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Judge delays Musk/Twitter trial, gives them three weeks to complete merger [Updated]

Freeman and upstart write:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/10/musk-asks-judge-to-cancel-trial-claims-twitter-wont-take-yes-for-an-answer/

Update at 7:30 pm ET: Delaware Court of Chancery Judge Kathaleen McCormick granted Elon Musk's request for a stay in an order that gives the parties three weeks to negotiate and close the merger. The trial won't begin on October 17 as scheduled and would be canceled entirely if the merger closes by the end of this month. If deal talks fall apart, a trial would be scheduled for November.

[...] Musk's motion for a stay said the merger is on track to close by October 28. Twitter did not want the litigation stayed. "Plaintiff Twitter opposes the motion on the basis that Defendants' agreement will not ensure that the transaction closes fast enough," McCormick wrote.

Original story: Elon Musk today slammed Twitter for not immediately dropping its lawsuit against him and asked the judge to stay the case because "Twitter will not take yes for an answer."

[...] Musk agreed to buy Twitter in April but later tried to get out of the deal by claiming the company lied about the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform. Twitter sued Musk to force him to complete the purchase.

While Musk now accuses Twitter of "casting an unnecessary cloud of uncertainty over the company," Twitter's lawsuit against him said the company faces problems caused by Musk's public criticism and his attempts to break the merger agreement.

"Defendants' actions in derogation of the deal's consummation, and Musk's repeated disparagement of Twitter and its personnel, create uncertainty and delay that harm Twitter and its stockholders and deprive them of their bargained-for rights. They also expose Twitter to adverse effects on its business operations, employees, and stock price," Twitter's lawsuit said.

During the discovery process, Musk apparently wasn't able to obtain any substantial evidence to back up his spam claims, making it unlikely that he could win at trial.

upstart writes:

World's largest crypto exchange targeted in security breach:

Hackers have stolen around $570 million in tokens from Binance, in a rare blow to the world's biggest crypto exchange and another dent to the troubled digital assets industry struggling to regain trust after a collapse in prices.

[...] However, the exchange later disclosed that the hacker had taken around 2 million of the cryptocurrency BNB, Binance's own digital token, with a value of around $284 each. The hack targeted BSC Token Hub, a bridge between two Binance systems.

[...] Cyber criminals had taken nearly $2 billion this year to the end of July, nearly double the total in the first seven months of last year, according to data from Chainalysis. High-profile thefts included $600 million from the blockchain behind popular crypto-gaming platform Axie Infinity. Many hacks have been traced to state-sponsored actors in North Korea.

Binance's position as the world's largest crypto exchange means Friday's exploit represents a significant blow to the digital assets industry.

[...] Many of the world's most widely used blockchains, such as Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum, run on separate technologies or use different tokens. That means investors and developers cannot easily move their tokens to a different blockchain to use or trade them elsewhere.

[...] Binance Smart Chain allows the world's largest crypto exchange to open its doors to let developers build applications that use smart contracts, based on Binance's own token. Binance launched the new chain in September 2020, at a time when the crypto industry was seeing widespread interest in decentralized finance projects.

Naïve question: if you can have a public ledger that establishes ownership, why can't you tag stolen crypto similar to how you can revoke an SSL cert? [hubie]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Advanced Driver Assistance: Still Not Seeing Motorcycles - Adventure Rider:

Here we all are, hurtling into the future. Electric cars, electric motorcycles, alternative fuels, smart devices, the Internet of Things. It's all around us and creeping into our daily lives.

Soon the future will include self-driving cars. But how distant is that future? That's the big hairy question, right there. The more computers and smart devices make their way into the vehicles we drive and share the roads with, the more the drivers in them stop paying attention to the task at hand. And the AI systems in cars are not good enough for the confidence too many drivers put in them.

That, at least, is a possible conclusion reached by the authors and researchers from the Connected Motorcycle Consortium. They just released a white paper on "Powered Two Wheeler Conspicuity." We all know becoming more conspicuous in traffic can help us avoid collisions. But the question is becoming, "more conspicuous to whom?" Or, more specifically, to what?

You've probably been hearing about "self-driving" Teslas that have recently plowed into motorcycles, killing the riders. That's definitely a problem, and FortNine released a video (below) recently telling us all about that particular problem. He makes a lot of excellent points as well as a few scary ones. [...]

