SoylentNews

upstart writes:

Lobbying ramps up as Congress prepares to vote on landmark legislation:

Amazon and Alphabet are spearheading what is shaping up to be the most intense political campaign by corporate America in recent history as part of a last-ditch attempt to stop Congress from passing laws to curb their market power.

The companies are targeting a "self-preferencing" bill which would prevent large online platforms from using their dominance in one field to give other products an unfair advantage — for example, Alphabet using its Google search engine to promote its travel or shopping products.

[...] Democrats and Republicans have found rare common cause in recent years in their attempts to rein in the corporate power enjoyed by Silicon Valley's largest companies. Members of Congress have proposed a range of legislation to do so, including measures to limit when large technology companies can buy smaller rivals and to stop them acting as both buyers and sellers in the lucrative digital advertising market.

[...] The bill, which has been championed in the Senate by the Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar and in the House by her party colleague David Cicilline, specifically targets Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook parent Meta. It has passed through committees in the House and the Senate, and its supporters are now waiting for Democratic leaders to move it to a floor vote.

upstart writes:

OceanGate ramps up the research for its second deep-sea expedition to the Titanic:

One year after OceanGate's first expedition to the Titanic shipwreck, the Everett, Wash.-based company is gearing up for its second annual set of dives starting next week — and this time, science will be at center stage.

Last summer's expedition kicked off what's intended to be a yearly series of visits to the 110-year-old ruin, nearly 13,000 feet beneath the surface of the North Atlantic. As any movie fan knows, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank during its first voyage from England to New York in 1912, causing more than 1,500 deaths.

The shipwreck was rediscovered in 1985, and there's been a string of crewed and robotic surveys since then. But OceanGate's plan is different. The 13-year-old company and its research partners aim to document how the rapidly deteriorating Titanic and its surroundings are changing on a year-to-year basis — supported by customers who are paying $250,000 each to be part of the adventure.

[...] "One of the ways that we're able to support this kind of scientific research is by finding different ways to fund it," Rush said. "We can take media, as we'll do this year and as we did last year, and film these wrecks and these locations. And we can bring people who are willing to help fund the operation to participate. That gives us a completely different way to fund this, and be able to go back to the Titanic and other sites every year."

[...] This year's expedition begins June 15 [...] is due to wrap up on July 25.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Biomedical engineers have developed an edible silk tag with a QR code, which scanned by a smartphone can then confirm authenticity of the whiskey or other liquids, such as liquid medications:

This little silk tag with a QR code is a security measure that could reveal if the whiskey you're wanting to buy is fake. Simply using a smartphone to scan the tag, which was developed by biomedical engineers from Purdue University and the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences in South Korea, could confirm the drink's authenticity.

[...] The code on the fluorescent silk tag is the equivalent of a barcode or QR code and is not visible to the naked eye. The tags are also edible, causing no issues if a person swallowed it while downing a shot of whiskey. The tags have not affected the taste of the whiskey.

[...] Kim and Leem placed tags in various brands and price points of whiskey (80 proof, 40% alcohol per volume) over a 10-month period and were able to continually activate the tags and codes with a smartphone app.

One of the ways of bringing this issue to light is to literally shine a light on the tags. The team developed ways and methods for the tags to be activated by smartphones in a variety of light settings.

Kim said the tags are an additional authentication mechanism for marked safety seals on bottles or pills and could help by being placed in high-dollar bottles of alcohol or on expensive medications individually.

Original source

Journal Reference:
Jung Woo Leem et al. Edible Matrix Code with Photogenic Silk Proteins. ACS Cent. Sci., 2022. DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.1c01233

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

Keeping Our Sense of Direction: Dealing With a Dead Sensor

As the season has turned to winter in Jezero Crater, conditions have become increasingly challenging for Ingenuity, which was designed for a short flight-test campaign during the much warmer Martian spring. [...] In its new winter operations paradigm, Ingenuity is effectively shutting down during the night, letting its internal temperature drop to about minus 112 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 80 degrees Celsius) and letting the onboard electronics reset. This new way of operating carries with it risks to Ingenuity's electronic components, many of which are not designed to survive the temperatures they are being exposed to at night. Moreover, extreme temperature cycles between daytime and nighttime tend to cause stresses that can result in component failure.

Over the past several sols on Mars, the Ingenuity team has been busy recommissioning the helicopter for flight, going through a series of activities that include preflight checkout of sensors and actuators and a high-speed spin of the rotor. These activities have revealed that one of the helicopter's navigation sensors, called the inclinometer, has stopped functioning. A nonworking navigation sensor sounds like a big deal – and it is – but it's not necessarily an end to our flying at Mars.

