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upstart writes:

Former bosses of Fukushima operator ordered to pay $97 billion damages:

A Tokyo court Wednesday ordered former executives from the operator of the devastated Fukushima nuclear plant to pay 13.32 trillion yen ($97 billion) for failing to prevent the disaster, plaintiffs said.

Four ex-bosses from the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) were ordered to pay the damages in a suit brought by shareholders over the nuclear disaster triggered by a massive tsunami in 2011.

Plaintiffs emerged from the Tokyo court holding banners reading "shareholders win" and "responsibility recognised".

Lawyers for the plaintiffs hailed the ruling, and said they believed it to be the largest amount of compensation ever awarded in a civil lawsuit in Japan.

"Nuclear power plants can cause irreparable damage to human lives and the environment," the plaintiffs said in a separate statement after the ruling.

"Executives for firms that operate such nuclear plants bear enormous responsibility, which cannot compare with that of other companies."

The shareholders argued that the disaster could have been prevented if TEPCO bosses had listened to research and carried out preventative measures like placing an emergency power source on higher ground.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Even DOOM Can Now Run DOOM!:

For years now, the standard test of any newly hacked piece of hardware has been this: can it run DOOM? id Software's 1993 classic first-person shooter has appeared on everything, but here's one from [kgsws] that's a bit special. It's DOOM, running inside DOOM itself.

So how has this feat been achieved? There's a code execution exploit inside the original DOS DOOM II executable, and that has been used to run the more modern Chocolate Doom within the original. [...]

The video below the break shows the game-in-game in action, but the real value lies in its in-depth description of the exploit, that takes us through some of the inner workings of the game and ably explains what's going on. It finishes up with a specially made cinema WAD in which to play DOOM-in-DOOM, and even Hexen-in-DOOM. [...]

Video

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2022/07/ea-pulls-a-reverse-ubisoft-makes-some-old-bioware-dlc-free/

Single-player downloadable content for the PC versions of Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3 will be available for free going forward. The change—which EA is announcing via apparent emails to some Origin users—comes alongside the pending shutdown of the BioWare Points digital currency system.

Those BioWare Points used to be the only way to purchase DLC for the developer's legacy titles. And because those points rarely went on sale, the price of that DLC relative to the heavily discounted base games would sometimes get a little ridiculous. As an angry change.org petition noted in 2015, "to purchase enough BioWare Points to own all DLC for the [Mass Effect] series would total $105; over 3 times the cost of all three base games."

[...] DLC and other content previously purchased with BioWare Points will still be accessible, EA writes. That's in sharp contrast to Ubisoft, which announced last week that a coming server shutdown means DLC purchases from PC games like Assassin's Creed 3 and Far Cry 3 will no longer be playable after September 1.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Online orders, which ramped up with the start of the pandemic, are still clogging city streets:

Amazon, Hello Fresh, Stitch Fix. Click a button, and it's there in three to five days—perhaps even one. Packages, packages, and more packages—goods from all over the world, delivered after just a couple of clicks. But this height of consumer convenience has been complicating urban life for years, giving rise to increased theft and traffic, package waste, and a landscape of struggling local businesses. Some cities, especially in Europe and Japan, are implementing regulations that dramatically curtail package-related stress. But not New York City—not yet.

Three years ago, more than 1.8 million packages were delivered to the Big Apple on a typical day, according to data collected by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center of Excellence for Sustainable Urban Freight Systems. [...] Altogether, with groceries and prepared food, total daily deliveries stacked up to more than 3.7 million, the center estimates. That's nearly enough to deliver one item each to half the people in New York every day.

Noticing the increase in e-commerce delivery traffic, then-mayor Bill de Blasio allocated $38 million in the November 2021 budget to shipping these packages via the "blue highway"––by ferry instead of by truck. [...] Other attempts to reduce delivery-truck congestion have popped up. There are cargo bikes, for example, and a potential $3 surcharge on every "nonessential" package delivered. Lockers are also a key player; they help tackle the "last mile" problem—or the last leg of the delivery process—by centralizing drop-off locations to save the door-to-door toil. [...]

