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upstart writes:

Meta policy head Clegg receives promotion to be on par with Zuckerberg and Sandberg:

Meta, formerly Facebook, has promoted its top policy executive Nick Clegg to a newly created president of global affairs role.

Clegg has worked at Meta for over three years. Prior to joining Facebook as its global affairs vice president in 2018, Clegg had served as Britain's deputy prime minister.

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in a post on his personal Facebook page, said Clegg's new role will see him lead Meta on all of its policy matters. It will also put him "at the level" of Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, the company's chief operating officer.

"Nick will now lead our company on all our policy matters, including how we interact with governments as they consider adopting new policies and regulations, as well as how we make the case publicly for our products and our work," Zuckerberg said.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

NASA drops plans to fly Earth science instrument as commercial hosted payload - SpaceNews:

An Earth science instrument selected by NASA several years ago to fly as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite may instead fly on a standalone spacecraft because of a lack of hosting opportunities.

NASA issued a solicitation Feb. 9 seeking information for what it called the GeoCarb Access to Space project. NASA is looking for information on prospective providers of spacecraft that could host the GeoCarb instrument for a launch that NASA would provide by the end of 2024.

NASA selected GeoCarb in 2016 as part of its Earth Venture line of missions and instruments. GeoCarb will monitor greenhouse gases as well as plant health and vegetation stress in North and South America from approximately 85 degrees west in geostationary orbit.

The agency's original plan was to fly GeoCarb as a hosted payload on a commercial communications satellite in GEO. For a time, NASA had an agreement with SES Government Solutions to host GeoCarb on an SES satellite.

upstart writes:

Microsoft's 'Surface Laptop 5' could get latest AMD mobile processors for the first time:

Microsoft hasn't announced the Surface Laptop 5 yet, but a new leak points to it having an option to use AMD's latest line of Ryzen CPUs.

A site called Windows Prime has posted what Windows watcher Paul Thurrott reckons to be an official specs sheet for the forthcoming Surface Laptop 5.

[...] The Surface Laptop 5 would be a significant departure on the AMD front, with the specs sheet indicating the 13.5-inch and 15-inch models would be available with Ryzen 6000 series mobile processors that AMD announced in January at CES.

The 13.5-inch Surface Laptop 5 would come with a 6-core AMD Ryzen 5 6680U processor, while the 15-inch model would come with an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 6980U processor – and, of course, integrated Radeon graphics in both. Battery life is quoted at 'up to' 21 hours and 19.5 hours respectively.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Here's Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult To Understand (And Three Ways To Fix It):

I used to be able to understand 99% of the dialogue in Hollywood films. But over the past 10 years or so, I've noticed that percentage has dropped significantly — and it's not due to hearing loss on my end. It's gotten to the point where I find myself occasionally not being able to parse entire lines of dialogue when I see a movie in a theater, and when I watch things at home, I've defaulted to turning the subtitles on to make sure I don't miss anything crucial to the plot.

Knowing I'm not alone in having these experiences, I reached out to several professional sound editors, designers, and mixers, many of whom have won Oscars for their work on some of Hollywood's biggest films, to get to the bottom of what's going on. One person refused to talk to me, saying it would be "professional suicide" to address this topic on the record. Another agreed to talk, but only under the condition that they remain anonymous. But several others spoke openly about the topic, and it quickly became apparent that this is a familiar subject among the folks in the sound community, since they're the ones who often bear the brunt of complaints about dialogue intelligibility.

"It's not easy to mix a movie," says Jaime Baksht, who took home an Oscar for his work on last year's excellent "Sound of Metal" and previously worked on Alfonso Cuarón's "Roma." "Everybody thinks you're just moving levers, but it's not like that."

owl writes:

https://passo.uno/why-collect-read-old-computer-manuals/:

It's my ritual: every time I enter a secondhand bookshop, I go straight to the Sciences section and search for old computer manuals. They're very hard to come by, as their owners tend to throw them away once they stop using a particular device or piece of software. Manuals also happen not to be the most engaging read for most people, which adds to their rarity; few want to peruse an old IBM AS/400 handbook while laying at the beach.

Disregarding old manuals as useless piles of paper does them a grave disservice, though. Many of them are admittedly awful or outright boring, but some are ripe with forgotten tech lore and high-quality design. The writers of old manuals often enjoyed more editorial resources than tech writers are used to today, and produced handbooks and guides with greater care, because they couldn't afford gross inaccuracies to go to press.

How old is your oldest computer manual?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Windows 11 no longer the fastest OS for Alder Lake: Linux 5.16 on Core i9-12900K emerges winner in most benchmarks:

Intel Alder Lake is generally touted to run best under Windows 11 given the scheduling improvements in the new OS and the new Intel Thread Director technology that helps assign corresponding tasks to the P-cores and E-cores. However, now it looks like Linux could be the better OS of choice to extract the maximum performance from processors such as the Core i9-12900K.

