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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/19/after-retiring-bitdefender-free-bitdefender-launches-antivirus-free-for-windows/

Security company Bitdefender announced last year that it would retire Bitdefender Free at the end of 2021. Now, three months later, the company launched a new free product, called Bitdefender Antivirus Free.

In a surprising move, Bitdefender launched a new free antivirus product for Windows after cancelling the old one just three months earlier.

The company announced the launch of Bitdefender Antivirus Free on the company blog. The blog post reveals that the program has been created from the ground up. Bitdefender Antivirus Free "offers enhanced features, functionality, and improved user experience in comparison to the previous free version" according to Bitdefender.

The free section of the Bitdefender website does not list the new product yet. You need to visit this link to open the page with the download link. The download is small, but the installer requires an Internet connection and will download more than 500 Megabytes when it is run, provided that you allow it to do so. [Ed: The software has not been downloaded and checked. Caveat Emptor]

upstart writes:

New Insight Into Possible Origins of Life: For the First Time Researchers Create an RNA Molecule That Replicates:

Researchers at the University of Tokyo have for the first time been able to create an RNA molecule that replicates, diversifies, and develops complexity, following Darwinian evolution. This has provided the first empirical evidence that simple biological molecules can lead to the emergence of complex lifelike systems.

[...] For several decades, one hypothesis has been that RNA molecules (which are vital for cell functions) existed on primitive Earth, possibly with proteins and other biological molecules. Then around 4 billion years ago, they started to self-replicate and develop from a simple single molecule into diverse complex molecules. This step-by-step change possibly eventually led to the emergence of life as we know it — a beautiful array of animals, plants, and everything in between.

Although there have been many discussions about this theory, it has been difficult to physically create such RNA replication systems. However, in a study published in Nature Communications, Project Assistant Professor Ryo Mizuuchi and Professor Norikazu Ichihashi at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, and their team, explain how they carried out a long-term RNA replication experiment in which they witnessed the transition from a chemical system towards biological complexity.

upstart writes:

Netflix fights password-sharing with test of $3 "Extra Member" fee:

Netflix will soon charge an extra fee for sharing accounts with people in other households. This is the company's latest attempt to reduce the password-sharing that has been common among Netflix users for years. The fee will roll out in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru "over the next few weeks" and potentially go worldwide at a later date.

"Members on our Standard and Premium plans will be able to add sub accounts for up to two people they don't live with—each with their own profile, personalized recommendations, login and password—at a lower price: 2,380 CLP in Chile, 2.99 USD in Costa Rica, and 7.9 PEN in Peru," Netflix said in an announcement yesterday. Based on current conversion rates, 2,380 CLP is about $2.98 USD and 7.9 PEN is about $2.12 USD.

The new fee will be paired with the ability for users to transfer profile information (including their viewing history and watchlist) to a new account or an Extra Member account. After rolling out the fee and profile transfers in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, Netflix will "be working to understand the utility of these two features for members in these three countries before making changes anywhere else in the world," the company said.

Original Submission

Hypersonic Missile Possibly Used for the First Time in Combat

takyon writes:

Russia claims to use a hypersonic missile in attack on arms depot in Ukraine.

Russia has fired scores of guided missiles into Ukraine, but on Saturday it claimed for the first time that it had launched one capable of hypersonic speed in an attack on an ammunition depot in western Ukraine. The report could not be independently verified, but if true could be the first use of a hypersonic weapon in combat.

Hypersonics, generally defined as weapons capable of flying at speeds over Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound, are at the center of an arms race among the United States, Russia and China.

[...] A spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said hypersonic missiles, called Kinzhals, had destroyed the underground warehouse storing Ukrainian missiles and aviation ammunition in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine.

Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for Ukraine's military, confirmed Saturday that Russian forces had hit an underground warehouse in western Ukraine but said the type of missile involved "is yet to be determined."