Arthur T Knackerbracket and upstart submitted stories that come from the same press release:

Wildfires and climbing temperatures have caused a 6.7 percent decline since 1985:

The State of California is banking on its forests to help reduce planet-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But that element of the state's climate-change solution arsenal may be in jeopardy, as new research from the University of California, Irvine reports that trees in California's mountain ranges and open spaces are dying from wildfires and other pressures -- and fewer new trees are filling the void.

[...] For the study, the UCI-led team used satellite data from the USGS and NASA's Landsat mission to study vegetation changes between 1985 and 2021. They found that one of the starkest declines in tree cover was in Southern California, where 14 percent of the tree population in local mountain ranges vanished, potentially permanently.

[...] The rate and scale of decline varies across the state. Tree cover in the Sierra Nevada, for instance, stayed relatively stable until around 2010, then began dropping precipitously. The 8.8 percent die-off in the Sierra coincided with a severe drought from 2012 to 2015, followed by some of the worst wildfires in the state's history, including the Creek Fire in 2020.

Fortunately "in the north, there's plenty of recovery after fire," said Wang, perhaps because of the region's higher rainfall and cooler temperatures. But even there, high fire years in 2018, 2020 and 2021 have taken a visible toll.

[...] "This threat to California's climate solutions isn't going away anytime soon," Wang said. "We might be entering a new age of intense fire and vulnerable forests."

Journal Reference:
Jonathan A. Wang et al, Losses of Tree Cover in California Driven by Increasing Fire Disturbance and Climate Stress, AGU Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1029/2021AV000654">10.1029/2021AV000654

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes:

The United Nations estimated Monday that the world's population will reach 8 billion on Nov. 15 and that India will replace China as the world's most populous nation next year:

In a report released on World Population Day, the U.N. also said global population growth fell below 1% in 2020 for the first time since 1950.

According to the latest U.N. projections, the world's population could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050 and a peak of around 10.4 billion during the 2080s. It is forecast to remain at that level until 2100.

The report says more than half the projected increase in population up to 2050 will be concentrated in just eight countries: Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.

The report, "World Population Prospects 2022," puts the world's population at 7.942 billion now and forecasts it will reach 8 billion in mid-November.

[...] "This is an occasion to celebrate our diversity, recognize our common humanity, and marvel at advancements in health that have extended lifespans and dramatically reduced maternal and child mortality rates," [U.N. Secretary-General] Guterres said in a statement. "At the same time, it is a reminder of our shared responsibility to care for our planet and a moment to reflect on where we still fall short of our commitments to one another."

fliptop writes:

Critics say the law gives police too much discretion:

The same week that a federal judge sentenced ex-cop Derek Chauvin to more prison time for killing George Floyd, Arizona passed a law making it harder to record police by limiting how close bystanders can be while recording specified law enforcement activity. Chauvin was convicted in part because a recording showing his attack on Floyd at close proximity went viral. It was filmed by a teenager named Darnella Frazier while she was standing "a few feet away."

The new Arizona law requires any bystanders recording police activity in the state to stand at a minimum of 8 feet away from the action. If bystanders move closer after police have warned them to back off, they risk being charged with a misdemeanor and incurring fines of up to $500, jail time of up to 30 days, or probation of up to a year.

Sponsored by Republican state representative John Kavanagh, the law known as H.B. 2319 makes it illegal to record police at close range. In a USA Today op-ed, Kavanagh said it is important to leave this buffer for police to protect law enforcement from being assaulted by unruly bystanders. He said "there's no reason" to come closer and predicted tragic outcomes for those who do, saying, "Such an approach is unreasonable, unnecessary, and unsafe, and should be made illegal."

