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takyon writes:

Silicon Motion Launches PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD Controllers

Silicon Motion has announced the official launch of their first generation of PCIe 4.0-capable NVMe SSD controllers. These controllers have been on the roadmap for quite a while and have been previewed at trade shows, but the first models are now shipping. The high-end SM2264 and mainstream SM2267/SM2267XT controllers will enable consumer SSDs that move beyond the performance limits of the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface that has been the standard for almost all previous consumer NVMe SSDs.

The high-end SM2264 controller is the successor to Silicon Motion's SM2262(EN) controllers, and the SM2264 brings the most significant changes that add up to a doubling of performance. The SM2264 still uses 8 NAND channels, but now supporting double the speed: up to 1600MT/s. The controller includes four ARM Cortex R8 cores, compared to two cores on SMI's previous client/consumer NVMe controllers. As with most SSD controllers aiming for the high end PCIe 4.0 product segment, the SM2264 is fabbed on a smaller node: TSMC's 12nm FinFET process, which allows for substantially better power efficiency than the 28nm planar process used by the preceding generation of SSD controllers. The SM2264 also includes support for some enterprise-oriented features like SR-IOV virtualization, though we probably won't see that enabled on consumer SSD products. The SM2264 also includes the latest generation of Silicon Motion's NANDXtend ECC system, which switches from a 2kb to 4kB codeword size for the LDPC error correction.

Also at Guru3D.

Related: Silicon Motion Controller to Enable High Speed, Low Cost Portable USB SSDs

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for aristarchus:

First NASA Osiris-Rex images show incredible touchdown on asteroid Bennu:

NASA's asteroid-chaser, Osiris-Rex, completed a brief and historic landing on the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu, over 200 million miles away on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the space agency revealed the first batch of images from the daring operation, revealing a delicate-yet-explosive moment between rock and robot.

Osiris-Rex traveled all that way to perform a short touch-and-go maneuver. Its major goal is to collect a sample from the asteroid's surface and transport it back to Earth for study.

On Tuesday, NASA TV reported the spacecraft's robotic sampling arm, named Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (Tagsam), did touch down on Bennu for about 15 seconds. During the brief contact, it performed what amounts to a cosmic pickpocketing maneuver.

[...] The spacecraft, which operates largely autonomously due to the 18-minute communications delay with mission control on Earth, fired a canister of gas through Tagsam that disrupted the surface of Bennu and should have enabled a sample to make its way up into the arm's collector head.

[...] Around 24 hours after the operation, NASA shared the first images of the touchdown operation captured by the spacecraft. The Tagsam moves into position and its sampling head makes contact with Bennu's surface before the explosive burst of nitrogen is fired. The operation kicks up a ton of debris, which flies around the acquisition arm. It's really something!

The sample collection took longer than it seemed to take in the video.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

PayPal to add cryptocurrency buying, selling and shopping to its platform:

PayPal users looking for an alternative way to stash their cash will soon be able to convert so-called "fiat" money, like US dollars and British pounds, back and forth into blockchain-based cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin. The company announced in a blog post on Wednesday that people will be able to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrency directly from their PayPal accounts. The new service will be rolling out to the US "in the coming weeks," PayPal said, with plans to expand to the company's Venmo service as well as international markets in early 2021.

PayPal also said it's working on making crypto available as a funding source for purchases made at its 26 million merchants worldwide. The company expects this to be available on the platform beginning in early 2021.

[Full disclosure: SoylentNews accepts PayPal as one of its payment processor for site subscriptions. Maybe someday we'll be able to accept your cryptocurrency as payment, as long as it is transmitted to SoylentNews as US dollars.]

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takyon writes:

Quibi is dead, reports say

Plagued with growth issues, Quibi, a short-form mobile-native video platform, is shutting down, according to multiple reports. The startup, co-founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, had raised nearly $2 billion in its lifetime as a private company. Quibi did not respond to requests for comment from TechCrunch.

The company's prolific fundraising efforts spanned prominent institutions in private equity, venture capital and Hollywood, all betting on Katzenberg's ability to deliver another hit. The startup's backers included Alibaba, Madrone Capital Partners, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, as well as Disney, Sony Pictures, Viacom, WarnerMedia and MGM, among others. The Information reports that Quibi will have $350 million left to return to shareholders.

Their pitch was highly produced bite-sized content, packed with Hollywood star power, and designed to be "mobile-first" entertainment. For the YouTubes and Snaps of the world, producing mainstream content on a shoestring budget, Quibi wanted to be an HBO for smartphones. Investors and pundits questioned the firm's ability to monetize this vision, and it became clear soon after launch that the company had miscalculated.