Russia Reports First Use of Hypersonic Missile

upstart writes:

Russia reports first use of hypersonic missile:

The Russian military says it used its latest hypersonic missile, Kinzhal, for the first time in combat during its offensive in Ukraine. The Kinzhal is a nuclear-capable hypersonic aero-ballistic air-to-ground missile.Spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the hypersonic missiles destroyed an underground warehouse storing missiles and aviation ammunition of Ukrainian troops in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Second Kinzhal Missile Fired

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/20/russia-says-it-used-hypersonic-missiles-in-ukraine-for-second-day

Russia has claimed that a 2nd hypersonic missile ("Kinzhal" - dagger) was used on 20 Mar against "a Ukrainian fuel depot in Kostiantynivka near the Black Sea port of Mykolaiv."

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes:

Microsoft refreshes its own in-house Linux distro:

CBL-Mariner, Microsoft's Linux distro, has received its first update in more than half a year, and although it doesn't add much on the functionality side, it does fix quite a few bugs as well as patching a number of security flaws.

The March 2022 Update, added to GitHub recently, addresses some 30 CVEs, including the dreaded Dirty Pipe vulnerability that hit headlines earlier this month.

However there isn't much to see in terms of functionality, and the distro's version number hasn't moved past 1.0.

It does, however, come as an ISO file now, making installation a lot less troublesome. The ISO can be found on this link. It weighs 720MB and, according to The Register, installs in roughly a minute.

The publication also said it is not one of the supported options in Windows Services for Linux, which is a bit strange, but users can still enable Hyper-V and install it like that.

[...] CBL-Mariner is also used in Azure IoT Edge, running Linux workloads on Windows IoT, as well as to host the Weston compositor for WSLg.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Tesla fires employee who posted YouTube videos of Full Self-Driving accident:

Ex-Tesla employee John Bernal says he was fired for posting YouTube videos about Tesla's Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta. He had been creating the videos for about a year. Bernal says that Tesla also cut off his access to the FSD beta in the 2021 Tesla Model 3 that he owns.

The firing and beta cutoff occurred shortly after Bernal posted a video on February 4 of a minor accident in which his Tesla car hit a bollard that appears to separate a car lane from a bike lane in San Jose. In a subsequent video on February 7 providing frame-by-frame analysis of the collision, Bernal said that "no matter how minor this accident was, it's the first FSD beta collision caught on camera that is irrefutable."

"I was fired from Tesla in February with my YouTube being cited as the reason why—even though my uploads are for my personal vehicle, off company time or property, with software I paid for," Bernal said in the latest video, which was posted yesterday on his AI Addict channel. Bernal showed a notice he received that said his Full Self-Driving beta access was disabled "based on your recent driving data." But that explanation didn't seem to make sense because "the morning of being fired, I had zero improper use strikes on my vehicle," he said.

upstart writes:

Artificial intelligence paves the way to discovering new rare-earth compounds:

[...] Rare earth elements have a wide range of uses including clean energy technologies, energy storage, and permanent magnets. Discovery of new rare-earth compounds is part of a larger effort by scientists to expand access to these materials.

The present approach is based on machine learning (ML), a form of artificial intelligence (AI), which is driven by computer algorithms that improve through data usage and experience. Researchers used the upgraded Ames Laboratory Rare Earth database (RIC 2.0) and high-throughput density-functional theory (DFT) to build the foundation for their ML model.

High-throughput screening is a computational scheme that allows a researcher to test hundreds of models quickly. DFT is a quantum mechanical method used to investigate thermodynamic and electronic properties of many body systems. Based on this collection of information, the developed ML model uses regression learning to assess phase stability of compounds.

[...] "It's not really meant to discover a particular compound," Mudryk said. "It was, how do we design a new approach or a new tool for discovery and prediction of rare earth compounds? And that's what we did."

Mudryk emphasized that this work is just the beginning. The team is exploring the full potential of this method, but they are optimistic that there will be a wide range of applications for the framework in the future.

Journal Reference:
Redirecting, (DOI: 10.1016/j.actamat.2022.117759)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Proposed law in Minnesota would ban algorithms to protect the children:

Minnesota state lawmakers are trying to prohibit social media platforms from using algorithms to recommend content to anyone under age 18. The bill was approved Tuesday by the House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee in a 15-1 vote. The potential state law goes next to the House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee, which has put it on the docket for a hearing on March 22.

The algorithm ban applies to platforms with at least 1 million account holders and says those companies would be "prohibited from using a social media algorithm to target user-created content at an account holder under the age of 18." There are exemptions for content created by federal, state, or local governments and by public or private schools.