Since launch, Windows 11 was considered necessary for optimal performance of the Core i9-12900K. That changes now with the advent of Linux kernel 5.16 which brings better hybrid handling and other improvements. The Linux kernel 5.16 also comes with new FUTEX2 (fast user mutex) syscalls that should help with improved gaming performance, particularly for Windows games running on Wine.

Phoronix has tested the performance of the Core i9-12900K in both Ubuntu 22.04 LTS and Intel's own Clear Linux OSs running the 5.16 stable kernel version. Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with the latest 5.17-rc3 kernel and current LTS version with 5.15 kernel were also used along with Windows 11 Pro x64 updated as of February. The test platform was an Asus ROG Strix Z690-E Gaming Wi-Fi motherboard with 2x 32 GB of DDR5-4400 RAM and GT1 integrated graphics in Alder Lake-S.

[...] In a total of 104 tests, Windows 11 had leads only in 13.5% of the tests while Clear Linux 35810 with the 5.16 kernel led the majority (63.5%) of the tests. Ubuntu 22.04 with the 5.15 kernel version lost in 53.8% of the benchmarks indicating that Linux users who wish to make the most of Intel Alder Lake should upgrade to the latest kernel.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scientists discover how galaxies can exist without dark matter:

It started in 2018 when astrophysicists Shany Danieli and Pieter van Dokkum of Princeton University and Yale University observed two galaxies that seemed to exist without most of their dark matter.

"We were expecting large fractions of dark matter," said Danieli, who's a co-author on the latest study. "It was quite surprising, and a lot of luck, honestly."

The lucky find, which van Dokkum and Danieli reported on in a Nature paper in 2018 and in an Astrophysical Journal Letters paper in 2020, threw the galaxies-need-dark-matter paradigm into turmoil, potentially upending what astrophysicists had come to see as a standard model for how galaxies work.

"It's been established for the last 40 years that galaxies have dark matter," said Jorge Moreno, an astronomy professor at Pomona College, who's the lead author of the new paper. "In particular, low-mass galaxies tend to have significantly higher dark matter fractions, making Danieli's finding quite surprising. For many of us, this meant that our current understanding of how dark matter helps galaxies grow needed an urgent revision."

Exactly eight years ago, HTTPS was uncommon, COVID-19 never existed, the 2014 Winter Olympics were under way, and ... SoylentNews was born!

What a ride it's been! As the word changed and swirled about us, SoylentNews has persevered through it all. I thank all the members of the community who have been with us since the beginning and welcome those who only recently joined us!

A special thanks go out to all those volunteers who got the site off the ground and set up a solid foundation upon which this site could be built. Thanks, too, to all who have contributed to the site. Doing coding, writing journal entries, moderating and writing comments, maintaining the support services upon which the site depends. I know of no other site that has the sense of community that I see established here. Thanks to you ALL!

Recent Site Activity:

upstart writes:

Intel buys Tower Semiconductor for $5.4 billion to diversify foundry business:

Intel has agreed to pay $5.4 billion to buy Tower Semiconductor, an Israeli foundry that focuses on specialty processes to make chips for imaging, power management, and wireless communications.

The acquisition is Intel's latest move to add capacity and customers to its new foundry division, which focuses on making chips for other companies. CEO Pat Gelsinger is betting that by expanding capacity and making more semiconductors—not just its own—his company can claw its way [to] get back to the leading edge. Today, just two firms, TSMC and Samsung, make the world's most advanced chips.

[...] Intel and Tower said they expect the transaction to be completed in about a year provided that it gets approved by regulators.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

U.S. to inspect new 787 Dreamliners, says Boeing cannot self-certify:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Tuesday said it would perform final inspections on new Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, and will not allow the planemaker to self-certify the jets.

The U.S. aviation regulator said it notified Boeing of the decision that it will retain the authority to issue airworthiness certificates until it is confident "Boeing's quality control and manufacturing processes consistently produce 787s that meet FAA design standards."

Boeing said it "will continue to work transparently through (the FAA's) detailed and rigorous processes... We will continue to engage with the FAA to ensure we meet their expectations and all applicable requirements."

Boeing suspended deliveries of the 787 in late May after the FAA raised concerns about its proposed inspection method. The FAA had issued two airworthiness directives to address production issues for in-service airplanes and identified a new issue in July.

Deliveries have remained halted as U.S. regulators reviewed repairs and inspections. Deliveries are expected to remain frozen months longer.

Original Submission

Woman Appears Cured of HIV After Umbilical-Cord Blood Transplant

upstart writes:

Woman Appears Cured of HIV After Umbilical-Cord Blood Transplant:

A woman in the New York City area appears to have been cured of an HIV infection, joining a small group of people whose recovery is providing researchers with road maps to beat one of nature's most resilient viruses.

The woman has shown no detectable signs of the human immunodeficiency virus in extensive testing since she stopped antiretroviral treatment in October 2020 following a transplant of stem cells with a rare genetic mutation that blocks HIV invasion, her doctors said.

