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Snotnose writes:

This is a press release but 28 Ghz boggles my brain. When I started in this field 40+ years ago 10 Mhz was hard to do.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) and NEC Corporation jointly develop a 28-GHz phased-array transceiver that supports efficient and reliable 5G communications. The proposed transceiver outperforms previous designs in various regards by adapting fast beam switching and leakage cancellation mechanism.

With the recent emergence of innovative technologies, such as the Internet of Things, smart cities, autonomous vehicles, and smart mobility, our world is on the brink of a new age. This stimulates the use of millimeter-wave bands, which have far more signal bandwidth, to accommodate these new ideas. 5G can offer data rates over 10 Gbit/s through the use of these millimeter-waves and multiple-in-multiple-out (MIMO) technology--a technology that employs multiple transmitters and receivers to transfer more data at the same time.

With phased array beamforming it seems they no longer need to track your phone. All they need to do is see where the beam points.

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upstart writes:

Mouse sperm on the ISS survives for almost six years, produces healthy space pups:

The most well-travelled mouse sperm in history left the Earth in 2013 on a return journey to the International Space Station (ISS). After spending almost six years on the station, the freeze-dried sperm were returned to Earth in a SpaceX cargo capsule in 2019 and used to breed litters of healthy "space pups."

The study, published in the journal Science Advances on Friday, details the space sperm experiments, which were conducted by a team of Japanese researchers aiming to understand the long term effects of space radiation on mammalian sperm. The freeze-dried sperm were sent to the ISS and spent nearly six years on the orbital laboratory, which zips around the Earth at a distance of around 250 miles.

[...] What did the researchers do? The researchers collected sperm from male mice and placed them in ampules -- small glass vials -- before freeze-drying them to remove all the water. They stored the freeze-dried (FD) sperm on both the International Space Station and, in parallel, in freezers on Earth. Some sperm were returned after nine months on the ISS, to test everything was working as planned, but two other groups of samples spent 1010 and 2129 days on the station.

upstart writes:

Microsoft prepares cloud gaming service for Japan launch:

TOKYO -- Microsoft is accelerating its push into cloud-based games with plans to bring next-generation gaming to Japan later this year, a sign that competition is heating up among long-established game makers and tech giants.

The U.S. company announced on Thursday that it will roll out cloud gaming in four countries, including Japan and Australia, through its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, a subscription service that allows gamers to download more than 100 games to their Xboxes or PCs, or play cloud-based games.

The service has been available in the U.S. and Europe since last year, and some test runs have taken place in Japan. Microsoft plans to work on the development of data centers in Japan as it gets ready to launch the full-scale service by the end of 2021.

[...] In Japan, Sony Group helped pioneer the sector, introducing a cloud gaming service in 2014. The entertainment conglomerate, which has tied up with Microsoft in the cloud gaming market, offers a subscription service called PlayStation Now from which users can stream games to their consoles or PCs. The service now has 3.2 million subscribers, up 78% from a year earlier.

[...] In another move toward creating a "Netflix for gaming business," Microsoft revealed that it is developing a dedicated device for cloud-based games that can be connected to a TV or display, as it bids to "reach gamers on any TV or monitor without the need for a console at all."

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martyb writes:

Three factors may predict first-year college students' loss of self-control, WVU study finds:

Joining a club that sparks a new interest, playing a new intramural sport or finding a new group of friends may be just as indicative of a college freshman's loss of self-control as drinking or drug use, according to new research at West Virginia University.

Self-control—the ability to exercise personal restraint, inhibit impulsivity and make purposeful decisions—in that first year partly depends on a student's willingness to try new things, including things adults would call "good."

That's a new finding, according to Kristin Moilanen, associate professor of child development and family studies. The study [...] observed 569 first year students ages 18-19 at five points over the course of the academic year. Participants completed the first wave of the study two weeks before arriving on campus and the other four over the course of the year.

The tendency to try new things is one of two indicators—the other is are[sic] maternal attachment—that may gauge which students would benefit from an intervention, the study found.

[...] A third factor, stress, is also likely to blame for college freshmen's loss of self-control, though this was not considered in the study.

