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upstart writes:

Drone swarms that can navigate dense forest burst out of science fiction into real world:

Chinese scientists have proven that aerial robots can work together, navigate obstacles and, perhaps worryingly, track humans out of sight

Drone swarms that dart nimbly around obstacles, mapping their surroundings or searching for fugitives, have long been the stuff of science fiction. But now Chinese scientists have proven that aerial robots can work together, manoeuvring at speed through a dense bamboo forest without crashing into the plants or themselves.

In new footage, released by a team from Zhejiang University, a swarm of 10 lightweight drones was filmed moving gracefully through the gaps between trunks, successfully navigating uneven ground, weeds and tangled branches.

The system works through an algorithm which crunches data from cameras on the drone, mapping the surroundings in real time and looking for obstacles and other craft, before readjusting the flight path as needed.

[...] It does not need a GPS signal to locate itself, meaning it could be used in areas with little satellite penetration such as deep cave systems, impenetrable forests or even other planets. The breakthrough could allow surveying of remote wildlife or hunting for survivors in disaster zones which are often harsh, remote or difficult to navigate.

The full story contains some impressive video footage.

Journal Reference:
XIN ZHOU, XIANGYONG WEN, et. al., Swarm of micro flying robots in the wild , Science Robotics, Vol. 7, No 66, (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abm5954)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Nvidia hid how many GPUs it was selling to cryptocurrency miners, says SEC:

Nvidia has agreed to pay $5.5 million in fines to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it failed to disclose how many of its GPUs were being sold for cryptocurrency mining, the agency announced today.

These charges are unrelated to the current (slowly ebbing) crypto-driven GPU shortage. Rather, they deal with a similar but smaller crypto-driven bump in GPU sales back in 2017.

The agency's full order (PDF) goes into more detail. During its 2018 fiscal year, Nvidia reported increases in its GPU sales but did not disclose that those sales were being driven by cryptocurrency miners. The SEC alleges that Nvidia knew these sales were being driven by the relatively volatile cryptocurrency market and that Nvidia didn't disclose that information to investors, misleading them about the company's prospects for future growth.

Nvidia did disclose how cryptocurrency mining was affecting other segments of its business—the company made and sold some GPUs marketed exclusively to cryptocurrency miners. This created an impression that Nvidia was being transparent about the impact of cryptocurrency mining on its overall business, even though those CMP products didn't stop people from buying regular GeForce gaming GPUs to use for cryptocurrency mining.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Study Links Urbanization to Poor Ecological Knowledge, Less Environmental Action:

A new study by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators highlights a sharp contrast between urban and suburban ways of thinking about coastal ecosystems.

The authors of the study used statistical and cognitive science techniques to analyze data from a survey of 1,400 residents across the U.S. East Coast. Their results, published in the journal npj Urban Sustainability, showed that surveyed residents of urban centers often held a more simplistic, and less realistic, understanding of coastal ecosystems than residents in suburban areas. The research also uncovered a lower propensity to take pro-environmental actions among urban populations. The study provides evidence for an issue the authors refer to as urbanized knowledge syndrome, which may be detrimental to natural ecosystems and hamper community resilience to natural disasters.

[...] The survey was targeted at coastal counties in metropolitan areas across eight states, each of which featured shorelines with varying densities of roads, sea walls, ditches and other "gray" infrastructure. On the National Center for Health Statistics' six-level urban-rural classification scheme, surveyed residents largely resided in the three most urban levels, ranging from city centers to suburbs.

fliptop writes:

Over at ACM.org, Samuel Greengard speculates Elon Musk buying Twitter is more about freedom to control speech:

The press has mostly accepted Musk's statement that the $44-billion acquisition is a "free speech" crusade that will create wonderful online town squares brimming with democratic ideas! It's 1998 naivete revisited. The Internet will bridge the digital divide! It will end oppression and censorship! It's the dawn of a new era for world freedom!

This isn't 1776, or even 1976. No one assembles at a town square to politely share ideas and debate philosophies. The Federal Communications Commission's imperfect but beneficial Fairness Doctrine is now buried deep in history. Today's online world, while delivering an appearance of democratization, has introduced hidden traps and limitations that we can't see.

