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upstart writes:

Amazon lied about using seller data, lawmakers say, urging DOJ investigation:

Amazon lied to Congress about its use of third-party seller data, the House Judiciary Committee said today. In a letter to the Department of Justice, the committee chairs asked prosecutors to investigate the company for criminal obstruction of Congress.

"Amazon lied through a senior executive's sworn testimony that Amazon did not use any of the troves of data it had collected on its third-party sellers to compete with them," the letter says (emphasis in the original).

[...] "Amazon has declined multiple opportunities to demonstrate with credible evidence that it made accurate and complete representations," the letter says. "Amazon's failure to correct or corroborate those representations suggests that Amazon and its executives have acted intentionally to improperly influence, obstruct, or impede the Committee's investigation and inquiries."

Congress held a series of hearings as part of a 16-month antitrust investigation that scrutinized the practices of Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook, now known as Meta. During those hearings, lawmakers questioned Amazon executives about whether third-party seller data was used to develop private-label products or to privilege its own products in search results.

"We do not use any seller data to compete with [third parties]," Nate Sutton, associate general counsel for competition, told Congress in sworn testimony in July 2019. "We do not use any of that specific seller data in creating our own private brand products."

Yet as today's letter points out, subsequent investigations by The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and The Markup revealed that not only did Amazon employees working on private-label items have access to third-party data, but they routinely used it, even discussing it openly in meetings. "Amazon employees regularly violated the policy—and senior officials knew it."

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Newest satellite data shows remarkable decline in Arctic sea ice over just three years - Technology Org:

In the past 20 years, the Arctic has lost about one-third of its winter sea ice volume, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology. That decline is largely due to loss of older, multiyear sea ice. New satellite data also show that wintertime Arctic sea ice is likely thinner than previous estimates.

The study was published in Geophysical Research Letters.

“The key takeaway, for me, is the remarkable loss of Arctic winter sea ice volume — one-third of the winter ice volume lost over just 18 years — that accompanied a widely reported loss of old, thick Arctic sea ice, and decline in end-of-summer ice extent,” said co-author Ron Kwok, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory.

Seasonal sea ice, which melts completely each summer rather than accumulating over years, is replacing thicker, multiyear ice. This switch is largely responsible for the sea ice thinning, according to the new research.

“Arctic snow depth, sea ice thickness and volume are three very challenging measurements to obtain,” Kwok remarked.

Journal Reference:
Sahra Kacimi, Ron Kwok. Arctic Snow Depth, Ice Thickness, and Volume From ICESat-2 and CryoSat-2: 2018–2021, Geophysical Research Letters Volume 49, Issue 5 (DOI: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GL097448)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

DoD space agency funds development of laser terminal that connects to multiple satellite at once:

The Space Development Agency [SDA] awarded BridgeComm and Space Micro a $1.7 million contract to demonstrate point-to-multipoint communications

Each of the satellites in the Pentagon’s planned mesh network of communications satellites could have as many as many as four laser links so they can talk to other satellites, airplanes, ships and ground stations.

Optical inter-satellite links are critical to the success of the Space Development Agency’s low Earth orbit constellation — known as Transport Layer — that will be used to route data traffic. Lasers provide much higher transmission data rates than traditional radio-frequency communications but are also far more expensive.

SDA recently awarded nearly $1.8 billion in contracts for 126 satellites for the Transport Layer. By some estimates, about $500 million of that total would be for optical terminals, said Michael Abad-Santos, senior vice president of business development and strategy at BridgeComm, a Denver-based optical communications startup.

The company developed a so-called “one-to-many” optical communications technology for point-to-multipoint transmissions. This technology could help reduce the cost of building constellations by requiring fewer terminals, Abad-Santos said.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

UK's financial regulator orders shutdown of all Bitcoin ATMs:

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has warned operators of cryptocurrency ATMs in the UK to shut down their machines or else face enforcement action. In its announcement, the financial watchdog said that it hasn't granted any of the crypto firms registered with it the permission to operate ATM services. That means all crypto ATMs in the UK are illegal.

"Crypto ATMs offering cryptoasset exchange services in the UK must be registered with us and comply with UK Money Laundering Regulations," the regulator wrote. As The Telegraph reports, there are around 81 functional crypto ATMs in Britain based on data from the Coin ATM Radar tracker, located mostly inside supermarkets and convenience stores.

These ATMs allow users to deposit cash in exchange for cryptocurrency, which they can then transfer to their digital wallets. The regulator previously raised concerns that the machines could be used for money laundering, because they require minimal background checks, especially for small deposits.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scientists fabricate novel electrical component to improve stability of solar cells:

In the future, decarbonized societies that use internet of things (IoT) devices will become commonplace. But to achieve this, we need to first realize highly efficient and stable sources of renewable energy. Solar cells are considered a promising option, but their electrical contacts suffer from a "tradeoff" relationship between surface passivation and conductivity. Recently, researchers from Japan have developed a new type of electrical contact that can overcome this problem.

