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upstart writes:

The Future of the NTFS Linux Driver as Part of the Kernel is in Question:

Support in the Linux kernel for NTFS, the primary filesystem for Windows systems, has always been important for people who use both operating systems. The existing Linux NTFS driver has been unmaintained and has always lacked proper write support. A filesystem in userspace (FUSE) driver, NTFS-3G, came along, but since it operates in userspace, it isn't considered particularly fast.

So when last August, the German software company Paragon Software offered to open source its in-house developed NTFS3 driver to become part of the Linux kernel, the news was welcomed among the Linux community. However, the driver was a proprietary software sold commercially before that.

[...] However, the first steps of adopting the driver as part of the Linux kernel were accompanied by many strange events and misunderstandings.

The point is that a straightforward procedure like creating a pull request (PR) proved to be a difficult task for the driver developers at Paragon Software. After several failed attempts, the driver was still submitted as a single dump of 27,000 lines of code!

Despite all the glitches, the driver was eventually implemented, and on October 31, 2021, Linux kernel 5.15 was officially announced with the Paragon NTFS3 driver integrated into it.

Unfortunately, thus far, the code has not received any maintenance.

takyon writes:

All of the bases in DNA and RNA have now been found in meteorites

More of the ingredients for life have been found in meteorites.

Space rocks that fell to Earth within the last century contain the five bases that store information in DNA and RNA, scientists report April 26 in Nature Communications.

These "nucleobases" — adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine and uracil — combine with sugars and phosphates to make up the genetic code of all life on Earth. Whether these basic ingredients for life first came from space or instead formed in a warm soup of earthly chemistry is still not known. But the discovery adds to evidence that suggests life's precursors originally came from space, the researchers say.

Scientists have detected bits of adenine, guanine and other organic compounds in meteorites since the 1960s. Researchers have also seen hints of uracil, but cytosine and thymine remained elusive, until now.

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upstart writes:

First Human Case of H3N8 Bird Flu Detected in China:

[...] A case of H3N8 influenza was detected in a 4-year-old boy in China. [...] It's the first time the virus has jumped from animals to humans -- but it looks like a one-off jump and further risk of spread is low.

The first case of H3N8 avian influenza has been recorded in China, according to a report by Reuters on Tuesday.

China's National Health Commission released a statement on Tuesday confirming a 4-year-old boy was infected with the strain of bird flu. The boy, from the central Chinese province of Henan, was in close contact with chickens and wild ducks and came down with a fever on April 5. He was admitted to hospital on April 10.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Arducam Reveals Hawk-eye, a 64MP Raspberry Pi Camera:

Arducam's latest Raspberry Pi camera module, Hawk-eye, is now available for pre-order, somehow cramming 64 megapixels into a sensor measuring just 7.4mm x 5.55mm. Its lens has full autofocus, a maximum aperture of f/1.8, and sees an angle of view of 84 degrees - the same as a 24mm lens on a full-frame camera.

Of course, all those megapixels mean there's plenty of opportunity to crop into your images or print them on huge pieces of paper - Sony's A7R IV currently takes the crown for the highest resolution full-frame (24mm x 36mm) mirrorless camera with 61MP, while Nikon and Canon top out at around the 45MP mark. Fujifilm will sell you a 102MP camera, but it uses its 32.9mm x 43.8mm medium format sensor.

Arducam's new device uses the same libcamera library, ribbon connector, and dimensions as the official Raspberry Pi camera module 2.1, so it can slot into existing Pi camera setups, and you can use up to four of them with a single board to create a multiplexed depth-mapping system. The camera can capture still images at up to 9152x6944 pixels on a Raspberry Pi 4 or Compute Module 4 (16MP on older boards and Zeros), and video at up to 1080p30 on a Raspberry Pi, though you may be able to take it higher on other boards, up to 9152x6944 at 2.7 frames per second.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

DoD agency warns $22 billion Army/Microsoft HoloLens deal could be waste of taxpayer money:

[...] Microsoft's deal to supply the US Army with 121,500 Integrated Visual Augmentation Systems (IVAS) augmented reality glasses based on its HoloLens technology could be a $22 billion waste of taxpayer money, according to a Department of Defense oversight agency.

Back in 2018, Microsoft began prototyping the IVAS glasses and was awarded a $480 million contract by the Army for 100,000 units. In April last year, Microsoft won the contract to build the final version for soldiers in a deal worth $22 billion over ten years.