[...] The inclinometer consists of two accelerometers, whose sole purpose is to measure gravity prior to spin-up and takeoff; the direction of the sensed gravity is used to determine how Ingenuity is oriented relative to the downward direction. The inclinometer is not used during the flight itself, but without it we are forced to find a new way to initialize the navigation algorithms prior to takeoff.

[...] However, we believe an IMU-based initial attitude estimate will allow us to take off safely and thus provides an acceptable fallback that will allow Ingenuity to resume flying.

Taking advantage of this redundancy requires a patch to Ingenuity's flight software. The patch inserts a small code snippet into the software running on Ingenuity's flight computer, intercepting incoming garbage packets from the inclinometer and injecting replacement packets constructed from IMU data. To the navigation algorithms, everything will look as before [...]

A helicopter on Mars must necessarily experience harsher conditions than would a helicopter on the moon.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Volocopter's longer-range drone taxi completes its first test flights:

Volocopter's drone taxi is one step closer to entering service. The German firm has revealed that its four-seat electric VTOL aircraft, the VoloConnect, completed its first flight in May. The machine's initial trip was brief at two minutes and 14 seconds, but the maneuvers proved that the production-level aerodynamics and performance held up in real world conditions. There have been three flights so far.

The 60-mile range and 155MPH flight speed might not sound like much. However, they promise autonomous commuter flights beyond major urban centers — you could fly to a business meeting from the suburbs. The VoloConnect is effectively a companion to the VoloCity, a shorter-ranged eVTOL flier meant strictly for urban jaunts.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

The brain uses data compression for decision-making:

If you were a kid in the 80s, or are a fan of retro video games, then you must know Frogger. The game can be quite a challenge. To win, you must first survive a stream of heavy traffic, only to then narrowly escape oblivion by zig-zagging across speeding wooden logs. How does the brain know what to focus on within all this mess?

A study published today (June 6th) in the scientific journal Nature Neuroscience provides a possible solution: data compression. "Compressing the representations of the external world is akin to eliminating all irrelevant information and adopting temporary 'tunnel vision' of the situation", said one of the study's senior authors Christian Machens, head of the Theoretical Neuroscience lab at the Champalimaud Foundation in Portugal.

"The idea that the brain maximises performance while minimising cost by using data compression is pervasive in studies of sensory processing. However, it hasn't really been examined in cognitive functions," said senior author Joe Paton, Director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Research Programme. "Using a combination of experimental and computational techniques, we demonstrated that this same principle extends across a much broader range of functions than previously appreciated."

Journal Reference:
Motiwala, A., Soares, S., Atallah, B.V. et al. Efficient coding of cognitive variables underlies dopamine response and choice behavior. Nat Neurosci (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-022-01085-7

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Elon Musk accuses Twitter of thwarting his due diligence, threatens to walk out of $44 Billion Twitter deal- Technology News, Firstpost:

In a letter to the regulators and to the board of directors at Twitter, Elon Musk has stated that he was entitled to measure just how bad the spam bot situation is at Twitter as part of his due diligence and that the social media platform is thwarting his requests to learn more about its user base.

Twitter's Parag Agrawal and Elon Musk have been going back and forth over the issue of spam and the number of bots the platform has in its daily user base. Sparring over the issue, Musk had earlier stated that the takeover deal is on hold, pending further investigation.

However Musk's letter formalises the dispute that has been going on for weeks, and for the first time, Musk has gone on record to state that he is willing to walk away from the deal, if Twitter interferes with his due diligence.

Elon Musk's lawyer, Mike Ringler, wrote in the letter, "As Twitter's prospective owner, Mr Musk is clearly entitled to the requested data to enable him to prepare for transitioning Twitter's business to his ownership and to facilitate his transaction financing. To do both, he must have a complete and accurate understanding of the very core of Twitter's business model - its active user base."

[...] Several trade analysts and investment experts have stated that this may be a clever ruse deployed by Musk, to get Twitter for far cheaper than his initial offer of $54.20 per share. And given how badly tech stocks, particularly that of Twitter, is operating.

Original Submission

USB-C to be mandatory for phones sold in the EU by autumn 2024

zocalo writes:

The EU have agreed legislation, alternate link, forcing all future smartphones sold in the EU — including Apple's iPhone — be equipped with USB-C port for wired charging by autumn 2024. The rule will also apply to other electronic devices including tablets, digital cameras, headphones, handheld video game consoles, and e-readers. Laptops will have to comply with the rule at a later date.

The legislation still needs to be approved by the EU Parliament and Council later this year, but this appears to be a formality. In a press release, the European Parliament stated clearly that the law will be in place "by autumn 2024." By this date, all devices covered by the law and sold in the EU will have to use USB-C for wired charging.

EU Agrees Single Mobile Charging Port in Blow to Apple

upstart writes:

EU agrees single mobile charging port in blow to Apple:

Apple (AAPL.O) will have to change the connector on iPhones sold in Europe by 2024 after EU countries and lawmakers agreed on Tuesday to a single mobile charging port for mobile phones, tablets and cameras in a world first.