"It's probably reflecting fluctuations in stress over the academic year," Moilanen said. "First year students don't have the most accurate representation for what to expect and then they get here and they find that it's fun, but they also find it's stressful."

Stressors, even small ones, Moilanen said, can be more disruptive to self-control than people realize.

Journal Reference:
Kristin L. Moilanen, Katy L. DeLong, Shantel K. Spears, et al. Predictors of initial status and change in self-control during the college transition, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology (DOI: 10.1016/j.appdev.2020.101235)

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Hoover Dam Reservoir is at an All-Time Low:

Much of the Western US faces drought, extreme heat, and fire risk

Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam, that feeds water to 25 million people across Western states, is historically low. On June 9th, the water level dipped to 1,071.57 feet above sea level, narrowly beating a record low last set in 2016.

The lake surface has dropped 140 feet since 2000, leaving the reservoir just 37 percent full. With such a dramatic drop, officials expect to declare an official water shortage for the first time ever. That could affect water and energy that Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam deliver to Arizona, California, and Nevada.

Check out this drought map of the US.

How are things in your area? What steps (if any) have been taken to help improve the situation?

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upstart writes:

India has more than 28,000 'black fungus' cases: Health Minister:

"From 28 states, we have some 28,252 cases of mucormycosis till now. Out of this, 86 percent, or 24,370 cases, have a history of COVID-19 and 62.3 percent, or 17,601, have a history of diabetes," [Health Minister Harsh] Vardhan said in a meeting with a group of federal ministers.

[...] Mucormycosis causes blackening or discolouration over the nose, blurred or double vision, chest pain, breathing difficulties and coughing of blood. Coronavirus patients with diabetes and a weakened immune system are particularly prone to attack.

[...] Health experts say India's poor air quality and excessive dust in cities, like Mumbai, make it easier for the fungi to thrive, terming the recent spike in cases a matter of "serious concern".

"We and most mainstream hospitals have seen more mucormycosis cases in the past month than in the previous five years," Dr Arvinder Soin, chairman of the Medanta Liver Transplant Institute at Gurugram, told Al Jazeera.

[...] Dr Sumit Mrig, who heads the ENT department at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital in New Delhi [said] they used to see one or two such cases in a week before the second wave of the pandemic. [...] at present, we are seeing five to six such patients on a daily basis," Mrig said.

[...] "Apart from the high mortality associated with disease which rapidly spreads from nose and sinuses to the eye and brain in a span of 24 to 48 hours, if treatment is not initiated on time, the patient can lose his eyesight. Once it involves the brain, the mortality is approximately 80 percent," Mrig added.

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looorg writes:

Google is going to stop hiding urls in Chrome. Apparently it didn't pan out the way they wanted it to. I guess they wanted to make it less complicated or less confusing for the users but it turned out to be a security issue?

Google Chrome will once again show a website's full URL:

Google has now punted and admitted the idea didn't work as it expected. "Deleted simplified domain experiment," wrote tech lead Emily Stark. "This experiment didn't move relevant security metrics, so we're not going to launch it."

The change is now live in Chrome 91, with only the "https://" hidden by default. However, it's easy to show that as well simply by right- or ctrl-clicking on the omnibox and selecting "always show full URLs," as Android Police pointed out.

Details in bug report update.

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/06/amazon-ebay-fight-legislation-that-would-unmask-third-party-sellers/

Amazon and a who's who of online-only retailers are trying to kill proposed federal and state legislation that would make the companies disclose contact information for third-party sellers.

The bills would force Amazon and others to verify the identities of third-party sellers and provide consumers with ways to contact the stores. The proposed legislation is pitting brick-and-mortar retailers—including Home Depot, Walgreens, and JC Penney, which support the bills—against online retailers like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Poshmark, and others, which argue that the legislation would harm small sellers.

The bills come as brick-and-mortar retailers lost ground to online retailers throughout the pandemic—in 2020, 20 percent of consumer retail purchases were made online, compared with about 14 percent in 2019. But the legislation is also being proposed in response to a slew of counterfeit, stolen, and dangerous items that have appeared on marketplace sites.

[...] A survey of Amazon sellers found that 70 percent have work outside of their Amazon businesses, suggesting that they, too, run the business from their homes.

