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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Many people are doubtful world leaders will suddenly jump into action to head off ‘catastrophic’ warming after decades of dragging feet. 

Critics of decades of inaction on global warming voiced deep scepticism as world leaders gathered in Glasgow to hammer out crucial deals to urgently reverse the intensifying climate crisis.

Many activists question whether developed countries will finally move to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and the major corporations responsible for them, and if rich nations – solely responsible for the crisis – will financially support poorer ones in the transformation away from fossil fuels.

Scientists say the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, is likely the last chance to take serious measures to prevent the most catastrophic scenarios facing the planet, as temperatures continue to rise and extreme weather events become the norm.

Bangladesh, a South Asian nation of 165 million people, is ranked the seventh-most affected country in the world by climate disasters, and spiking temperatures will only make the situation worse.

Mass migration from coastal areas to urban centres inland is already under way as rising seas envelop the low-elevation nation, with as many as 30 million people becoming “climate refugees” in the coming decades.

takyon writes:

VIA To Offload Parts of x86 Subsidiary Centaur to Intel For $125 Million

As part of their third quarter earnings release, VIA Technologies has announced this morning that the company is entering into an unusual agreement with Intel to offload parts of VIA's x86 R&D subsidiary, Centaur Technology. Under the terms of the murky deal, Intel will be paying Centaur $125 million to pick up part of the engineering staff – or, as the announcement from VIA more peculiarly puts it "recruit some of Centaur's employees to join Intel," Despite the hefty 9-digit price tag, the deal makes no mention of Centaur's business, designs, or patents, nor has an expected closing date been announced.

A subsidiary of VIA since 1999, the Austin-based Centaur is responsible for developing x86 core designs for other parts of VIA, as well as developing their own ancillary IP such as deep learning accelerators. Via Centaur, VIA Technologies is the largely aloof third member of the x86 triumvirate, joining Intel and AMD as the three x86 license holders. Centaur's designs have never seen widescale adoption to the extent that AMD or Intel's have, but the company has remained a presence in the x86 market since the 90s, spending the vast majority of that time under VIA.

Centaur's most recent development was the CNS x86 core, which the company announced in late 2019. Aimed at server-class workloads, the processor design is said to offer Haswell-like general CPU performance, which is combined with AVX-512 support (executed over 2 rounds via a 256-bit SIMD). CNS, in turn, would be combined into a product Centaur called CHA, which added fabric and I/O, as well as an integrated proprietary deep learning accelerator. The first silicon based on CHA was originally expected in the second half of 2020, but at this point we haven't heard anything (though that's not unusual for VIA).

VIA on Wikipedia.

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upstart writes:

Making Aircraft Fuel From Sunlight and Air:

Carbon-neutral fuels are crucial for making aviation and maritime transport sustainable. The plant developed in Zurich can be used to produce synthetic liquid fuels that release as much CO2 during their combustion as was previously extracted from the air for their production. CO2 and water are extracted directly from ambient air and split using solar energy. This process yields syngas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide, which is then processed into kerosene, methanol, or other hydrocarbons.

[...] Analyses of the entire process show that the fuel would cost 1.20 to 2 euros per litre if it were produced on an industrial scale. Desert regions with high solar resources are particularly suitable as production sites. "Unlike with biofuels, whose potential is limited due to the scarcity of agricultural land, this technology enables us to meet global demand for jet fuel by using less than one percent of the world's arid land and would not compete with the production of food or livestock feed," explains Johan Lilliestam, a research group leader at the IASS and professor of energy policy at the University of Potsdam. If the materials used to build the production facilities, such as glass and steel, are manufactured using renewable energy and carbon-neutral methods, emissions can be further reduced to close to zero.

Journal Reference:
Remo Schäppi, David Rutz, Fabian Dähler, et al. Drop-in Fuels from Sunlight and Air, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04174-y)

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upstart writes:

Revolutionary identity verification technique offers robust solution to hacking:

A team of computer scientists, including Claude Crépeau of McGill University and physicist colleagues from the University of Geneva, have developed an extremely secure identity verification method based on the fundamental principle that information cannot travel faster than the speed of light. The breakthrough has the potential to greatly improve the security of financial transactions and other applications requiring proof of identity online.