It's no secret that algorithmic engines run (and rule) the Internet—and Twitter. They amplify, magnify, and even distort ideas. They introduce biases and, too often, they discriminate. They also manipulate our minds—and our thinking.

[...] Make no mistake, there will be a line; actually, lots of lines. What's more, even if Musk somehow accomplishes the seemingly impossible task of ensuring that everyone on the platform is verified, there's no way to guarantee that this will stop abuse—or that there will be any real penalty for the offenders.

[...] Yes, Twitter will wind up with different rules, results and outcomes—and it may be the better or worse for it. Along the way, some people will cheer, and others will jeer. But framing the discussion as a "free speech" issue is entirely disingenuous. This is simply a billionaire attempting to etch his world view into an algorithm—even if he brands himself a swashbuckling digital freedom fighter.

Previously
After Musk's Twitter Takeover, an Open-Source Alternative is 'Exploding'
Elon Musk has just bought Twitter

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hubie writes:

Virgin Galactic pushes back commercial suborbital flights to 2023:

Virgin Galactic is again postponing the start of commercial service of its SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane from late 2022 to early 2023, blaming the latest delay on supply chain and labor issues.

[...] Michael Colglazier, chief executive of Virgin Galactic, noted in an earnings call that it was experiencing "elevated levels of supply chain disruption" and hiring that was not keeping pace with projections. [...]

[...] Asked later about specific supply chain issues, Colglazier mentioned availability of "high-performance metallics" used on the vehicles, which primarily are made of carbon composites. [...]

The other issue is hiring. Virgin Galactic is expanding its engineering staff, but he said most of the new employees are working on the design of the company's new "Delta-class" spaceplane that the company expects to enter service in mid-decade. Existing staff, he said, are spread out working on Unity, Eve and Imagine, the new suborbital spaceplane now slated to enter commercial service in mid-2023.

[...] Virgin Galactic is still seeing strong interest in suborbital flights despite the delays. The company now has 800 customers signed up, and Colglazier said the company should easily reach its goal of having 1,000 customers once commercial service begins in early 2023.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

In-Person Socialization Down, but Social Media Isn't to Blame:

Jeffrey Hall is passionate about two things in particular – friendship and social media – and he thinks the latter is too often mistaken as the enemy of the former.

[...] "The social displacement hypothesis is probably the most well-known, long-lasting explanation for where time spent using new technologies — from the internet to texting, and now social media — comes from," Hall said. "The social displacement argument says that new media cuts into our face-to-face time. The best available evidence suggests it's just not so."

Hall took data on FtF time from the U.S. Department of Labor's annual American Time Use Survey and from similar governmental studies in Australia and Great Britain between 1995 and 2021 and plotted them on a single chart. All three lines decline over time at a similar rate.

[...] "The fact that the U.K. data track U.S. data so tightly despite using slightly different methods in different years is surprising," Hall said.

This international trend of reduced time in face-to-face communication may reflect growing rates of loneliness, according to the authors.

[...] "The best available evidence suggests face-to-face is in competition with hours spent at work and commuting," Hall said. In other words, people who work longer spend more of their leisure time alone. During the pandemic, when people got that time back from commuting, "They still spent it working virtually," Hall said. "They didn't spend it socializing with each other.

"It seems we live in a society that privileges working and media consumption over everything else," Hall said. "The decline in face-to-face time is a matter of priority and a matter of availability. And we are neither prioritizing face-to-face time, nor are we available to do so."

Journal Reference:
Jeffrey Hall and Dong Liu, Social media use, social displacement, and well-being, Cur. Op. in Psych., 46, 2022
DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101339"

Original Submission

Puffin writes:

Super Flower Blood Moon Eclipse

Total eclipse of the moon, May 15-16. Should be fun.

The total lunar eclipse will start Sunday, May 15 at 10:27 p.m., according to Mike Narlock, head of Astronomy at Cranbrook Institute of Science. Narlock says the progression to the total lunar eclipse will take a while. The totality portion of the lunar eclipse starts at 11:29 p.m. Sunday and lasts until 12:53 a.m. Monday, May 16.

You'll have to stay up late on a Sunday night to see the eclipse, but it may be worth it.

There are a few things going on with this full moon. First, this month's full moon is called the Flower Moon. It's easy to understand why this moon has that name, with our spring bulbs blooming now.