[...] Admitting that the launch hadn't gone as planned, Katzenberg blamed the coronavirus for the streaming app's challenges.

One problem with finding a buyer: Quibi doesn't even own most of its original "content":

Actually, Quibi doesn't own any of the big-budget premium content for which it has shelled out upwards of $100,000 per minute. The company has seven-year licenses on its short-form series; after two years, content owners have the right to assemble the shows and distribute them elsewhere.

An open letter to the employees, investors, and partners who believed in Quibi and made this business possible —

Also at The Verge, Business Insider, Ars Technica, and MarketWatch.

Previously: Meg Whitman-Run Streaming Service "Quibi" Launches, Reception Mixed
The Fall of Quibi: How Did a Starry $1.75bn Netflix Rival Crash So Fast?

Related: Fox Could Buy Tubi While NBCUniversal Eyes Vudu

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We had two Soylentils write in to tell us of promising research breakthroughs pertaining to neuropilin-1 and its part in COVID-19.

Neuropilin-1 drives SARS-CoV-2 infectivity, finds breakthrough study

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

Neuropilin-1 drives SARS-CoV-2 infectivity, finds breakthrough study:

In a major breakthrough an international team of scientists, [...] discovered [an] interaction between virus and host, demonstrating a potential anti-viral treatment.

Unlike other coronavirus, which cause common colds and mild respiratory symptoms, SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, is highly infective and transmissive. Until now, major questions have remained unanswered as to why SARS-CoV-2 readily infects organs outside of the respiratory system, such as the brain and heart.

[...] In this breakthrough study, the [researchers] used multiple approaches to discover that SARS-CoV-2 recognises a protein called neuropilin-1 on the surface of human cells to facilitate viral infection.

Journal Reference:
James L. Daly, Boris Simonetti, Katja Klein, et al. Neuropilin-1 is a host factor for SARS-CoV-2 infection [open], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abd3072)

Study Suggests Blocking NRP1 Receptors Could Help Treat SARS-CoV-2

"Barry" writes:

Like its predecessor, SARS-CoV-2 enters human cells through ACE2 receptors. ACE2 is typically expressed only at low levels on most cells, meaning that a virus might have difficulty finding ACE2 receptors to bind to. A recent study from the University of Helsinki found that SARS-CoV-2 contains a protein found not present in the 2003 SARS-CoV virus but that is found in HIV, Ebola, and highly infectious strains of avian influenza. This second protein binds to neuropilin-1 receptors and this may help the SARS-CoV-2 virus locate ACE2 receptors on the surface of cells. The importance of neuropilin-1 was tested by blocking this receptor, which reduced the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells. While there are potential side effects associated with blocking neuropilin-1, this result suggests that blocking the neuropilin-1 receptor could be useful for treating SARS-CoV-2 infections. A manuscript describing this work has been accepted for publication in Science.

Journal Reference:
Ludovico Cantuti-Castelvetri, Ravi Ojha, Liliana D. Pedro, et al. Neuropilin-1 facilitates SARS-CoV-2 cell entry and infectivity [open], Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.abd2985)

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://torrentfreak.com/cloudflare-counters-mass-piracy-allegations-in-thothub-lawsuit-201019/

Cloudflare has denied that it's part of a RICO copyright infringement conspiracy. The CDN provider responded to the allegations from Texas-based model Deniece Waidhofer, who sued Cloudflare, Thothub and several advertisers. While Thothub has vanished, the lawsuit isn't going away just yet.

[...] In the US, the company is also involved in various copyright infringement lawsuits. One of the most prominent was filed this summer by Deniece Waidhofer, a Texas-based model with millions of followers, who sells sexy pictures of herself online.

[...] Unhappy with the state of play, Waidhofer took Thothub to court. In a complaint filed at a federal court in California, she accused the site's alleged operator – who goes by the name "Captain Thotcakes" – and the site's members of direct copyright infringement.

The claims also apply to several advertisers and Cloudflare, the CDN provider used by the site. Together, these parties are also charged with other claims, including violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

[...] In a 34-page filing, Cloudflare refutes the allegations. It asks the court to dismiss all claims, describing the lawsuit as a "frivolous" attempt to hold an innocent third-party intermediary liable.

[...] According to the CDN provider, the copyright infringement allegations can't be backed up. For example, there is insufficient evidence to show that it purposefully contributed to any infringing activity.