The system combines high-resolution night, thermal, and soldier-borne sensors into a heads-up display. It also leverages augmented reality and machine learning to enable a life-like mixed reality training environment, the military branch wrote.

Signs that the project could be running into trouble arrived a few months later when the AR goggles' rollout was pushed back from fiscal year 2021 to September 2022, but the Army said it remained fully committed to the deal.

Yet it seems the US Department of Defense's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) doesn't share the Army's enthusiasm, nothing [sic] that many soldiers are having issues with the devices. "Procuring IVAS without attaining user acceptance could result in wasting up to $21.88 billion in taxpayer funds to field a system that soldiers may not want to use or use as intended," it wrote in an audit report (via The Reg).

This sounds like the usual story for defence procurement - time and cost over-runs, and failure to meet the original specification are the norm, aren't they?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Researchers develop a paper-thin loudspeaker:

This thin-film loudspeaker produces sound with minimal distortion while using a fraction of the energy required by a traditional loudspeaker. The hand-sized loudspeaker the team demonstrated, which weighs about as much as a dime, can generate high-quality sound no matter what surface the film is bonded to.

To achieve these properties, the researchers pioneered a deceptively simple fabrication technique, which requires only three basic steps and can be scaled up to produce ultrathin loudspeakers large enough to cover the inside of an automobile or to wallpaper a room.

Used this way, the thin-film loudspeaker could provide active noise cancellation in clamorous environments, such as an airplane cockpit, by generating sound of the same amplitude but opposite phase; the two sounds cancel each other out. The flexible device could also be used for immersive entertainment, perhaps by providing three-dimensional audio in a theater or theme park ride. And because it is lightweight and requires such a small amount of power to operate, the device is well-suited for applications on smart devices where battery life is limited.

[...] A typical loudspeaker found in headphones or an audio system uses electric current inputs that pass through a coil of wire that generates a magnetic field, which moves a speaker membrane, that moves the air above it, that makes the sound we hear. By contrast, the new loudspeaker simplifies the speaker design by using a thin film of a shaped piezoelectric material that moves when voltage is applied over it, which moves the air above it and generates sound.

upstart writes:

'Vampire devices' cost UK households £147 a year:

UK households could save an average of £147 per year by switching off so-called vampire devices.

Vampire devices are electronics that drain a surprising amount of power even when they are on standby.

British Gas research indicates households in the UK are spending £3.16bn annually just for the privilege of leaving vampire devices on standby.

This equates to £147 a year for the average household - the equivalent of two months' electricity charges.

Has anyone got any similar figures for their home countries?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The decentralized social network is having a moment — again:

We may not yet know exactly what Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter means for the platform, but one Twitter alternative is already booming as a result of the news. Mastodon, the open-source social media service which bills itself as the "largest decentralized social network on the internet," has been "exploding" since Musk's acquisition, according to its founder.

"Funnily enough one of the reasons I started looking into the decentralized social media space in 2016, which ultimately led me to go on to create Mastodon, were rumours that Twitter, the platform I'd been a daily user of for years at that point, might get sold to another controversial billionaire," he wrote. "Among, of course, other reasons such as all the terrible product decisions Twitter had been making at that time. And now, it has finally come to pass, and for the same reasons masses of people are coming to Mastodon."

[...] While Mastodon has been in the spotlight as a potentially viable Twitter alternative in the past, it has yet to reach the mainstream. But its current popularity comes at a moment when Twitter is also exploring how it could become an open-sourced protocol — much like Mastodon.

Unlike Twitter, Mastodon is not a single, centralized service. Though the interface looks similar to Twitter — it has a 500-character limit but otherwise will be mostly recognizable to Twitter users — it runs on an open-source protocol. Groups of users are free to create and maintain their own "instances" with their own rules around membership, moderation and other key policies. Users are also able to take their followers with them between instances.

[...] But all that also comes with extra complexity for new users who may not easily understand Mastodon's unique structure or how it works. But those who stick around long enough may see some significant new features. Rochko said that end-to-end encrypted messaging is in the works, as well as "an exciting groups functionality."

Anyone in the community have experience using or recommending it?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

ANU launches quantum-powered random number generator on AWS Marketplace:

The Australian National University (ANU) has announced the ANU Quantum Numbers (AQN) online random number generator has been launched on Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace to scale the service and make it available to more than 310,000 active AWS customers.

According to ANU, AQN uses quantum technology to generate true random numbers at high speed and in real-time by measuring the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum.