Some exceptions: a person being questioned, arrested or otherwise handled by police can record, "as long as it doesn't interfere with police actions." The same exception extends to anyone recording while in a vehicle involved in a police stop. If you're inside an enclosed structure on private property you also have an exception. The caveats "unless law enforcement determines that the person is interfering" or "it is not safe" for them to be in the area potentially gives police a lot of discretion over who can record and when.

Original Submission

upstart writes with an interesting read on the trials and tribulations of Virgin Galactic:

It has been 12 months to the day since Sir Richard Branson briefly departed this world, only to make a feathery return back to Earth, landing on a hot, dusty runway in rural New Mexico.

The flight marked a triumphant moment for Branson, who, just a week before turning 71 years old, fulfilled a childhood dream of going to space. In doing so, Branson beat fellow space-obsessed billionaire Jeff Bezos to the punch. The exuberance about his flight—and what it promised for Virgin Galactic—helped push his company's stock above $50 a share.

As Richard Branson went to space, he and his company seemed to be on top of the world.

But it has been a rough ride in the year since. Most crucially, Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity spaceship has yet to fly a single time again, and it may not do so until this winter. In the meantime, Bezos' space tourism company, Blue Origin, has started to regularly fly paying customers into space, higher than Virgin Galactic, on a fully reusable spacecraft. Partly as a result, Virgin Galactic's stock price has crashed, now trading at about $7 a share.

[...] "They've always overpromised and undelivered on their flight schedule, so I never expected their promised flight cadence," said Laura Forczyk, a space industry analyst. But the long delay between Branson's flight and a successor mission raises red flags, she said.

"Going a full year without even setting a date for their next flight is not a good sign," she said. "It leads me to conclude there really were serious structural or operational issues with Virgin Galactic's recent flights, despite their denial."

upstart writes:

China's Surveillance State Hits Rare Resistance From Its Own Subjects:

Chinese artists have staged performances to highlight the ubiquity of surveillance cameras. Privacy activists have filed lawsuits against the collection of facial recognition data. Ordinary citizens and establishment intellectuals alike have pushed back against the abuse of Covid tracking apps by the authorities to curb protests. Internet users have shared tips on how to evade digital monitoring.

As China builds up its vast surveillance and security apparatus, it is running up against growing public unease about the lack of safeguards to prevent the theft or misuse of personal data. The ruling Communist Party is keenly aware of the cost to its credibility of any major security lapses: Last week, it moved systematically to squelch news about what was probably the largest known breach of a Chinese government computer system, involving the personal information of as many as one billion citizens.

The breach dealt a blow to Beijing, exposing the risks of its expansive efforts to vacuum up enormous amounts of digital and biological information on the daily activities and social connections of its people from social media posts, biometric data, phone records and surveillance videos. The government says these efforts are necessary for public safety: to limit the spread of Covid, for instance, or to catch criminals. But its failure to protect the data exposes citizens to problems like fraud and extortion, and threatens to erode people's willingness to comply with surveillance.

upstart writes:

CrowPi L Raspberry Pi Laptop Review: A Lean Mean STEM Learning Machine:

The CrowPi L is a powerful Raspberry-Pi powered laptop and effective STEM kit for kids, but you'll need to pay a premium to take advantage of the available hardware tutorials the system has to offer.

The CrowPi L is a Raspberry Pi-powered laptop built to educate, engage and entertain young minds and usher them into the world of programming and electronics. It incorporates fun activities and interactive lessons to teach kids how to code. The kit includes lots of tutorials to try and a wide range of projects that would appeal to a variety of different interests. From lessons on how to design and program games, to hands-on projects that explain electronic concepts and how circuitry works, there's a lot for kids to learn and enjoy.

[...] The CrowPi L is available in a few different configurations. You can choose from the basic model or advanced model, which costs about $60 more because it includes the Crowtail Starter Kit for Raspberry Pi. Shipped in a separate box, this kit contains the different motors and sensors you will need for the Letscode (Elecrow's custom version of the Scratch programming language) and Python hardware projects.

