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upstart writes:

APC UPS zero-day bugs can remotely burn out devices, disable power:

A set of three critical zero-day vulnerabilities now tracked as TLStorm could let hackers take control of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) devices from APC, a subsidiary of Schneider Electric.

[...] Two of the vulnerabilities, CVE-2022-22805 and CVE-2022-22806 are in the implementation of the TLS (Transport Layer Security) protocol that connects the Smart-UPS devices with the "SmartConnect" feature to the Schneider Electric management cloud.

The third one, identified as CVE-2022-0715, relates to the firmware of "almost all APC Smart-UPS devices," which is not cryptographically signed and its authenticity cannot be verified when installed on the system.

owl writes:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-is-testing-ads-in-the-windows-11-file-explorer/

Microsoft has begun testing promotions for some of its other products in the File Explorer app on devices running its latest Windows 11 Insider build.

The new Windows 11 "feature" was discovered by a Windows user and Insider MVP who shared a screenshot of an advertisement notification displayed above the listing of folders and files to the File Explorer, the Windows default file manager.

[...] As you can imagine, the reaction to this was adverse, to say the least, with some saying that "File Explorer one of the worst places to show ads," while others added that this is the way to go if Microsoft wants "people ditching Explorer for something else."

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upstart writes:

US astronaut to ride Russian spacecraft home during tensions:

U.S. astronaut Mark Vande Hei has made it through nearly a year in space, but faces what could be his trickiest assignment yet: riding a Russian capsule back to Earth in the midst of deepening tensions between the countries.

NASA insists Vande Hei's homecoming plans at the end of the month remain unchanged, even as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has resulted in canceled launches, broken contracts and an escalating war of words by the Russian Space Agency's hardline leader. Many worry Dmitry Rogozin is putting decades of a peaceful off-the-planet partnership at risk, most notably at the International Space Station.

Vande Hei—who on Tuesday breaks the U.S. single spaceflight record of 340 days—is due to leave with two Russians aboard a Soyuz capsule for a touchdown in Kazakhstan on March 30. The astronaut will have logged 355 days in space by then, setting a new U.S. record. The world record of 438 continuous days in space belongs to Russia.

upstart writes:

Ford will introduce seven new EVs in Europe by 2024:

Ford is quickly making good on its promise to go all-electric in Europe. The company now plans to introduce seven new EVs in Europe by 2024. The lineup will focus on crossovers, including an electric version of the compact Puma as well as a five-seat "medium-size" and "sport" models. You can also expect new editions of the Transit and Tourneo vans, including smaller Courier trims as well as Custom models.

The medium crossover will be the first mass-produced passenger EV from Ford's new Cologne facility and will include five seats and a claimed 310-mile range. Ford will formally reveal the vehicle later this year and start production in 2023.

The Transit Custom and Tourneo Custom are also slated to arrive in 2023, while the Puma, the sport crossover, the Transit Courier and the Tourneo Courier are due in 2024. The Mustang Mach-E and E-Transit are already part of Ford's European lineup. Ford hopes to move to an all-EV passenger range in Europe by 2030, and to completely eliminate gas and diesel from its stable by 2035.

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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/03/ars-talks-to-werner-herzog-about-space-colonization-its-poetry/

Last Exit: Space is a new documentary on Discovery+ that explores the possibility of humans colonizing planets beyond Earth. Since it is produced and narrated by Werner Herzog (director of Grizzly Man, guest star on The Mandalorian) and written and directed by his son Rudolph, however, it goes in a different direction than your average space documentary. It's weird, beautiful, skeptical, and even a bit funny.

In light of the film's recent streaming launch, father and son Herzog spoke with Ars Technica from their respective homes about the film's otherworldly hopes, pessimistic conclusions, and that one part about space colonists having to drink their own urine.

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upstart writes:

Linux 5.17 delayed after vulnerability discovered in AMD processors:

The resurgence of Spectre-like malware has pushed the release date for the next iteration of Linux for at least a week, its creator has confirmed.

In the 5.17-rc8 announcement, the kernel development head Linus Torvalds explained that the discovery of CVE-2021-26341 - a vulnerability in some AMD processors that resembles the dreaded Spectre/Meltdown fiasco, meant the team needed to apply certain patches, which complicated things for the 5.17 version of the OS.

"Last weekend, I thought I'd be releasing the final 5.17 today. That was then, this is now," he writes.

"Last week was somewhat messy, mostly because of embargoed patches we had pending with another variation of specter attacks. And while the patches were mostly fine, we had the usual "because it was hidden, all our normal testing automation did not see it either".

Once automation sees "things", all the possible and impossible combinations get tested, resulting in a "(small) flurry of fixes for the fixes."

Despite the unforeseen circumstances, Torvalds considered releasing 5.17 anyway, but decided against it, in the end.

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upstart writes:

Ukraine reportedly adopts Clearview AI to track Russian invaders:

Ukraine is reportedly using Clearview AI technologies to track "people of interest" during the Russian invasion.

On March 13, Reuters reported that the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine had adopted the firm's facial recognition engine.

Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That offered the US company's assistance to Kyiv, and according to the news outlet, the AI tech is being used to "potentially vet people of interest at checkpoints, among other uses," for free.

The startup has not offered the same to Russia, of which President Putin calls the war a "special military operation."

Clearview offers facial recognition technologies to law enforcement for criminal investigations. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awarded the company a patent in January for using publicly-available data -- including mugshots, social media profiles, and news sites -- to match "similar photos using its proprietary facial recognition algorithm."

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upstart writes:

Smuggler Tapes 160 Intel CPUs to Body, Gets Busted Entering China:

Chinese customs authorities have announced another instance of attempted technology smuggling of processors into the country. According to a Chinese Customs Office post on Weibo, a man attempted to smuggle as many as 160 Intel 11th- and 12th-gen CPUs whilst skirting customs verification and paying duties. The man, dubbed a "Walking CPU" by Chinese officials, caught the officers' attention due to his behavior and walking posture on camera, prompting a check. The inspection found him covered in expensive PC hardware.

The authorities found as many as 160 CPUs taped to various parts of the man's body, namely his calves, waist, and abdomen, a technique well-known by law enforcement. Besides the CPU bounty, the man was also smuggling 16 foldable smartphones, but details are scarce for both the CPU and phone models. Even so, it's easy to see why this could be a lucrative endeavor: Intel's 12th-gen Core 19-12900K, for instance, has a recommended retail price of $589.

upstart writes:

Majority of UK adults support legal right to disconnect:

Six in 10 UK adults are in favour of establishing a legal "right to disconnect", which would allow employees to ignore work-related communications such as emails and texts outside their contracted working hours, new research from Ipsos shows.

According to the research, 67% of UK workers said they participate in work-related communications outside their official working hours, with about four in 10 either checking or replying to these communications, and one-third saying they proactively send them.

Ipsos found that although only three in 10 do not communicate with work outside their official working hours, more than half of UK adults (55%) said it is unacceptable for employers to expect staff to even check for work-related communications after hours.

In terms of support for a statutory right to disconnect, 60% said they were in favour of the government introducing it in new legislation, with 34% strongly in support. Only one in 10 were against such a measure.

The research also found that opinion was split over whether to prioritise flexibility or a right to disconnect, with roughly one-third preferring the latter, a quarter preferring the former, and 40% saying both are equally important.

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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."

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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)

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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.

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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.

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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.

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