"This bill prohibits a social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, and others, from using algorithms to target children with specific types of content," the bill summary says. "The bill would require anyone operating a social media platform with more than one million users to require that algorithm functions be turned off for accounts owned by anyone under the age of 18." Social media companies would be "liable for damages and a civil penalty of $1,000 for each violation."

Tech-industry lobbyists say the bill would violate the First Amendment, prevent companies from recommending useful content, and require them to collect more data on the ages and locations of users.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Court says non-open 'open source' code is false advertising:

Last year, the Graph Foundation had to rethink how it develops and distributes its Open Native Graph Database (ONgDB) after it settled a trademark and copyright claim by database biz Neo4j.

The Graph Foundation agreed [PDF] it would no longer claim specific versions of ONgDB, its Neo4j Enterprise Edition fork, are a "100 percent free and open source version" of Neo4J EE. And last month, two other companies challenged by Neo4j – PureThink and iGov – were also required by a court ruling to make similar concessions.

ONgDB is forked from Neo4j EE, which in May 2018 dropped the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) and adopted a new license that incorporates the AGPLv3 alongside additional limitations spelled out in the Commons Clause license. This new Neo4j EE license forbade non-paying users of the software from reselling the code or offering some support services, and thus is not open source as defined by the Open Source Initiative.

The Graph Foundation, PureThink, and iGov offered ONgDB as a "free and open source" version of Neo4j in the hope of winning customers who preferred an open-source license. That made it more challenging for Neo4j to compete.

So in 2018 and 2019 Neo4j and its Swedish subsidiary pursued legal claims against the respective firms and their principals for trademark and copyright infringement, among other things.

upstart writes:

Daring NASA helicopter captures stunning view of the Martian desert:

NASA's trusty helicopter will soon enter some precarious terrain.

The aerial craft Ingenuity is headed to a dried-up river delta in the Jezero Crater, a land filled "with jagged cliffs, angled surfaces, projecting boulders, and sand-filled pockets that could stop a rover in its tracks (or upend a helicopter upon landing)," says NASA.

But first, it must fly there.

Over a series of at least three flights, NASA will send Ingenuity across an expanse of desert dubbed "Séítah." The space agency released an image from a trip across this terrain, captured in midair using Ingenuity's high-resolution color camera.

The Ingenuity helicopter, an experimental robot, has vastly exceeded engineers' expectations. NASA hoped to prove it could fly something on Mars. Now, the helicopter has flown over 21 times, and its next journey is expected to span some 1,150 feet — while avoiding a hill.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Heineken launches virtual beer in self-mocking metaverse 'joke':

A brewer has created a virtual beer to highlight the extremes businesses will go to to grab a slice of the next big thing - the metaverse. Heineken set up a virtual launch to promote the "product" - an experience described by one attendee as surreal. The metaverse does not yet exist but many believe people will one day spend their time in inter-connected virtual worlds, accessed via a VR headset.

The firm said it was "an ironic joke... that pokes fun at us and other brands".

The mock launch - to which real journalists were invited - took place in a virtual brewery in Decentraland - a virtual world owned by its users. And the beer was described as being brewed with "binary-coded hops grown by NPC (non-player character) farmers".

The firm's global head of brand, Bram Westenbrink, said: "We know that the metaverse brings people together in a light-hearted and immersive way but it's just not the best place to taste a new beer.

"Our new virtual beer is an ironic joke. It is a self-aware idea that pokes fun at us and many other brands that are jumping into the metaverse with products that are best enjoyed in the real world."

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2022/03/better-rollover-safety-may-be-to-blame-for-more-pedestrian-deaths/

It's a dangerous time to be on American roads, and that's especially true if you're on foot.

Pedestrian deaths on our roads went up by more than 50 percent in a decade, and it looks like last year may have been even worse than 2020. The problem is complex, as road design, poor standards of driving training, and inadequate enforcement of existing traffic laws all contribute to the death toll.

But a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has figured out why drivers of some types of vehicles are disproportionately more likely to hit pedestrians. Previous research has shown that cars are much safer for pedestrians than light truck vehicles, a catch-all category that includes SUVs, pickups, and vans (mini- or otherwise). And there has been speculation that the high fronts of these vehicles are more likely to mangle a pedestrian.