[...] While the previous versions of the CrowPi came packed with built-in modules, the CrowPi L's design has been simplified to look like a regular laptop. It has an all-white exterior with a light gray interior that surrounds the 11.6-inch display and white keyboard keys. It is a compact system that looks sleek and could nicely double up as a child's first laptop.

At 11.46 x 7.5 x 1.8 inches, the CrowPi L is just the right size to fit on a child's lap and is light enough (at a little over 2 pounds) for them to carry around. The plastic chassis feels very strong and solid. But it is not a quiet system. You can hear the fan humming underneath so you have to be careful not to put it in a place that will obstruct the airflow.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Atomically-smooth gold crystals help to compress light for nanophotonic applications:

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) researchers and their collaborators at home and abroad have successfully demonstrated a new platform for guiding the compressed light waves in very thin van der Waals crystals. Their method to guide the mid-infrared light with minimal loss will provide a breakthrough for the practical applications of ultra-thin dielectric crystals in next-generation optoelectronic devices based on strong light-matter interactions at the nanoscale.

Phonon-polaritons are collective oscillations of ions in polar dielectrics coupled to electromagnetic waves of light, whose electromagnetic field is much more compressed compared to the light wavelength. Recently, it was demonstrated that the phonon-polaritons in thin van der Waals crystals can be compressed even further when the material is placed on top of a highly conductive metal. In such a configuration, charges in the polaritonic crystal are "reflected" in the metal, and their coupling with light results in a new type of polariton waves called the image phonon-polaritons. Highly compressed image modes provide strong light-matter interactions, but are very sensitive to the substrate roughness, which hinders their practical application.

Challenged by these limitations, four research groups combined their efforts to develop a unique experimental platform using advanced fabrication and measurement methods. Their findings were published in Science Advances on July 13.

A KAIST research team led by Professor Min Seok Jang from the School of Electrical Engineering used a highly sensitive scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) to directly measure the optical fields of the hyperbolic image phonon-polaritons (HIP) propagating in a 63 nm-thick slab of hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) on a monocrystalline gold substrate, showing the mid-infrared light waves in dielectric crystal compressed by a hundred times.

upstart writes:

Uncontrolled rocket descents pose a 10% risk of killing one or more people over the next ten years:

A quartet of researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada has calculated that the risk of one or more people being killed by uncontrolled rocket descents over the next decade is approximately 10%. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, Michael Byers, Ewan Wright, Aaron Boley and Cameron Byers, describe their study of casualty risk in the coming years due to rocket parts falling from the sky and what governments could do to make spaceflight safer for people on the ground.

Over the past several decades, rocket parts, satellites and even space stations have fallen back to the Earth after fulfilling their missions. To date, no one has ever been killed by falling space debris, though one person is believed to have been struck: Lottie Williams was hit by debris while walking in a park in 1997. But as the space age has matured, more rockets and satellites have been sent aloft, and that trend is expected to continue. In this new effort, the researchers calculated the likelihood of one or more people being struck or killed by such objects if current practices continue.

The researchers looked at the current number of rocket launches and the number expected to go up over the next decade. They also looked at what happens to rocket parts when they fall back to Earth and where they tend to land. The researchers found, as expected, that the majority fall into the ocean, because it covers so much of the planet. But they also found that as the number of rockets launched rises, so does the chance of one or more of them coming down in a populated area—they report that the chance of one or more fatalities in the coming decade is approximately 10%.

Journal Reference:
Byers, Michael, Wright, Ewan, Boley, Aaron, et al. Unnecessary risks created by uncontrolled rocket reentries [open], Nature Astronomy (DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01718-8)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

MPs call for ban on Chinese surveillance camera technology:

A cross-party group of MPs has called on the government to ban the sale and operation of CCTV surveillance cameras linked to human rights abuses in China.