"Current identification schemes that use personal identification numbers (PINs) are incredibly insecure faced with a fake teller machine that stores the PINs of users," says Crépeau, a professor in the School of Computer Science at McGill. "Our research found and implemented a secure mechanism to prove someone's identity that cannot be replicated by the verifier of this identity."

The new method, published in Nature, is an advance on a concept known as zero-knowledge proof, whereby one party (a 'prover') can demonstrate to another (the 'verifier') that they possess a certain piece of information without actually revealing that information.

Freeman writes:

Apple’s Federighi delivers dramatic speech on dangers of sideloading:

Apple executive Craig Federighi, who is responsible for the company's iOS software for iPhones, delivered a lengthy speech intended to alarm listeners about what might happen if Apple is forced to allow users to sideload apps. The speech was given at Web Summit 2021 in Lisbon, Portugal, and it follows similar, earlier statements from Apple CEO Tim Cook.

The European Commission is actively discussing the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which is intended to regulate big tech platforms to ensure a fair playing ground. Companies like Apple could face fines of up to 10 percent of their global revenue.

[...] "Our goal has never been to sell the most," he said. "Instead, our mission is to provide people with the choice of what we view as the best."

Too bad their version of "the best" includes microtransactions.

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upstart writes:

New York City mayor-elect says he'll take his first three paychecks in Bitcoin:

Spurred by a tweet from the mayor of Miami, New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams told followers Thursday that he plans to take his first three mayoral paychecks in Bitcoin.

"NYC is going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry and other fast-growing, innovative industries," Adams tweeted. "Just wait!

It's a high-profile embrace of digital currency at a time when regulators in the US, including in New York City, are heightening scrutiny of cryptocurrency exchanges. Last month, New York state Attorney General Letitia James asked two lending platforms to cease activities after winning a court order forcing the closure of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinseed.

NYC Mayor-elect vows to take first salary payments in Bitcoin:

“NYC is going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry and other fast-growing, innovative industries,” he said on Twitter on Thursday.

In New York we always go big, so I’m going to take my first THREE paychecks in Bitcoin when I become mayor. NYC is going to be the center of the cryptocurrency industry and other fast-growing, innovative industries! Just wait!

— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) November 4, 2021

Adams, a Democrat, has said he wanted to turn New York into a crypto-friendly city and that he wants to explore a NYC Coin similar to Miami’s. In an interview on Bloomberg Radio after being elected mayor on Nov. 2, he wagered a “friendly competition” with the mayor of Miami, who was the first to set up a so-called CityCoin cryptocurrency.

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DannyB writes:

Bezos’ Blue Origin loses NASA lawsuit over SpaceX $2.9 billion lunar lander contract:

The U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled against Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin on Thursday in the company’s lawsuit versus NASA over a lucrative astronaut lunar lander contract awarded to Elon Musk’s SpaceX earlier this year.

Federal Judge Richard Hertling sided with the defense in his ruling, completing a monthslong battle after Blue Origin sued NASA in August.

NASA said in a statement that work with SpaceX will resume “as soon as possible” now that the ruling has been issued.

[...] A Blue Origin spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC that the company’s lawsuit “highlighted the important safety issues with the Human Landing System procurement process that must still be addressed.”

Judge rules against Blue Origin in standoff with SpaceX, NASA

Details about the lawsuit, which was filed in federal claims court in August, have been sparse, as the companies asked the judge to keep much of the proceedings secret. A Thursday filing said lawyers will meet on November 18 so they can come to an agreement on releasing a redacted version of the judge's opinion.

Also at Ars Technica and The Verge.

Even though they lost, I'm sure everyone will join me in applauding Blue Origin for filing this lawsuit due to its concerns about money safety.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Merck’s molnupiravir to be given to recently-infected COVID-19 patients twice a day, for five days.