The doctors said they consider her HIV to be in long-term remission, suggesting a cure if it holds. That would mean she has no virus able to replicate in her body, unlike people who have HIV but stay healthy by keeping the virus at low levels with long-term drug treatment.

"Everything is looking very promising,"

upstart writes:

Elon Musk quietly donated nearly $6 billion last year. Where did it go?:

In an inconspicuous fashion — via a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission — Elon Musk, Tesla's chief executive, disclosed on Monday that he gave nearly $6 billion worth of the company's shares to charity last year, instantly propelling him into the upper ranks of philanthropic donors.

But the document gave little information about where he directed his wealth, the DealBook newsletter reports.

[...] The gift came as Mr. Musk sold more than $16 billion worth of shares in November and December, much of which was meant to cover tax obligations after exercising stock options.

[...] Several observers noted that weeks before his donation, Mr. Musk tweeted that he would give $6 billion if the United Nations could prove that money could help solve world hunger. Days afterward, the U.N.'s World Food Program outlined how it would spend $6.6 billion to help avert famine.

Mr. Musk's other disclosed philanthropic efforts include millions in gifts to Texas municipalities and a $100 million prize for developing technologies to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Study highlights worldwide disparities in treatment rates for major depressive disorder: Meta-analysis suggests need for scaling up treatment for this severe depression in some low and lower-middle income countries:

In recent years, national and global initiatives have made increasing efforts to address the tremendous burden posed by major depressive disorder. However, treatment rates remain low. Analyses that combine results from studies on depression treatment from different regions can help identify opportunities for improvement. However, many such analyses do not adequately account for variations in study methods that make results from different studies difficult to compare.

To provide further clarity, Ferrari and colleagues conducted an updated analysis of 149 studies on treatment for major depressive disorder conducted in 84 countries between 2000 and 2021. Applying a statistical method known as Bayesian meta-regression analysis, they combined the studies to examine treatment rates around the world.

The findings of this meta-analysis suggest that treatment rates remain low worldwide, and it highlights disparities in treatment between countries with different resource levels. In particular, use of mental health services by people with major depressive disorder is estimated to be 33 percent in high-income countries and just eight percent in low and lower-middle income countries.

Rates of treatment considered to be minimally sufficient for treating major depressive disorder are lower, estimated at 23 percent for high-income countries and 3 percent in low and lower-middle income countries.

Journal Reference:
Modhurima Moitra, Damian Santomauro, Pamela Y. Collins, et al. The global gap in treatment coverage for major depressive disorder in 84 countries from 2000–2019: A systematic review and Bayesian meta-regression analysis, PLOS Medicine (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003901)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Akamai To Acquire Linode to Provide Businesses with a Developer-friendly and Massively-distributed Platform to Build, Run and Secure Next Generation Applications:

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the world's most trusted solution to power and protect digital experiences, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Linode, one of the easiest-to-use and most trusted infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform providers.

Modern digital experiences, including virtual environments like the metaverse, are created through the convergence of media, entertainment, technology, ecommerce, financial services, and online games. Akamai has been a key partner to the world’s leaders in these industries for decades by powering and protecting applications in today’s multi-cloud, multi-platform world. Together with Linode, which has made it simple, affordable and accessible for developers to consume cloud computing, Akamai will become the world’s most distributed compute platform, from cloud to edge.

“The opportunity to combine Linode’s developer-friendly cloud computing capabilities with Akamai’s market-leading edge platform and security services is transformational for Akamai,” said Dr. Tom Leighton, chief executive officer and co-founder, Akamai Technologies. “Akamai has been a pioneer in the edge computing business for over 20 years, and today we are excited to begin a new chapter in our evolution by creating a unique cloud platform to build, run and secure applications from the cloud to the edge. This a big win for developers who will now be able to build the next generation of applications on a platform that delivers unprecedented scale, reach, performance, reliability and security.​”

upstart writes:

IBM Execs Call Older Workers 'Dinobabies' in Age Bias Lawsuit:

Internal emails show IBM executives calling older workers "dinobabies" and discussing plans to make them "an extinct species," according to a Friday filing in an ongoing age discrimination lawsuit against the company.

The documents were submitted as evidence of IBM's efforts "to oust older employees from its workforce," and replace them with millennial workers, the plaintiff alleged. It's the latest development in a legal battle that first began in 2018, when former employees sued IBM after the company fired tens of thousands of workers over 40-years-old.

One high-ranking executive, whose name was redacted from the lawsuit, said IBM had a "dated maternal workforce."

"This is what must change," the email continues, per the filing. "They really don't understand social or engagement. Not digital natives. A real threat for us."

[...] IBM spokesman Chris Mumma told Insider that the company has "never engaged in systemic age discrimination," and said "IBM separated employees because of changing business conditions, not because of their age."

Original Submission