The most recent type of commercial photovoltaic cell (solar cell) uses stacked layers of crystalline silicon (c-Si) and an ultrathin layer of silicon oxide (SiOx) to form an electrical contact. The SiOx is used as a "passivating" film—an unreactive layer that improves the performance, reliability, and stability of the device. But that does not mean that simply increasing the thickness of this passivating layer will lead to improved solar cells. SiOx is an electrical insulator and there is a trade-off relationship between passivation and the conductivity of the electrical contact in solar cells.

upstart writes:

Pi Day Challenge: Can You Solve These NASA Math Problems?:

To celebrate Pi Day, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory is serving up a series of science and engineering questions related to some of the agency's Earth and space missions.

[...] Though it has an infinite number of decimals, the mathematical constant is usually abbreviated to 3.14, which is why Pi Day is celebrated on March 14. To mark the occasion this year, the STEM engagement office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California has released a quartet of illustrated science and engineering questions related to NASA missions: the upcoming Lunar Flashlight and SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) missions, along with InSight and TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite).

[...] Now in its ninth year, the NASA Pi Day Challenge is accompanied by other pi-related resources for educators, K-12 students and parents, including lessons and teachable moments, articles, downloadable posters, and web/mobile backgrounds.

Follow the above links to find all four questions. NASA will publish the answers on March 15.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

AMD Announces Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX-Series: Zen 3 For OEM Workstations

In 2020, AMD released a new series of workstation-focused processors under its Threadripper umbrella, aptly named the Threadripper Pro series. These chips were essentially true workstation versions of AMD's EPYC server processors, offering the same massive core counts and high memory bandwidth as AMD's high-performance server platform. By introducing Threadripper Pro, AMD carved out an explicit processor family for high-performance workstations, a task that was previously awkwardly juggled by the older Threadripper and EPYC processors.

Now, just under two years since the release of the original Threadripper 3000 Pro series, AMD is upgrading that lineup with the announcement of the new Threadripper Pro 5000 series. Based on AMD's Zen 3 architecture, the newest Threadripper Pro chips are designed to up the ante once more in terms of performance, taking advantage of Zen 3's higher IPC as well as higher clockspeeds. Altogether AMD is releasing five new SKUs, ranging from [core/thread counts of] 12c/24t to 64c/128t, which combined with support for 8 channels of DDR4 across the entire lineup, will offer a mix of chips for both CPU-hungry and bandwidth-hungry compute tasks.

[...] It should be noted that these new processors will be OEM-only, at least for now. This means that anyone looking to leverage AMD's Ryzen Threadripper Pro 5000 WX-series processors will need to turn to Lenovo (or eventually, other applicable vendors) to obtain a complete system.

upstart writes:

When a seismic network failed, citizen science stepped in:

[...] At the time, Haiti had no national seismic network. After the devastating event, scientists installed expensive seismic stations around the country, but that instrumentation requires funding, care, and expertise; today, those stations are no longer functional. In 2019, seismologists opted to try something different and far less expensive—citizen seismology via Raspberry Shakes.

On the morning of August 14, 2021, amidst a summer of COVID-19 lockdowns and political unrest, another earthquake struck, providing the opportunity to test just how useful these Raspberry-pi powered devices could be. In a paper published on Thursday in Science, researchers described using the Raspberry Shake data to demonstrate that this citizen science network successfully monitored both the mainshock and subsequent aftershocks and provided data integral to untangling what turned out to be a less-than-simple rending of the earth.

[...] The Raspberry Shake station nearest to the earthquake, R50D4, provided invaluable information both during and after the earthquake. First, the peak ground acceleration—the maximum acceleration the ground experienced during an earthquake at the location of that seismic station—was slightly greater than expected. The expected value went into building codes published in 2012. Acceleration and shaking, said Lomax, are typically greater on higher floors. This implies that newer, multistory buildings weren’t designed to withstand the 2021 event.

Journal Reference:
E. Calais, S. Symithe, T. Monfret, et al. Citizen seismology helps decipher the 2021 Haiti earthquake, (DOI: 10.1126/science.abn1045)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Finnish govt agency warns of unusual aircraft GPS interference:

Finland's Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, has issued a public announcement informing of an unusual spike in GPS interference near the country's eastern border.

The origin of the interference remains unknown, but based on numerous reports submitted to the agency from various sources, it has started during the weekend and is still ongoing.

[...] The equipment required to perform these spoofing attacks costs a couple of hundred USD, while the software to simulate realistic GPS satellite radio signals is generally widely available.

[...] In December 2017, Norwegian authorities accused Russia of widespread disruption of GPS navigation during military drills. In November 2018, NATO military exercises in Finland faced similar problems.

[...] The only way to deal with this on the ground is by incorporating GPS firewalls on the receivers and implementing multi-array antennas to introduce a directional verification factor for the signal.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Solar Orbiter Is Now Halfway Between the Sun and Earth:

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint mission of the European Space Agency and NASA, is officially halfway between our planet and the Sun. According to an ESA release, the spacecraft is currently 46.6 million miles from our host star.