[...] "When you look at the unintended consequences of sellers trying to choose between their privacy and their safety and their livelihood, the result is you're going to have fewer sellers online—and that really just benefits the Walmarts and Home Depots and the Lowes," Alexis Marvel, a spokesperson for the Makers and Merchants Coalition, told Axios.

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upstart writes:

Researchers create quantum microscope that can see the impossible:

Professor Warwick Bowen, from UQ's Quantum Optics Lab and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS), said it was the first entanglement-based sensor with performance beyond the best possible existing technology.

"This breakthrough will spark all sorts of new technologies -- from better navigation systems to better MRI machines, you name it," Professor Bowen said.

"Entanglement is thought to lie at the heart of a quantum revolution.

(...) "The quantum entanglement in our microscope provides 35 per cent improved clarity without destroying the cell, allowing us to see minute biological structures that would otherwise be invisible.

"The benefits are obvious -- from a better understanding of living systems, to improved diagnostic technologies." Professor Bowen said there were potentially boundless opportunities for quantum entanglement in technology. "Entanglement is set to revolutionise computing, communication and sensing," he said.

(...) "This opens the door for some wide-ranging technological revolutions."

Journal Reference:
Catxere A. Casacio, Lars S. Madsen, Alex Terrasson, et al. Quantum-enhanced nonlinear microscopy, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03528-w)

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upstart writes:

Hackers Steal Wealth of Data from Game Giant EA:

"You have full capability of exploiting on all EA services," the hackers claimed in various posts on underground hacking forums viewed by Motherboard. A source with access to the forums, some of which are locked from public view, provided Motherboard with screenshots of the messages.

[...] In those forum posts the hackers said they have taken the source code for FIFA 21, as well as code for its matchmaking server. The hackers also said they have obtained source code and tools for the Frostbite engine, which powers a number of EA games including Battlefield. Other stolen information includes proprietary EA frameworks and software development kits (SDKs), bundles of code that can make game development more streamlined. In all, the hackers say they have 780gb[sic] of data, and are advertising it for sale in various underground hacking forum posts viewed by Motherboard.

[...] EA confirmed to Motherboard that it had suffered a data breach and that the information listed by the hackers was the data that was stolen.

It's not like they could use the source and SDK to release a new game. What's the point? To better understand how the games work and write cheats? Break the servers? How much is that really worth?

Also at SecurityWeek, BBC, and Ars Technica.

Original Submission

aristarchus writes:

Psyche 16 may not be solid metal, after all. News at Phys.org:

The widely studied metallic asteroid known as 16 Psyche was long thought to be the exposed iron core of a small planet that failed to form during the earliest days of the solar system. But new University of Arizona-led research suggests that the asteroid might not be as metallic or dense as once thought, and hints at a much different origin story.

Scientists are interested in 16 Psyche because if its presumed origins are true, it would provide an opportunity to study an exposed planetary core up close. NASA is scheduled to launch its Psyche mission in 2022 and arrive at the asteroid in 2026.

UArizona undergraduate student David Cantillo is lead author of a new paper published in The Planetary Science Journal that proposes 16 Psyche is 82.5% metal, 7% low-iron pyroxene and 10.5% carbonaceous chondrite that was likely delivered by impacts from other asteroids. Cantillo and his collaborators estimate that 16 Psyche's bulk density—also known as porosity, which refers to how much empty space is found within its body—is around 35%.

These estimates differ from past analyses of 16 Psyche's composition that led researchers to estimate it could contain as much as 95% metal and be much denser.

Wikipedia entry on 16 Psyche.

Precipitated a collapse of other unknown psyche things, like cryptocurrency.

Journal Reference:
David C. Cantillo, et al. Constraining the Regolith Composition of Asteroid (16) Psyche via Laboratory Visible Near-infrared Spectroscopy - IOPscience, The Planetary Science Journal (DOI: 10.3847/PSJ/abf63b)

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Member of FDA’s expert panel resigns over Alzheimer’s therapy approval:

Following the Food and Drug Administration's polarizing authorization of the Alzheimer's therapy Aduhelm on Monday, a member of an agency advisory committee that recommended against the drug's approval has resigned.