The RICO conspiracy claim fails as well, Cloudflare argues. This requires proof that the companies involved caused Waidhofer harm and that there is a close, direct, and causal connection with Cloudflare's business activities.

RICO is no joke.

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Voyager Spacecraft Detect an Increase in The Density of Space Outside The Solar System:

In November 2018, after an epic, 41-year voyage, Voyager 2 finally crossed the boundary that marked the limit of the Sun's influence and entered interstellar space. But the little probe's mission isn't done yet - it's now sending home information about the space beyond the Solar System.

And it's revealing something surprising. As Voyager 2 moves farther and farther from the Sun, the density of space is increasing.

It's not the first time this density increase has been detected. Voyager 1, which entered interstellar space in 2012, detected a similar density gradient at a separate location.

Voyager 2's new data show that not only was Voyager 1's detection legit, but that the increase in density may be a large-scale feature of the very local interstellar medium (VLIM).

[...] One theory is that the interstellar magnetic field lines become stronger as they drape over the heliopause. This could generate an electromagnetic ion cyclotron instability that depletes the plasma from the draping region. Voyager 2 did detect a stronger magnetic field than expected when it crossed the heliopause.

Another theory is that material blown by the interstellar wind should slow as it reaches the heliopause, causing a sort of traffic jam. This has possibly been detected by outer Solar System probe New Horizons, which in 2018 picked up the faint ultraviolet glow resulting from a buildup of neutral hydrogen at the heliopause.

It's also possible that both explanations play a role. Future measurements taken by both Voyager probes as they continue their journey out into interstellar space could help figure it out. But that might be a long bet to take.

"It is not certain," the researchers wrote in their paper, "whether the Voyagers will be able to operate far enough to distinguish between these two classes of models."

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canopic jug writes:

LinuxLinks has looked at 15 distros that were popular back in 2006 and looks at where they are now in 2020. These were the ones ranked in the top 15 back then by DistroWatch. The only ones still in the top 15 are Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE. Some others like CentOS, Slackware, and Gentoo are still active and have strong communities but no longer listed as high in DistroWatch's somewhat arbitrary¹ ranking. Others, like several Ubuntu-based distros occupy the rest of the 2020 top 15.

Back in 2006, Distrowatch ranked the following distributions in terms of page hit ranking¹. The top ranked distro was Ubuntu. The other places were taken by openSUSE, Fedora, MEPIS, Mandriva, Damn Small, Debian, PCLinuxOS, Slackware, Gentoo, KNOPPIX, FreeBSD, Kubuntu, VectorLinux, and CentOS.

It's interesting to see how these distributions fared over the past 14 years? Are they still going strong, are they outclassed by other distributions, or are they only remembered like fingerprints on an abandoned handrail?

[...] ¹It's important to remember that the page hit ranking has never been an indicator of the popularity of a specific distribution. For a start, it's easy for malicious users to manipulate Distrowatch's page hit ranking. Just as important it cannot possibly reflect the usage of any distribution for many reasons.

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OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma to Plead Guilty to Three Criminal Charges

Runaway1956 writes:

OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma to plead guilty to 3 criminal charges as part of an $8 billion-plus settlement

WASHINGTON (AP) — Purdue Pharma, the company that makes OxyContin, the powerful prescription painkiller that experts say helped touch off an epidemic, will plead guilty to three federal criminal charges as part of a settlement of more than $8 billion, Justice Department officials told The Associated Press.

The company will plead guilty to a criminal information being filed Wednesday in federal court in New Jersey to three counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and violating federal anti-kickback laws, the officials said.

The deal does not release any of the company's executives or owners — members of the wealthy Sackler family — from criminal liability. A criminal investigation is ongoing.

The officials were not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Also at: Business Insider, CBS News, and ABC News.

Guilty pleas? You seldom see that - these corporates always seem to get away with weasel word statements to the effect, "We acknowledge no wrongdoing blah blah blah . . . "

Purdue Pharma Pleads Guilty to Opioid Crisis Charges, Will Become a Public Benefit Corporation

takyon writes:

OxyContin maker to plead guilty to federal criminal charges, pay $8 billion, and will close the company

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has agreed to plead guilty to three federal criminal charges for its role in creating the nation's opioid crisis and will pay more than $8 billion and close down the company.

The money will go to opioid treatment and abatement programs. The privately held company has agreed to pay a $3.5 billion fine as well as forfeit an additional $2 billion in past profits, in addition to the $2.8 billion it agreed to pay in civil liability.
"Purdue Pharma actively thwarted the United States' efforts to ensure compliance and prevent diversion," said Drug Enforcement Administration Assistant Administrator Tim McDermott. "The devastating ripple effect of Purdue's actions left lives lost and others addicted."