"Quantum physics practically provides an infinite source of truly random numbers. These quantum random numbers are guaranteed by the laws of physics to be unpredictable and unbiased," AQN team leader Professor Ping Koy Lam said.

[...] Under the free tier of the service, anyone online can create an API key to make up to 100 requests a month to the AQN API. However, by launching AQN on AWS Marketplace, AWS customers can make unlimited requests and be charged for each request they make.

"Random numbers are needed in IT, data science, and modelling. Without random numbers you can't have reliable models for forecasting and research simulation," said Dr Syed Assad, one of the researchers behind AQN.

"But they are also used by artists to help with removing human biases from their creative work. In computer gaming and smart contracts, true random numbers are also an indispensable resource. We've even had a request from a father to generate random numbers that he then used as inspiration for his daughter's name."

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The Founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the popular Linux Distribution Ubuntu, indicated on Thursday that the company will probably have its IPO sometime in 2023:

According to Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical, the commercial entity behind Ubuntu, is ready to start planning for its initial public offering, an event that can be expected to happen sometime next year.

[...] In addition to an IPO that might be in the works, it appears that the company is at least approaching profitability. According to Frederic Lardinois at TechCrunch, Shuttleworth said on Thursday during a press briefing focused on last week's release of Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, that Canonical's revenues last year were $175 million, and that the biggest issue the company is facing is that it can't meet customer demand, mainly due to a shortage of tech talent.

[...] According to Lardinois, Shuttleworth also made it clear that any IPO would not be driven by any need to raise funds to meet obligations.

It's been obvious to folks watching Canonical that for some time the company's focus hasn't been on Ubuntu's desktop operating system but on its server OS. This shift began in earnest in 2017, which is when it decided that Ubuntu Touch, the mobile OS it'd been developing, was a no starter and announced its demise as a Canonical project, along with Unity, its homegrown desktop environment which was replaced with Gnome.

By that time, Ubuntu Server was becoming popular and had already become the most used Linux distribution on Amazon Web Services. Since then, not only has the company found success monetizing its server business through security subscriptions and such, but has become a major player in the Kubernetes- and container-focused cloud native arena.

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Rodxit writes:

Nasa has invented Duranium!
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Duranium

NASA's New Material Built to Withstand Extreme Conditions

NASA innovators recently developed a new metal alloy using a 3D printing process that dramatically improves the strength and durability of the components and parts used in aviation and space exploration, resulting in better and longer-lasting performance.

NASA Alloy GRX-810, an oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloy, can endure temperatures over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, is more malleable, and can survive more than 1,000 times longer than existing state-of-the-art alloys. These new alloys can be used to build aerospace parts for high temperature applications, like those inside aircraft and rocket engines, because ODS alloys can withstand harsher conditions before reaching their breaking point.

[...] . NASA's new alloys deliver enhanced mechanical properties at extreme temperatures. At 2,000° F, GRX-810 shows remarkable performance improvements over current state-of-the-art alloys including:

• Twice the strength to resist fracturing
• Three and a half times the flexibility to stretch/bend prior to fracturing
• More than 1,000 times the durability under stress at high temperatures

"This breakthrough is revolutionary for materials development. New types of stronger and more lightweight materials play a key role as NASA aims to change the future of flight," said Hopkins. "Previously, an increase in tensile strength usually lowered a material's ability to stretch and bend before breaking, which is why our new alloy is remarkable."

I guess Elon has to build a Raptor 3 with it.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Dell defends its controversial new laptop memory

If you were triggered over word that Dell is pushing a proprietary memory standard, take a chill pill. Dell's new memory design isn't really proprietary and may actually lead to benefits for performance laptops.

The controversy kicked up last week when images of Dell's new CAMM, or Compression Attached Memory Module, leaked out. This immediately lead tech sites to declare that Dell was taking a path to "lock out user upgrades" and warning laptop users who like to upgrade their memory that they were "out of luck."

In an interview with PCWorld, however, both the person who designed and patented the CAMM standard, as well as the product manager of the first Dell Precision laptop to feature it, assured us the intent of the new memory module standard is to head-off looming bandwidth ceilings in the current SO-DIMM designs. Dell's CAMM, in fact, could increase performance, improve reliability, aid user upgrades, and eventually lower costs too, they said.