The full moon is also a super moon. Narlock says a super moon occurs when the position of the moon is at its closest point to Earth. The orbit of the moon around Earth isn't a perfect circle. Narlock says the moon's orbit is more egg-shaped than circular. On May 15, the moon will be in the spot of its orbit where it is closest to Earth.

That's a perigee, to the rest of us.

[Ed. Note - This is from a Michigan, US news site. YMMV re the eclipse in your location. - Fnord]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Canada considers adding moon crimes to its Criminal Code:

Canada is working on legislation that would allow legal action against crimes committed on the moon, among other space locations.

A budget bill containing the proposed space law amendment for the moon passed its first reading April 29 in the country's House of Commons. (The Commons is somewhat akin to the U.S. House of Representatives.)

The amendment to Canada's Criminal Code is referenced in Bill C-19's Division 18, under a heading called "Civil Lunar Gateway Agreement Implementation Act." It proposes to include Canadians in space committing an "act or omission" that would be considered an "indictable offence" on Canadian soil.

The moon's surface, the Gateway space station and transportation to or from the Gateway would all fall under the proposed legislation, making Canadians in these locations subject to legal action for alleged crimes.

MrPlow submitted via IRC for Runaway1956:

Tor project upgrades network speed performance with new system

The Tor Project has implemented three new algorithms in the latest protocol version (0.4.7.7) to address network congestion and increase browser speeds. The new system, called Congestion Control, promises to eliminate speed limits on the network. The algorithms are designed to minimize packet loss (Tor-Westwood), estimate queue lengths (Tor-Vegas), and estimating bandwidth delays (Tor-NOLA).

Congestion Control "will result in significant performance improvements in Tor, as well as increased utilization of our network capacity," say the maintainers of the project.

[...] . However, for the entire community to benefit from the improvements, exit relay operators will have to upgrade to 0.4.7 of the Tor protocol.

"[...] Because our network is roughly 25% utilized, we expect that throughput may be very high for the first few users who use 0.4.7 on fast circuits with fast 0.4.7 Exits until the point where most clients have upgraded. At that point, a new equilibrium will be reached in terms of throughput and network utilization."

"For this reason, we are holding back on releasing a Tor Browser Stable with congestion control until enough Exits have upgraded to make the experience more uniform. We hope this will happen by May 31st" - the Tor Project

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Google fights doxxing with updated personal info removal policy:

Google has expanded its policies to allow doxxing victims to remove more of their personally identifiable information (PII) from search engine results starting earlier this week.

Removing doxxing content (contact info shared online with malicious intent) aims to protect the victims' privacy and substantial risks of identity theft, financial fraud, and, in some cases, the potential of physical harm.

While people already had the option to request the removal of personal data that could be used in financial fraud, such as credit card and bank account info, before this update, Google now also allows demands to delete contact information.

"Under this new policy expansion, people can now request removals of additional types of information when they find it in Search results, including personal contact information like a phone number, email address, or physical address," said Michelle Chang, Google's Global Policy Lead for Search.

"The policy also allows for the removal of additional information that may pose a risk for identity theft, such as confidential log-in credentials, when it appears in Search results."

[...] "The availability of personal contact information online can be jarring — and it can be used in harmful ways, including for unwanted direct contact or even physical harm," Chang added.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

EchoStar Mobile launches pan-European satellite-based LoRa IoT early adopter programme:

I realise that LoRaWAN is much more popular in Europe than in the USA, and perhaps this is because of the relatively poor LoRa coverage there. Furthermore, LoRa is limited to a few kilometres or perhaps 10s of kilometers in most cases. However, one possible interesting solution is described here - satellite relays.

In a move that the mobile satellite services provider confidently predicts will unlock massive internet of things (IoT) capability across Europe, EchoStar Mobile has unveiled an early adopter programme for the pan-European satellite-based LoRa (long range) IoT service and has released a whitepaper outlining the benefits of massive IoT.