The company doesn't have $8 billion in cash available to pay the fines. So Purdue will be dissolved as part of the settlement, and its assets will be used to create a new "public benefit company" controlled by a trust or similar entity designed for the benefit of the American public. The Justice Department said it will function entirely in the public interest rather than to maximize profits. Its future earnings will go to paying the fines and penalties, which in turn will be used to combat the opioid crisis.

That new company will continue to produce painkillers such as OxyContin, as well as drugs to deal with opioid overdose. Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who announced the settlement, defended the plans for the new company to continue to sell that drug, saying there are legitimate uses for painkillers such as OxyContin.

Also at The New York Times, Bloomberg, NBC, and CBS.

Previously:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

City of Everett, Washington Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma
South Carolina Sues OxyContin Maker Purdue
Purdue Pharma to Cut Sales Force, Stop Marketing Opioids to Doctors
Colorado Attorney General Sues Purdue Pharma
OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma May File for Bankruptcy to Disrupt Lawsuits
After Pushing Addictive OxyContin, Purdue Now Pursuing Overdose Antidote
Purdue Pharma to Pay $270 Million Settlement to Oklahoma
Report Finds that Purdue Pharma Infiltrated WHO, Manipulated Opioid Policies to Boost Sales
Opioid Talks Fail, Purdue Bankruptcy Filing Expected
Makers of OxiCotin, Purdue Pharma, Files Reorganization Chapter 11 "Bankrupty"
Sacklers Threaten to Scrap Opioid Deal If They Aren't Shielded From Lawsuits
Report: Sacklers Using Fake Doctors, False Marketing to Sell OxyContin in China
OxyContin Maker Purdue Pharma LP Said to be Brokering Plea Deal in Criminal Probe

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

Researchers provide most detailed and complete record yet of Earth's last magnetic reversal:

Earth's magnetic fields typically switch every 200 to 300 millennia. Yet, the planet has remained steady for more than twice that now, with the last magnetic reversal occurring about 773,000 years ago. A team of researchers based in Japan now has a better understanding of the geophysical events leading up to the switch and how Earth has responded since then.

The researchers published their results [...] in the Progress in Earth and Planetary Science journal.

[...] Such reversals swap the magnetic poles of the planet, which could have implications for plant and animal life. Such extrapolation to life, including humans and our ancestors, depends on the duration of the magnetic flip.

[...] Previous studies by other researchers examined samples taken from lava flows, which offer a good snapshot of moments in geophysical history, according to Haneda.

"However, lava sequences cannot provide continuous paleomagnetic records due to the nature of sporadic eruptions," Haneda said.

Journal Reference:
Yuki Haneda, Makoto Okada, Yusuke Suganuma, et al. A full sequence of the Matuyama–Brunhes geomagnetic reversal in the Chiba composite section, Central Japan [open], Progress in Earth and Planetary Science (DOI: 10.1186/s40645-020-00354-y)

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AnonTechie writes:

25 moments in tech:

Sometimes, it's obvious from the get-go that a moment in tech history is . . . well, historic. Other times, it's clear only in the fullness of time. Yet another type of historic moment flies largely under the radar, shaping our lives more than most people ever realize.

As Fast Company celebrates our 25th anniversary, we've compiled a list of 25 moments that have defined the tech industry since our first issue hit the stands with a cover date of November 1995. (These calls are tough to make, so we also picked 10 runners-up.) For better or worse—and sometimes both at the same time—these events have had lasting impact. If there's some alternate universe where they never happened, it's a different place indeed.

An interesting perspective of the changing world of technology for the past 25 years through the eyes of Fast Company ... Many in our community may have different views on the choice of technology! What would be on your list?

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takyon writes:

SpaceX Starlink partners with Microsoft Azure to deploy cloud computing anywhere:

Microsoft Azure has announced a partnership with SpaceX that will give customers the ability to both access and deploy cloud computing capabilities anywhere on Earth with the help of Starlink internet.

[...] To better exploit the benefits offered by the kind of blanket connectivity Starlink may soon offer, Microsoft has developed its own Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC), essentially a data center built into a mobile, satellite-connected shipping container. Customers can choose to either use the MDC as a wholly independent datacenter or connect it to one or more satellite constellations, Starlink included. With what a SpaceX executive recently described as dual parabolic antennas, an MDC could likely have access to gigabit-class internet connectivity with latency comparable to fiber anywhere on Earth.