The United Kingdom has become the first country in the world to approve a potentially game-changing COVID-19 antiviral pill jointly developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) recommended on Thursday that the drug, molnupiravir, be used as soon as possible following a positive COVID-19 test and within five days of the onset of symptoms, citing clinical data.

This is the first oral antiviral treatment for COVID-19 to be approved, marking a boost to the fight against the pandemic, with the green light coming before potential regulatory clearance in the United States. US advisers will meet this month to vote on whether molnupiravir should be authorised.

[...] Merck’s molnupiravir has been closely watched since data last month showed it could halve the chances of dying or being hospitalised for those most at risk of developing severe COVID-19 when given early in the illness.

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Freeman writes:

Intel's Alder Lake big.LITTLE CPU design, tested: It's a barn burner:

After spending several days with Intel's newest consumer CPU designs, we have some surprising news: they're faster than AMD's latest Ryzens on both single-threaded and most multithreaded benchmarks.

We suspect this will be especially surprising to some, since Intel's newest desktop CPUs feature a hybrid "big.little[sic]" design similar to those found in ARM CPUs. AMD's flagship Ryzen 9 5950x is a traditional 16 core, 32 thread design, with all cores being "big" high-performance types with symmetric multithreading (SMT, also known as "hyperthreading"). By contrast, the i9-12900K offers 16 cores and only 24 threads—with eight "performance" cores featuring SMT and eight lower-performance "efficiency" cores with no SMT.

As pointed out in the Ars Technica comments, the Cinebench multi-threaded benchmark saw Intel's best CPU with a less than 2.5% lead, but the caption reads "Intel trounces AMD". While the Passmark multi-threaded benchmark saw AMD's best CPU with a more than 18% lead, but the caption reads "outperform i9-12900k-but even here, by a much, much, lower margin than we're accustomed to seeing".

Also at Phoronix, AnandTech, and Tom's Hardware.

See also: More Linux Performance Benchmark Data For Alder Lake, Comparison Data Points
Intel UHD Graphics 770 / Alder Lake GT1 Linux Graphics Performance

Previously: Intel Alder Lake CPUs Launch November 4th, with Up to 8 Big and 8 Small Cores

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upstart writes:

Bilingualism Comes Naturally to Our Brains:

The brain uses a shared mechanism for combining words from a single language and for combining words from two different languages, a team of neuroscientists has discovered. Its findings indicate that language switching is natural for those who are bilingual because the brain has a mechanism that does not detect that the language has switched, allowing for a seamless transition in comprehending more than one language at once.

"Our brains are capable of engaging in multiple languages," explains Sarah Phillips, a New York University doctoral candidate and the lead author of the paper, which appears in the journal eNeuro. "Languages may differ in what sounds they use and how they organize words to form sentences. However, all languages involve the process of combining words to express complex thoughts."

[...] An estimated 60 million in the U.S. use two or more languages, according to the U.S. Census. However, despite the widespread nature of bi- and multilingualism, domestically and globally, the neurological mechanisms used to understand and produce more than one language are not well understood.

This terrain is an intriguing one; bilinguals often mix their two languages together as they converse with one another, raising questions about how the brain functions in such exchanges.

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upstart writes:

Machine learning identifies new brain network signature of major depression: Novel signature could improve understanding of depression and its subtypes, and how to treat them:

While major depression is usually straightforward to diagnose, a better understanding of the brain networks associated with depression could improve treatment strategies. Machine-learning algorithms can be applied to data on brain activity in people with depression in order to find such associations. However, most studies have focused only on specific subtypes of depression, or they have not accounted for the differences in brain imaging protocols between healthcare institutions.

[...] The machine-learning method identified key functional connections in the imaging data that could serve as a brain network signature for major depression. Indeed, when the researchers applied that new signature to rs-fMRI data collected at different institutions from 521 other people, they achieved 70 percent accuracy in identifying which of those new people had major depressive disorder.