The LoRa Alliance is an open, non-profit association whose members collaborate and share experiences to promote and drive the success of the LoRaWAN standard as the leading open global standard for secure, carrier-grade IoT LPWAN connectivity. Described as intrinsically affordable and simple to install, LoRaWAN is designed to bridge terrestrial networks with worldwide satellite connectivity to offer low-power ubiquitous connectivity to fill the gap in IoT use cases using unlicensed frequency bands to transmit data over a far longer range than Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

MrPlow submitted via IRC for Runaway1956:

Keep your rock walls and quirky perks: Employees want actual benefits

We've all heard about amazing employee perks at certain tech companies. From beer taps to Botox, and pawternity leave to free acupuncture, over the last 20 years or so, companies have spent a lot of time (and money) creating impressive benefits packages to attract top talent

[...] After surviving a global pandemic, we're not as impressed by things like nap pods or free exercise classes. In 2022, we want real, meaningful work benefits that improve our day-to-day lives rather than novelties that generate a bit of publicity.

So, without further ado, here are the top five [sic] benefits that employees want today. Do you agree?

upstart writes:

AST SpaceMobile gets US approval to test satellite-based cellular broadband:

AST SpaceMobile, a five-year-old company, based in Midland, Texas, has received a green light from the US Federal Communications Commission to test a satellite that could provide cellular broadband connectivity for smartphone users in the US and around the globe.

The company says it's building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network designed to be accessible directly by standard mobile phones. Its planned network, called SpaceMobile, aims to deliver 4G/5G connectivity everywhere on the planet – on land, at sea and in flight. Mobile subscribers would be able to automatically roam from land networks to the space-based network, no matter their location.

From SpaceNews:

The license from the Federal Communications Commission permits the company to connect unmodified cellular devices in Texas and Hawaii with BlueWalker 3 for up to several minutes daily.

SpaceX is slated to launch BlueWalker 3 to low Earth orbit on a Falcon 9 rocket with other passengers.

[...] "The BlueWalker 3 satellite would give us about five minutes of coverage in most areas around the world every day, which we plan to use to configure our software and other systems related to the network core," AST SpaceMobile chief strategy officer Scott Wisniewski told SpaceNews.

"Such coverage should also provide opportunities to explore numerous uses of cellular broadband, including texting, voice, and data applications."

Something tells me the cost of an iridium plan will be dropping soon.

upstart writes:

Microsoft Edge Is Getting a Built-In VPN:

Following Google One's VPN and Apple's Private Relay, Microsoft's Edge Secure Network joins the ranks of top tech names offering virtual semi-private networks.

Microsoft Edge browser will be getting a built-in virtual private network soon, as revealed on a Microsoft support page Thursday. To get your monthly 1-GB ration of free VPN service, though, you'll have to sign into Edge with your Microsoft account. The VPN service, powered by Cloudflare, is part of a larger Microsoft security push and is currently still in development. The service has several privacy caveats, however.

From the Microsoft announcement:

Note: A Microsoft Edge sign-in is required to track free data usage and access Secure Network every month. All bandwidth data that is required to provide the Microsoft Edge Secure Network service is automatically deleted at the end of the required service window.

The other services mentioned:
    Google One
    Apple iCloud Private Relay

Having it built into the browser looks appealing, but it isn't obvious that one is permitted to choose the location of their VPN server with these services, which makes them less useful than other VPN solutions. However, are they worth considering if you're spending the afternoon with your laptop at the local coffee shop working on your soon-to-be-famous screenplay?

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Piece Falls Off Boeing Starliner as It Trundles Toward Launchpad
That probably wasn't supposed to happen.

Oops!

After years of setbacks, Boeing is finally rolling out its Starliner spacecraft to the launchpad today for its second attempt to rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Doing no favors for the spacecraft's reputation for jankiness, it ran into yet another mishap along the way. While strapped to the back of a large truck, a piece of the capsule's window appeared to pop off, tumbling down to the asphalt, as spotted in footage shared by CBS space news reporter William Harwood.

[....] The procession briefly stopped to check for damage before resuming its journey to Space Launch Complex 41 in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Boeing later confirmed to Harwood that it was a protective window cover that had fallen off the capsule.

All told, it doesn't sound like a terribly serious issue, but the optics are terrible considering what Boeing has been through with the development of Starliner, its competitor to SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule.

Hey, first Starliner spacefright crew... don't worry. I'm sure the rest of the Starliner is made to the high standards that we've come to expect from Boeing.

Original Submission