Neurologist Joel Perlmutter of Washington University in St. Louis, a member of the FDA's expert panel for nervous system therapies, told STAT in an email that he had quit the committee on Monday "due to this ruling by the FDA without further discussion with our advisory committee."

The advisory committee, which convened in November, couldn't have been more openly skeptical of the drug, also known as aducanumab. Ten of the 11 panelists found that there was not enough evidence to show it could slow cognitive decline. The 11th voted "uncertain."

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takyon writes:

Intel (INTC) Reportedly Offers Over $2 Billion To Acquire the Fabless Semiconductor SiFive as the Consolidation Trend in the Industry Is Nowhere Close to Slowing Down

[According] to Bloomberg, Intel has reportedly offered over $2 billion to acquire the fabless semiconductor SiFive, a provider of commercial RISC-V processor IP and silicon solutions based on the RISC-V instruction set architecture.

Should this deal become a reality, it would mark the climax of growing bonhomie between Intel and SiFive. For instance, back in 2018, Intel was one of the participants in the Series C funding round of SiFive. Thereafter, in March 2021, SiFive announced a collaboration with the Intel Foundry Business (IFB) to develop innovative new RISC-V computing platforms.

Of course, unlike legacy Instruction Set Architectures (ISAs), RISC-V's proponents believe that it addresses the skyrocketing cost of designing and manufacturing increasingly complex new chip architectures, given that that the ISA is layered, extensible, and flexible. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that some believe RISC-V to be the future.

Bear in mind that SiFive was last valued at $500 million, as per the data available at PitchBook. This means that Intel would be paying a premium of over 300 percent relative to SiFive's 2020 valuation.

Previously: SiFive HiFive Unleashed Not as Open as Previously Thought
Qualcomm Invests in RISC-V Startup SiFive
SiFive Announces a RISC-V Core With an Out-of-Order Microarchitecture
GlobalFoundries and SiFive Partner on High Bandwidth Memory (HBM2E)
SiFive to Debut a RISC-V PC for Developers in October
SiFive Announces HiFive Unmatched Mini-ITX Motherboard for RISC-V PCs

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takyon writes:

SK Hynix admits to DRAM defects, smacks down rumour it botched big batches

South Korean chip maker SK Hynix has admitted some of its DRAM components included defects, though it says accounts of the issue are overblown.

[...] The impact of the defects may be less substantial than the damage done to SK Hynix's reputation, as South Korean newswire Yonhap reports that rumours have circulated to the effect that 240,000 wafers of DRAM are defective. SK Hynix is thought to have the capacity to produce around 1.8 million wafers a month, around 80 per cent of which are dedicated to DRAM. The whispering therefore describes a serious situation at a time the world's hunger for silicon can't be satiated.

SK Hynix's missive to The Register continued: "The scale of the potential losses mentioned in the rumour is absolutely not true and exaggerated."

The company has therefore requested a police investigation into whoever is spreading this gossip.

SK Hynix Admits to Some DRAM Production Flaws, Calls the Cops

SK Hynix admitted that, while it was dealing with some faulty DRAMs, the damages did not impact 240,000 wafers. The company claimed that these rumors are meant to injure its reputation and called the local police to file libel and misinformation charges against its unknown assailant, thus spurring a police investigation into the rumors.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

GameStop stock falls sharply amid 5M-share sales plan, SEC investigation:

GameStop's quarterly earnings report, released last night, contained relatively good news for the embattled retailer, including a smaller-than-expected operating loss and the company's first year-over-year increase in quarterly revenues in years. But GameStop's heavily inflated stock price is down significantly in morning trading on news that the company plans to sell more shares and the announcement that it is cooperating with a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the "meme stock" phenomenon.

In what CEO George Sherman called a "strong start to the year," GameStop's net sales were up over 25 percent to $1.3 billion in the fiscal quarter ending on April 30. That's despite "a roughly 12 percent reduction in the global store fleet due to our strategic de-densification efforts and the continued store closures in Europe during the quarter due to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Previously:
GameStop (The Stock) and GameStop (The Retailer) Continue to be Worlds Apart
GameStop Shares Rise, Fall and Rise Again in Roller-Coaster Day of Trading
The Complete Moron's Guide to GameStop's Stock Roller Coaster

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