The political intervention, which the European Commission said would make life easier for consumers and save them money, came after companies failed to reach a common solution.

Brussels has been pushing for a single mobile charging port for more than a decade, prompted by complaints from iPhone and Android users about having to switch to different chargers for their devices.

upstart writes:

The slowpoke pulsar sits in our galaxy, roughly 1,300 light-years away:

The newfound highly magnetic pulsar has a surprisingly long rotation period, which is challenging the theoretical understanding of these objects, researchers report May 30 in Nature Astronomy. Dubbed PSR J0901-4046, this pulsar sweeps its lighthouse-like radio beam past Earth about every 76 seconds — three times slower than the previous record holder.

[...] Further observations with MeerKAT revealed not only the pulsar's slow, steady radio beat — a measure of how fast it spins — but also another important detail: The rate at which the spin slows as the pulsar ages. And those two bits of info revealed something odd about this pulsar. According to theory, it should not be emitting radio waves. And yet, it is.

[...] A pulsar's rotation period and the slowdown of its spin relates to the strength of its magnetic field, which accelerates subatomic particles streaming from the star and, in turn, generates radio waves. Any neutron stars spinning as slowly as PSR J0901-4046 are in this stellar "graveyard" and shouldn't produce radio signals.

But "we just keep finding weirder and weirder pulsars that chip away at that understanding," says astrophysicist Maura McLaughlin of West Virginia University in Morgantown, who wasn't involved with this work.

[...] The astronomers also are altering their automated computer programs, which scan the radio data and flag intriguing signals, to look for these longer-duration spin periods — or even weirder and more mysterious neutron star phenomena. "The sweet thing about astronomy, for me, is what's out there waiting for us to find," Heywood says.

Journal Reference:
Caleb, M., Heywood, I., Rajwade, K. et al. Discovery of a radio-emitting neutron star with an ultra-long spin period of 76 s. Nat Astron (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01688-x

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Bipartisan crypto overhaul seeks to treat most digital assets as commodities and empower CFTC

As excited as Wall Street and Main Street were to have crypto as a new investment idea and store of value, the speed at which cryptocurrencies entered mainstream U.S. markets caused proportionate angst for U.S. regulators, who were equipped only with decades-old securities laws to police an industry many still refer to as the financial "Wild West."

But after months of research, industry consultation and bipartisan teamwork, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Cynthia Lummis said Tuesday that they are ready to debut the first major attempt to place guardrails around the nascent industry.

Their bill, titled the Responsible Financial Innovation Act, amounts to a regulatory overhaul that would classify the vast majority of digital assets as commodities like wheat, oil or steel. As such, the bipartisan legislation would also leave the bulk of the oversight responsibility to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and not the Securities and Exchange Commission, as some had expected.

The Leaked Draft of the Lummis-Gillibrand Crypto Bill Offers Legal Cover to Bitcoin and Other Digital Currencies, Recognizes NFTs as a New Asset Class, and Mandates 100% Backing for Stablecoins

Crucially, the bill treats all cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, as "ancillary assets" unless they behave like a security that a company might issue to pool capital – provide dividends, liquidation rights, or a financial interest in the issuer. On a similar note, the bill defines a digital asset as a natively electronic asset that offers economic or proprietary access rights. Similarly, a virtual currency is defined as a digital asset that is used primarily as a medium of exchange, unit of account, or a store of value, and is not backed by any underlying financial asset.

Thirdly, it appears that the legislation will not ban non-custodial or self-hosted crypto wallets. Finally, the bill mandates 100 percent backing for stablecoins. This is an important aspect of the legislation, given the bulwark status that stablecoins enjoy in the crypto world, and necessitated by the recent high-profile failure of Terra's algorithmic UST stablecoin. Of course, a strong stablecoin segment will allow investors to transact much more safely and conveniently with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies.

Also at The Washington Post.

See also: Crypto lobbying hits fever pitch as Bitcoin's favorite senator finishes bill

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Student debt can impair your cardiovascular health into middle age, study finds:

"As the cost of college has increased, students and their families have taken on more debt to get to and stay in college. Consequently, student debt is a massive financial burden to so many in the United States, and yet we know little about the potential long-term health consequences of this debt. [...]

[...] Researchers assessed biological measures of cardiovascular health of 4,193 qualifying respondents using the 30-year Framingham cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk score, which considers sex, age, blood pressure, antihypertensive treatment, smoking status, diabetes diagnosis, and body mass index to measure the likelihood of a cardiovascular illness over the next 30 years of life. They also looked at levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a biomarker of chronic or systemic inflammation.

