski's horse, which is only the third species San Diego Zoo Global has ever cloned — joining the gaur and banteng, two endangered cattle species cloned in the early 2000s.

[...] Every Przewalski's horse alive is related to 12 wild ancestors. That doesn't bode well for any species, as it takes genetic diversity to adapt to habitat changes and fight off new diseases.

[*] Przewalski's horse.

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Microsoft Takes Down a Risk to the Election, and Finds the U.S. Doing the Same

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Microsoft takes down a risk to the election, and finds the U.S. doing the same:

Microsoft and a team of companies and law enforcement groups have disabled — at least temporarily — one of the world's largest hacking operations, an effort run by Russian-speaking cybercriminals that officials feared could disrupt the presidential election in three weeks.

But as soon as Microsoft began dismantling the operations last week, seeking to cripple a network of infected computers known as TrickBot that has been used to paralyze computer systems with ransomware attacks, it discovered that someone else was trying to do the same thing.

In a separate but parallel effort — which was apparently not coordinated with Microsoft — U.S. Cyber Command, the military cousin to the National Security Agency, had already started hacking TrickBot's command and control servers around the world late last month, according to two government officials.

Microsoft and Partners Cut Off Key Trickbot Botnet Infrastructure - Help Net Security

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Microsoft and partners cut off key Trickbot botnet infrastructure - Help Net Security:

Two weeks after someone (allegedly the US Cyber Command) temporarily interrupted the operation of the infamous Trickbot botnet, a coalition of tech companies headed by Microsoft has struck a serious blow against its operators.

"We disrupted Trickbot through a court order we obtained as well as technical action we executed in partnership with telecommunications providers around the world. We have now cut off key infrastructure so those operating Trickbot will no longer be able to initiate new infections or activate ransomware already dropped into computer systems," sharedTom Burt, corporate VP, Customer Security and Trust, Microsoft.

[...] "While our work might not remove the threat posed by TrickBot, it will raise the cost of doing business for the criminal gang behind the botnet because they will be forced to divert resources away from exploitation activities in order to rebuild the parts of their infrastructure that we disrupted," the Black Lotus Labs team noted.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

Windows 10 is Installing Office Web Apps Without Asking Permission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Windows 10 is installing Office web apps without asking permission:

Mandatory Windows 10 updates aren't new, but the latest example is raising a few hackles. ZDNet, The Verge and users are reporting that Windows 10 is force-restarting PCs to install links to Office web apps that launch in Edge, including in the Start menu. And despite initial reports, this isn't limited to Insider members — people using standard Windows 10 releases have seen the change as well.

The apps take up no storage or other resources. Until now, though, installing Office web apps was optional. Windows isn't asking for your permission, let alone informing you of what's about to happen. Microsoft is potentially disrupting work or other important tasks to promote its online productivity suite.

We've asked Microsoft for comment.

Microsoft Just Force Restarted My Windows PC Again to Install More Unwanted Apps

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Microsoft just force restarted my Windows PC again to install more unwanted apps:

Windows 10 restarted my computer without permission yet again — to install unsolicited web app versions of Microsoft Office, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook on my computer.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for RandomFactor:

Smile!

3TB of clips from hacked home security cameras posted online:

As of 2019, there were over 770 million security cameras around the world, and when it comes to the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, in total, there are over 28 billion IoT devices currently connected to the Internet.

While security cameras play a vital role in remotely monitoring children, the elderly, and pets, etc., they are also a lucrative target for cybercriminals especially when a huge number of these devices are known to be vulnerable and exposed to public access.

Keeping that in mind; it has been reported that cybercriminals were able to hack thousands of home Internet Protocol (IP) cameras, record live footage, and upload them on explicit and x-rated websites.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

10,000-year-old footprints show journey of squirmy toddler and caregiver:

More than 10,000 years ago on the playa of what is now New Mexico, a woman on a journey set down the toddler she was carrying on her hip, readjusted, then picked up the child and set off again.

[...] During the journey, the adult — probably a woman, though possibly an adolescent male — came in close proximity to a giant sloth and a woolly mammoth, the trackway reveals.

[...] "It's giving us these amazing snapshots in time," said Sally Reynolds, a paleontologist at Bournemouth University in the U.K. and the senior author of a new paper on the tracks published online ahead of its print publication in the December issue of the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

[...] Excavations revealed fossilized footprints just below the loose white gypsum sand. These tracks were originally made on wet ground. As the water evaporated, it left behind the minerals dolomite and calcite, which created rocky molds of the footprints.

The tracks run north/northwest in a straight line in one direction before disappearing into the dunes. Next to them are the remains of the return south/southwest return journey, which appears to have been made by the same person, judging by the size of the footprints and the stride length.

Along the way, the adult tracks are sometimes accompanied by the footprints of a child under 3 years old. Northbound, the adult tracks are a little asymmetrical, evocative of a woman holding a child on one hip. At times, the child's footprints appear, perhaps during rest breaks when the adult put the squirmy toddler down. There are no child footprints on the return southbound journey, suggesting that perhaps the trip was taken in order to drop off the child somewhere.

Journal Reference:
Matthew R. Bennett, David Bustos, Daniel Odess, et al. Walking in mud: Remarkable Pleistocene human trackways from White Sands National Park (New Mexico), Quaternary Science Reviews (DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106610)

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Proprietary Grapes Come With Draconian End User License Agreement

"The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of this produce, including 'but not limited to' seeds, stems, tissue, and fruit."

[...] A company put an end user license agreement (EULA) on a bag of grapes: "The recipient of the produce contained in this package agrees not to propagate or reproduce any portion of this produce, including 'but not limited to' seeds, stems, tissue, and fruit," read the EULA

[...] This kind of warning against reproduction is something we're used to with digital products like video games, but is jarring to see spread to the world of consumer produce.

[...] In the broader world of agriculture, however, there's actually quite a lot of precedent for this. And patented seeds with specific restrictions is a constant sore point for farmers. Agriculture giant Monsanto has patented a whole host of proprietary seeds that are weed- and insect-resistant, and threatens to sue farmers who harvest and replant them from year-to-year. In fact, the Supreme Court has already ruled on this.

[...] The grape situation is a little bit different. With Monsanto's seeds, farmers are purchasing them directly from the manufacturer (or a licensed seller). With Cotton Candy grapes, an end-user (uhh, grape eater) did not plant or grow the seeds and is merely purchasing the fruit at the store. They are not purchasing the grapes (and thus the seeds) directly from the manufacturer or the farmer who grew them, they are buying it from a grocery store. The seeds have thus been re-sold several times.

Red Grapes? Or Green Grapes? Not unlike the color choices of Soylent.
_{See Also, patenting recipies: [1], [2]}

Original Submission