Surveillance cameras supplied by Chinese manufacturers Hikvision and Dahua are widely used in state "re-education" camps, which have been accused of subjecting Uyghur Muslims to forced labour and torture.

The cameras have been banned in the US, but are widely used in the UK across government departments and companies.

[...] They also called on the government to commission an independent national review of the scale, capabilities, ethics and human rights impact of modern CCTV in the UK.

[...] "This technology comes equipped with advanced surveillance capabilities, such as facial recognition, person tracking and gender identification," he said. "These pose a significant threat to civil liberties in our countries.

"These companies, Hikvision and Dahua, are Chinese state-owned companies, raising urgent questions over whether they also pose a threat to national security."

The MPs' call to action follows research by campaign group Big Brother Watch that found the cameras have been widely deployed by government bodies including councils, secondary schools, NHS trusts, universities and police forces in the UK.

[...] The campaign group said the Chinese companies supply rebranded cameras that are sold under other names, including Honeywell and Toshima, so that the true number of Hikvision and Dahua cameras used in the UK public sector may be significantly higher.

Previously: The World's Biggest Surveillance Company You've Never Heard of

Original Submission

NPC-131072 writes:

Over the span of three seconds, there were nine individual bursts:

Fast radio bursts are exactly what their name implies: a sudden surge of photons at radio frequencies that often lasts for less than a second. Once scientists had finished convincing themselves that they weren't looking at equipment glitches, the search was on for what was producing the vast amounts of energy involved in a fast radio burst (FRB).

The discovery of the first repeating FRB told us that the process that generates an FRB doesn't destroy the object that does the producing. Eventually, an FRB was found that was associated with events at additional wavelengths, allowing the source to be identified: a magnetar, a subset of neutron stars that has the Universe's most extreme magnetic fields. While that represents excellent progress, it still doesn't tell us anything about the physics of how the burst is produced - knowledge that would presumably tell us why most magnetars don't produce them and why the burst tends to start and stop so suddenly.

Now, researchers have identified an FRB that helps limit our ideas about what can produce them. The FRB itself appears to be a single event, but it's composed of nine individual bursts separated by about 215 milliseconds. The rapid pace means that the source of the burst almost certainly has to be near the surface of the magnetar.

Journal Reference:
The CHIME/FRB Collaboration., Andersen, B.C., Bandura, K. et al. Sub-second periodicity in a fast radio burst. Nature 607, 256–259 (2022). DOI: 10.103/s41586-022-04841-8

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Apple's New Lockdown Mode for iPhone Fights Hacking:

Apple for years has marketed its iPhones, iPads and Mac computers as the most secure and privacy-focused devices on the market. Last week, it bolstered that effort with a new feature coming this fall called Lockdown Mode, designed to fight targeted hacking attempts such as the Pegasus malware, which some governments reportedly used on human rights workers, lawyers, politicians and journalists around the world. Apple also announced a $10 million grant and up to $2 million bug bounty to encourage further research into this growing threat.

The tech giant said that Lockdown Mode is designed to activate "extreme" protections to its phones, such as blocking attachments and link previews in messages, potentially hackable web browsing technologies, and incoming FaceTime calls from unknown numbers. Apple devices will also not accept accessory connections unless the device is unlocked, and people can't install new remote management software on the devices while they're in Lockdown Mode as well. The new feature is already available in test software being used by developers this summer and will be released for free publicly in the fall as part of iOS 16, iPadOS 16 and MacOS Ventura. Here's how to use Apple's Lockdown mode on an iPhone.

[...] The company's efforts to enhance its device security comes at a time when the tech industry is increasingly confronting targeted cyberattacks from oppressive governments around the world. Unlike widespread ransomware or virus campaigns, which are often designed to indiscriminately spread furthest and quickest through homes and corporate networks, attacks like those using Pegasus are designed for quiet intelligence gathering.