The IIHS study identifies another factor. IIHS Senior Transportation Engineer Wen Hu and IIHS Vice President of Research Jessica Cicchino looked at crash data from North Carolina (from 2010 to 2018) and data from the national Fatality Analysis Reporting System, or FARS, (from 2014 to 2018) to try to understand the problem.
[...]
Ironically, the problem may be partly of IIHS' making. When Ars visited IIHS's crash-testing center in 2019, the organization was proud of the fact that the auto industry had responded to its tougher rollover test. In order to protect occupants during a rollover, OEMs had to strengthen their A-pillars in order to pass. That resulted in safer cars for their occupants, but at the cost of worse visibility—and perhaps more dead pedestrians.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

BIG sabotage: Famous npm package deletes files to protest Ukraine war:

This month, the developer behind the popular npm package 'node-ipc' released sabotaged versions of the library in protest of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War.

Newer versions of the 'node-ipc' package began deleting all data and overwriting all files on developer's machines, in addition to creating new text files with "peace" messages.

With over a million weekly downloads, 'node-ipc' is a prominent package used by major libraries like Vue.js CLI.

Select versions (10.1.1 and 10.1.2) of the massively popular 'node-ipc' package were caught containing malicious code that would overwrite or delete arbitrary files on a system for users based in Russia and Belarus. These versions are tracked under CVE-2022-23812.

On March 8th, developer Brandon Nozaki Miller, aka RIAEvangelist released open source software packages called peacenotwar and oneday-test on both npm and GitHub The packages appear to have been originally created by the developer as a means of peaceful protest, as they mainly add a "message of peace" on the Desktop of any user installing the packages.

takyon writes:

NASA's Webb Reaches Alignment Milestone, Optics Working Successfully

Following the completion of critical mirror alignment steps, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope team expects that Webb's optical performance will be able to meet or exceed the science goals the observatory was built to achieve.

On March 11, the Webb team completed the stage of alignment known as "fine phasing." At this key stage in the commissioning of Webb's Optical Telescope Element, every optical parameter that has been checked and tested is performing at, or above, expectations. The team also found no critical issues and no measurable contamination or blockages to Webb's optical path. The observatory is able to successfully gather light from distant objects and deliver it to its instruments without issue.

[...] Over the next six weeks, the team will proceed through the remaining alignment steps before final science instrument preparations. The team will further align the telescope to include the Near-Infrared Spectrograph, Mid-Infrared Instrument, and Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph. In this phase of the process, an algorithm will evaluate the performance of each instrument and then calculate the final corrections needed to achieve a well-aligned telescope across all science instruments. Following this, Webb's final alignment step will begin, and the team will adjust any small, residual positioning errors in the mirror segments.

The team is on track to conclude all aspects of Optical Telescope Element alignment by early May, if not sooner, before moving on to approximately two months of science instrument preparations. Webb's first full-resolution imagery and science data will be released in the summer.

Image (5.74 MB).

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Both girls and boys are subjected to digital sexual harassment from schoolmates in the form of unwanted nude images and sexual videos. A new thesis shows that young people often lack strategies to protect themselves, and that this can lead to shame, bullying and mental health problems. However, some young people find ways to resist.

"Schoolchildren describe receiving unwanted nude images as a relatively common phenomenon that affects their everyday social relationships at school," says Kristina Hunehäll Berndtsson. "Previous research has mainly focused on the vulnerability of girls. But this thesis shows that boys are also vulnerable."

Kristina investigated students' experiences of digital sexual harassment by interviewing around 80 year 9 students [age 14/15 years] at three schools located in different geographic and socio-economic areas. Students described examples such as photos and videos that were shared with consent being passed on to others, being tricked or threatened into sending photos that are then circulated, and receiving unsolicited 'dick pics' and 'nudes.'

"Young people tend to lack strategies for dealing with digital sexual harassment. It's a sensitive subject that's hard to talk about. Some don't even talk to their closest friends about it. There's a risk of rumors spreading if it gets out. And they don't talk to adults about it, either. They don't think that adults know about the phenomenon.