Journal Reference:
Ayumu Yamashita, Yuki Sakai, Takashi Yamada, et al. Generalizable brain network markers of major depressive disorder across multiple imaging sites, PLOS Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000966)

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upstart writes:

University of Adelaide built a robot spider to scan Australia's Naracoorte Caves:

In the southeast of South Australia lie the Naracoorte Caves. The national park is an UNESCO World Heritage Site known for its stalactites, stalagmites and prehistoric fossils. Recently, a group of students from the University of Adelaide built a robot to complete a 3D scan of the site. The project, called CaveX, saw the group create 15 iterations of the model you see above before they settled on a final design. They went with a robot that walks on a set of six legs out of a fear that one with treads or wheels would damage the surface of the caves. The design also allowed it to traverse uneven terrain with a variety of different gaits.

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upstart writes:

Los Angeles County sheriff doubles down on not enforcing vaccine mandate as he warns of mass exodus:

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva warned Tuesday of a possible public safety threat due to a "mass exodus" of deputies from the department and blamed the county's vaccine mandate.

Villanueva accused the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors of poor policy-making and pointed to an executive order issued by the chair of the board in August that required all county employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 no later than October 1.

Days after the county deadline, Villanueva said he wouldn't enforce the mandate.

"I don't want to be in a position to lose 5, 10% of my workforce overnight on a vaccine mandate," Villanueva said last month.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department employs about 16,000 people in the nation's most populous county, just over half of whom are vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the department.

On Tuesday, Villanueva said only about 42% of the department's sworn personnel have been vaccinated and 3,137 deputies are at risk of termination due to the mandate.

And, the sheriff said, many unvaccinated deputies are voluntarily leaving the department to escape the vaccination requirement.

"Had (the Board of Supervisors) not talked all this nonsense about the mandate, I probably would have gotten better results at getting my employees vaccinated over time," Villanueva said.

According to Villanueva, the department typically sees just over 500 retirements each year, but that number is up to just over 600 in the past 12 months.

Coupled with an additional 238 employees leaving the department for reasons other than retirement, Villanueva said the departures are "disrupting our ability to provide public safety services to Los Angeles County."

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upstart writes:

Babies wanted: Chinese province may offer a year of maternity leave:

A landlocked province in northwest China, in an effort to encourage couples to have children, is looking to sharply increase the duration of paid maternity leave to nearly one full year, putting it on par with some developed economies in Europe.

Shaanxi is seeking public opinion on allowing an additional half a year of maternity leave on top of the current 168 days. That would put the province in the same league as European nations like Germany or Norway.

Shaanxi is also considering doubling the length of paternity leave to 30 days for couples looking to have a third child.

China announced in May that married couples may have up to three children, after data showed a dramatic decline in births in the world's most populous country.

The decision to let families have up to three children was initially met with doubts on whether it would make much difference. There were also calls for details on what supportive measures would be included.

[...] Since then, 14 provinces including Shaanxi have either amended local family planning rules or are seeking public opinion to make amendments to laws to confer extra maternity or paternity leave.

p...] China had a fertility rate of just 1.3 children per woman in 2020, recent data showed, on par with aging societies like Japan and Italy.

As the saying goes: "You may actually be one-in-a-million. Just remember that means there are 1,446 people in China exactly like you!"

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takyon writes:

Microsoft launches Google Wave

Microsoft is bringing back Google Wave, the doomed real-time messaging and collaboration platform Google launched in 2009 and prematurely shuttered in 2010.

Maybe we should've seen this coming. Back in 2019, Microsoft announced the Fluid Framework (not to be confused with the Fluent design system). The idea here was nothing short of trying to re-invent the nature of business documents and how developers build real-time applications. Last year, the company open-sourced Fluid and started building it into a few of its own Office applications. Today, at its Ignite conference, it's launching a whole new product built on top of Fluid: Microsoft Wave Loop.

Loop is a new app — and concept — that takes the Fluid framework, which provides developers with flexible components to mix and match in order to create real-time editing-based applications, to create a new experience for users to collaborate on documents. In many ways, that was also the promise of Google Wave — real-time collaboration plus a developer framework and protocol to bring Wave everywhere.

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