The researchers found that more than one third of respondents (37%) did not report student debt in either wave, while 12% had paid off their loans; 28% took on student debt; and 24% consistently had debt. Respondents who consistently had debt or took on debt had higher CVD risk scores than individuals who had never been in debt and those who paid off their debt. Interestingly, respondents who paid off debt had significantly lower CVD risk scores than those never in debt. They found clinically significant CRP value estimates for those who took on new debt or were consistently in debt between young adulthood and early mid-life, estimates that exceeded their counterparts who never had debt or paid it off. Race/ethnicity had no impact on the results.

upstart writes:

New research finds that the ecological effect of invasive species alone is comparable to the combined effects of invasives plus warming temperatures, drought or nitrogen deposition:

It is no secret that the ecological health of the planet is under serious threat. Scientists have previously identified invasive species, drought and an altered nitrogen cycle, driven in part by the widespread use of synthetic fertilizers, as among the most serious planetary challenges, with global climate change topping the list. Many have assumed that climate change would consistently amplify the negative effects of invasives -- but, until now, there was no research to test that assumption.

[...] "What we found surprised us," says Lopez. "There were a number of cases where the interactions made everything worse at the local scale, which is what we expected to see, but only about 25% of the time. The majority of the time, invasions and environmental change together didn't make each other worse. Instead, the combined effects weren't all that much more than the impact of invasive species alone."

"What is so important about our findings," says Allen, "is that they highlight the critical importance of managing invasive species at the local scale." And the local scale is precisely the scale at which effective and swift action is most likely to happen.

[...] "Our work shows that dealing with invasive species now will make our ecosystems more climate resilient," says Bradley.

Original source material

Isn't mankind an invasive species?

Journal Reference:
Bianca E. Lopez et al. Global environmental changes more frequently offset than intensify detrimental effects of biological invasions. PNAS, 2022; 119 (22) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2117389119

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherside NFTs stolen in Discord server hack:

Hackers reportedly stole over $257,000 in Ethereum and thirty-two NFTs after the Yuga Lab's Bored Ape Yacht Club and Otherside Metaverse Discord servers were compromised to post a phishing scam.

Earlier this morning [4 Jun], the Discord account for a Yuga Labs community manager was allegedly hacked to post a phishing scam on the company's Discord servers.

This phishing scam pretended to be an exclusive, limited giveaway for existing BAYC, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), and Otherside NFT holders, which included a link to a webpage that allowed a visitor to mint the free NFT.

[...] the phishing scam added a sense of urgency, stating that only a limited amount of NFTs was available to be minted, which likely pushed visitors to abandon caution and rush to mint the free giveaway.

[...] Once a user visited the page and attempted to mint the giveaway, the page likely stole all Ethereum and NFTs held in the linked wallet.

According to blockchain cybersecurity firm PeckShield, approximately 32 NFTs were stolen, including those from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherdeed, Bored App Kennel Club, and Mutant Ape Yacht Club projects.

Users also report that the hackers stole over 145 Ethereum during the phishing attack, worth approximately $250,000.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Tim Hortons coffee app broke law by constantly recording users' movements:

Canadian investigators determined that users of the Tim Hortons coffee chain's mobile app "had their movements tracked and recorded every few minutes of every day," even when the app wasn't open, in violation of the country's privacy laws.

"The Tim Hortons app asked for permission to access the mobile device's geolocation functions but misled many users to believe information would only be accessed when the app was in use. In reality, the app tracked users as long as the device was on, continually collecting their location data," according to an announcement Wednesday by Canada's Office of the Privacy Commissioner. The federal office collaborated with provincial authorities in Quebec, British Columbia, and Alberta in the investigation of Tim Hortons.

"The app also used location data to infer where users lived, where they worked, and whether they were traveling," the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said. "It generated an 'event' every time users entered or left a Tim Hortons competitor, a major sports venue, or their home or workplace."

Tim Hortons scrapped plans to use the app for targeted advertising but "continued to collect vast amounts of location data" for another year "even though it had no legitimate need to do so," the Office of the Privacy Commissioner said. Tim Hortons said it used aggregated location data "to analyze user trends—for example, whether users switched to other coffee chains, and how users' movements changed as the pandemic took hold," the federal office said.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

link: https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/sony-build-space-lasers-with-new-satellite-services-unit-2022-06-02/

"Sony on Thursday said it formed a new company that will build and supply devices that allow small satellites in orbit to communicate with one another via laser beams, dipping into the fast-growing space sector."

Sony Space Communications Corp, registered on Wednesday, is meant to take advantage of laser technology to avoid a bottleneck of radio frequencies. The devices will work between satellites in space and satellites communicating with ground stations.

The company did not say when it expects to have its first commercial device operating in space, whether it has existing customers lined up or how much money it has invested into the technology to date.

There are roughly 12,000 satellites in orbit, a number that is projected to increase rapidly in the coming years as rocket companies slash the cost of launching things to space, [...]

Original Submission