[...] [Dell's Tom] Schnell said that Dell isn't making the modules and has worked with memory companies as well as Intel on this. In the future, a person with a CAMM-equipped laptop will be able to buy RAM from any third party and install it in the laptop. Yes, initially, Dell will likely be the only place to get CAMM upgrades, but that should change as the standard scales up and is adopted by other PC makers. The new memory modules are also built using commodity DRAMs just like conventional SO-DIMMs.

[...] So why do we need CAMM anyway? Dell's Schnell said that SO-DIMM, or Small Outline Dual Inline Memory Module, is headed for a glass ceiling within a generation of design. SO-DIMMs, which were first introduced almost 25 years ago, haven't changed much in all that time besides moving to newer and faster DRAM methods.

See also: Dell Launches Its Precision 2022 Laptop Lineup: Feature Intel Alder Lake-HX 16 Core CPUs, Up To 128 GB DDR5 CAMM Memory, Up To RTX 3080 TI GPUs

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Pathogens can hitch a ride on plastic to reach the sea:

Microplastics are a pathway for pathogens on land to reach the ocean, with likely consequences for human and wildlife health, according to a study from the University of California, Davis.

[...] The pathogens studied—Toxoplasma gondii, Cryptosporidium (Crypto) and Giardia—can infect both humans and animals. They are recognized by the World Health Organization as underestimated causes of illness from shellfish consumption and are found throughout the ocean.

"It's easy for people to dismiss plastic problems as something that doesn't matter for them, like, 'I'm not a turtle in the ocean; I won't choke on this thing,'" said corresponding author Karen Shapiro, an infectious disease expert and associate professor in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. "But once you start talking about disease and health, there's more power to implement change. Microplastics can actually move germs around, and these germs end up in our water and our food."

[...] T. gondii, a parasite found only in cat poop, has infected many ocean species with the disease toxoplasmosis. UC Davis and its partners have a long history of research connecting the parasite to sea otter deaths. It's also killed critically endangered wildlife, including Hector's dolphins and Hawaiian monk seals. In people, toxoplasmosis can cause life-long illnesses, as well as developmental and reproductive disorders.

Crypto and giardia cause gastrointestinal disease and can be deadly in young children and people who are immunocompromised.

"This is very much a problem that affects both humans and animals," said first author Emma Zhang, a fourth-year veterinary student with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. "It highlights the importance of a One Health approach that requires collaboration across human, wildlife and environmental disciplines. We all depend on the ocean environment."

More information: Association of zoonotic protozoan parasites with microplastics in seawater and implications for human and wildlife health, Scientific Reports (2022).
Journal information:Scientific Reports Provided by UC Davis.
Citation : Pathogens can hitch a ride on plastic to reach the sea (2022, April 26) from https://phys.org/news/2022-04-pathogens-hitch-plastic-sea.html

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Google accused of 'creepy' speech policing:

Google has been criticised for an "inclusive language" feature that will recommend word substitutions for people writing in Google Docs.

The tool will offer guidance to people writing in a way that "may not be inclusive to all readers" in a similar manner to spelling and grammar check systems.

Although the suggestions are just suggestions - they aren't forced on writers and the tool may be turned off - critics have described it as "speech-policing" and "profoundly clumsy, creepy and wrong".

The new feature is officially called assistive writing and will be on by default for enterprise users, business customers who might want to nudge particular writing styles among their staff.

The language the system favours reflects decades of campaigning for gender-neutral terms ("crewed" instead of "manned") and against phrases that reflect racial prejudice ("deny list" instead of "blacklist"), as well as more modern concerns about the impact of our vocabulary on how we identify people.

Also reported at:

• The Telegraph [May be paywalled in your locality]
• TechRadar
• Metro.co.uk
• WSJ
• Vice
• NY Post
• The Register

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes:

NRO plans for immediate and long-term acquisition of commercial satellite data - SpaceNews:

Since Russian forces began mobilizing to invade Ukraine, commercial satellite operators have supplied U.S. intelligence agencies with extensive electro-optical, synthetic aperture radar and radio frequency data.

BlackSky, Maxar Technologies and Planet, for example, have shared "millions and millions of square kilometers of imagery" over Ukraine and Russia, specifically, Peter Muend, director of the National Reconnaissance Office Commercial Systems Program Office, said April 25 at the GEOINT Symposium.

Muend also cited Capella Space for providing extensive SAR data and HawkEye 360 for supplying RF data to U.S. government agencies. Those agencies, in turn, are sharing imagery and data with U.S. partners and allies.

Commercial satellite imagery and data have been featured prominently in news reports and social media posts since the Russia invaded Ukraine.