According to Microsoft, possible scenarios where an MDC would be valuable include "mobile command centers, humanitarian assistance, military mission needs, mineral exploration, and other use cases requiring high intensity, secure computing." Several Azure Mobile Datacenters have already been deployed and are being trialed by private sector companies and the US military.

Likely less than coincidental, Microsoft Azure's Starlink partnership comes around the same time as Amazon has begun to peel back the curtains on Project Kuiper, a low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite internet constellation almost indistinguishable from Starlink. Lead and largely staffed by former Starlink executives and employees, Project Kuiper aims to deploy a constellation of ~3200 small, interlinked communications satellites – a goal Amazon has pledged at least $10 billion to achieve.

Also at Ars Technica and The Register.

See also: SpaceX teams with Microsoft for Space Development Agency contract

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upstart writes in with an IRC submission:

A Billion Tiny Pendulums Could Detect the Universe's Missing Mass:

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and their colleagues have proposed a novel method for finding dark matter, the cosmos's mystery material that has eluded detection for decades. Dark matter makes up about 27% of the universe; ordinary matter, such as the stuff that builds stars and planets, accounts for just 5% of the cosmos. (A mysterious entity called dark energy, accounts for the other 68%.)

According to cosmologists, all the visible material in the universe is merely floating in a vast sea of dark matter — particles that are invisible but nonetheless have mass and exert a gravitational force. Dark matter's gravity would provide the missing glue that keeps galaxies from falling apart and account for how matter clumped together to form the universe's rich galactic tapestry.

The proposed experiment, in which a billion millimeter-sized pendulums would act as dark matter sensors, would be the first to hunt for dark matter solely through its gravitational interaction with visible matter. The experiment would be one of the few to search for dark matter particles with a mass as great as that of a grain of salt, a scale rarely explored and never studied by sensors capable of recording tiny gravitational forces.

[...] "Our proposal relies purely on the gravitational coupling, the only coupling we know for sure that exists between dark matter and ordinary luminous matter," said study co-author Daniel Carney, a theoretical physicist jointly affiliated with NIST, the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) and the Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (QuICS) at the University of Maryland in College Park, and the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

[...] Because the only unknown in the experiment is the mass of the dark matter particle, not how it couples to ordinary matter, "if someone builds the experiment we suggest, they either find dark matter or rule out all dark matter candidates over a wide range of possible masses," said Carney. The experiment would be sensitive to particles ranging from about 1/5,000 of a milligram to a few milligrams. That mass scale is particularly interesting because it covers the so-called Planck mass, a quantity of mass determined solely by three fundamental constants of nature and equivalent to about 1/5,000 of a gram.

Journal Reference:
Daniel Carney, Sohitri Ghosh, Gordan Krnjaic, et al. Proposal for gravitational direct detection of dark matter [open], Physical Review D (DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.102.072003)

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

The Pirate Bay blocked in the Netherlands (but you can still access it):

It's that time of the year: Dutch internet service providers have once again been forced to block access to notorious torrenting portal The Pirate Bay. But don't worry, it's unlikely that'll stop you from using it.

A new verdict requires local internet providers Ziggo, KPN, and XS4ALL to block users from accessing the torrent site along with any proxies and mirrors, TorrentFreak reports.

If the story sounds familiar, that's because it's not the first time it's happened. The verdict essentially dates back to a 10-year legal battle between ISPs and anti-piracy group BREIN.

[...] In fact, the Netherlands is hardly the only country where the torrent platform is blocked. Still, users have been able to circumvent restrictions by using VPNs and freshly updated proxy sites for years. While the new ruling is certainly a thorn in ISPs' sides, it's not likely to change much in the grand scheme of things.

Instead, it merely prolongs an already stretched out and played out game of cat and mouse. It just sucks it's not BREIN that's footing the bill.

Original Submission

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for nutherguy:

U.S. Lawmaker, Citing Snowden, Seeks Probe Into NSA Targeting of Congressional, Supreme Court Emails:

The acting intelligence community inspector general, Thomas Monheim, has been asked to investigate claims that Edward Snowden, while working as a contractor for the National Security Agency, was able to search a classified database for the private emails of a senior member of Congress.

Rep. Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, requested the investigation based on statements attributed to Snowden in a book by former Washington Post reporter Barton Gellman released in May. Eshoo says that NSA Director Paul Nakasone dodged questions last month when asked whether NSA analysts have used a powerful surveillance tool to retrieve emails belonging to members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.

What's more, Nakasone did not address whether any technical safeguards exist to prevent analysts from accessing the emails of justices and officials without express legal permission.

Original Submission