Solar Orbiter began its scientific observations in November 2021 and will continue them on its way closer and closer to the Sun. The spacecraft is taking measurements of the solar winds and volatile corona.

Being situated so neatly between Earth and the Sun, the probe is giving researchers a unique opportunity to study space weather. Space weather is a feature of the solar wind, a steady stream of charged particles from the Sun that generates aurorae and occasionally disrupts electronics on Earth.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

10 years of Raspberry Pi: The $25 computer has come a long way:

This little device has revolutionized computing since it came on the scene. We take a look back at its journey.

The UK in the 1980s was ground zero for the microcomputer revolution. Cheap computers based on 8-bit processors flooded the market, teaching a generation to program using built-in BASIC interpreters. Homes had devices like Sinclair's ZX81 and Spectrum, while schools used Acorn's BBC Micro.

These weren't like today's PCs. They were designed and built to be accessible, with IO ports that could be accessed directly from the built-in programming environments. Turn one on, and you were ready to start programming.

But then things changed: 16-bit machines were more expensive, and technical and marketing failures started to remove pioneers from the market. The final nail in the coffin was the IBM PC and its myriad clones, focused on the business market and designed to run, not build, applications.

It became harder to learn computing skills, with home computers slowly replaced by gaming consoles, smartphones and tablets. How could an inquisitive child learn to code or build their own hardware?

upstart writes:

A transistor made using two atomically thin materials sets size record:

The ever-shrinking features of transistors etched in silicon have always required pushing the cutting edge of manufacturing technology. The discovery of atomically thin materials like graphene and carbon nanotubes, however, raised the prospect of replacing our manufacturing needs with the natural properties of these materials. There's no need to etch a 1 nanometer feature into silicon if you could simply use a carbon nanotube that's 1 nanometer wide.

And there have been some notable successes, such as a 1 nanometer gate made of a single carbon nanotube. But the work often involves a difficult process of getting the atomically thin materials in the right place to create a functional device. And the rest of the hardware is typically made of bulkier materials that are borrowed from more traditional transistor design.

[...] To make the device, the researchers started with layers of silicon and silicon dioxide. The silicon was purely structural—there's no silicon in the transistor itself. A graphene sheet was layered on top of the silicon and silicon dioxide to create the gate material. On top of that, the researchers placed a layer of aluminum. While aluminum is a conductor, the researchers let it sit in the air for a few days, during which the surface oxidized to aluminum oxide. So, the bottom surface of the graphene sheet was on silicon dioxide, and the top was covered by aluminum oxide, both of which are insulators. This isolated everything but the edge of the graphene from the rest of the transistor hardware.

upstart writes:

EU and UK open antitrust probe into Google and Meta over online ads:

Regulators in Europe and the UK have opened an antitrust probe into a deal between Google and Meta on online advertising, in the latest effort to tackle the market power of the world's biggest technology companies.

The move follows US antitrust investigators who are also probing an agreement informally known as "Jedi Blue." The search engine giant and Facebook's parent company have been accused of working together to carve up advertising profits, acting together to buttress their businesses.

The EU and UK probes represent the latest assault on Big Tech from global regulators that are also preparing to unleash new rules designed to challenge the primacy of groups such as Google, Meta, and Amazon. In response, US tech groups have launched lobbying efforts in Washington and Brussels in an effort to protect their interests.

[...] Companies found in breach of EU law stand to lose up to 10 percent of global revenues, but the legal processes could take years.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Game-Changing Digital Toolbox May Help Diagnose Dementia Earlier:

[...] In a new study from Boston University Schools of Medicine (BUSM) and Public Health (BUSPH), participants were tested using a digital pen that recorded the entire process of completing the cognitive test and allowed the researchers to pick up subtle measures of cognitive function beyond what is captured in traditional scoring.

“Rather than just being able to say that someone performed poorly on a cognitive test, these digital metrics allow us to delve further into the specific cognitive and physical functions that may be underlying poor test performance for a specific individual,” said corresponding author Mandy (Mengtian) Du, PhD, a former graduate student at BUSPH.

[...] According to the researchers, the digital pen data also allowed them to quantify the number of segments or straight lines that the participant used to complete the connections between the dots. They then looked at how these novel digital metrics were associated with other tests of cognitive and physical function. They found that the digital metrics were associated with specific cognitive functions such as processing speed, auditory attention, learning and working memory and physical functions such as walking speed and grip strength.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Ukraine may move its top-secret data and servers abroad:

Fears that Russia could steal top-secret government documents has caused Ukrainian authorities to explore potentially moving its data and servers to another country, reported Reuters. While the original plan is still to protect the country's IT infrastructure, moving the most sensitive data to another location is a viable Plan B, Victor Zhora— the deputy chief of Ukraine's information protection arm—told the news service.

Ukraine has already faced a litany of aggressive cyberattacks from the neighboring nation, including last month's penetration of its military and energy networks. Russia also attempted to interfere with Ukraine's 2014 presidential election and regularly launches attacks on Ukraine's power grid, leading to outages that last for days.