Dutch Court Rules that Being Forced to Keep a Webcam on While Working is Illegal

upstart writes:

A US company was fined $50,000 and ordered to pay the employee's wages and vacation days:

A court in the Netherlands has ruled that a US company violated a Dutch worker's human rights by forcing him to keep his webcam on during work hours, TechCrunch has reported. Hired by Florida telemarketing firm Chetu, the employee was terminated for refusing to be monitored "for nine hours per day" by a program that streamed his webcam and shared his screens.

[...] As Florida is an at-will state, employees can be fired for any reason as long as it's not illegal. In the Netherlands and other EU countries, however, you must have a valid motive for firing someone (refusal to perform work, culpable conduct, etc.) — otherwise, the employee has grounds to dispute it.

Dutch Court: Employees Safe from Bosses' Video Surveillance

upstart writes:

Chetu ordered to pay restitution for employee's unlawful termination:

A telephone sales rep in the Netherlands has won an unfair dismissal court case against his former employer, US software company Chetu, after he was fired for refusing to spend his work day surveilled by his computer camera.

In August of 2022, the employee was required to log on during an entire workday while sharing his screen and being monitored by camera and attending an online training program.

"I don't feel comfortable being monitored for nine hours a day by a camera," the un-named defendant is recorded as saying in a court filing. "This is an invasion of my privacy and makes me feel really uncomfortable. That is the reason why my camera is not on. You can already monitor all activities on my laptop and I am sharing my screen," the employee added.

[...] Chetu eventually received the following notification:

Hi [name of applicant], Your employment is hereby terminated. Reason: Refusal to work; Insubordination.

upstart writes:

Stadia Developers Blindsided By Shutdown:

Last week we noted how Google's streaming game service, Stadia, is finally being shut down. Google had initially tried deny the obvious last July when rumors began circulating that the company was preparing its exit strategy. This denial apparently resulted in many of the service's own developers being left in the dark, given they were extremely surprised when the shutdown was actually announced.

[...] Several developers say they were having normal conversations with Google as recently as last week, suggesting that the shutdown wasn't particularly well coordinated. Developers who were working their game for other platforms can recoup costs, but several say they're dealing with fairly significant losses since their games will only have a few month shelf life (Stadia formally shuts down January 18).

[...] While it's great that Google is giving refunds for those who bought the hardware and games through the Google and Google Play stores, that Google couldn't be bothered to inform its own developers that it was shutting the project down says plenty about why the project is shutting down.

Previously: Google Kills Stadia

Original Submission

upstart writes:

TSMC Q3 2022 Revenue Hits All-Time High Despite Slowing Demand:

Revenue for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) topped analysts' estimates in the third quarter and reached $19.4 billion. On Friday, the company reported that earnings in Q3 2022 were 48% higher compared to the same quarter a year ago.

TSMC revenue in July (NT$186.76 billion), August (NT$218.13 billion), and September (NT$208.25 billion) totaled NT$613.14 billion ($19.382 billion), which is about 48% higher than in Q3 2021, according to a Bloomberg report. TSMC's results run contrary to other semiconductor companies. Just yesterday, AMD warned of a $1.1 billion revenue shortfall, whereas Kioxia decided to reduce the output of 3D NAND wafers last week.

There are several reasons why TSMC's results are improving while sales of its partners' products are dropping due to rising inflation and geopolitical tensions. First up, TSMC has managed to increase its market share in recent years, particularly when it comes to leading-edge nodes. Secondly, since the company leads other contract makers of chips, it can increase prices, which drives its revenue upwards.

upstart writes:

Samsung warns of 32% hit to profits on chip slump:

Technology giant Samsung has warned of a 32% slide in its profits as demand for electronic devices and the memory chips that power them shrinks due to the global economic slowdown.

The South Korean company estimates its quarterly operating profit was about 10.8tn won ($7.6bn; £6.9bn).

On Thursday, US chip maker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) also said it was hit by a fall in demand for computers.

[...] The estimates, which are for the three months to the end of September, mark Samsung's first year-on-year decline in quarterly profits in almost three years.

[...] Meanwhile, AMD's revenue estimates for the third quarter were about a $1bn (£895.6m) less than previously forecast, signalling the slump in demand for chips could be much worse than expected.

[...] "This is going to be a common theme for companies in the second half of 2022 due to weakening consumer demand," Neil Shah from market analysis firm Counterpoint Research told the BBC.

[...] Technology industry analysts have forecast that memory chip prices will continue to plunge in the next three months as sales of smartphones continue to slide, with demand not expected to recover until early next year.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Roller coasters are triggering iPhone 14's Crash Detection feature:

One of the iPhone 14 and Apple Watch Series 8's newest features is the new Crash Detection function, which can detect whether the user had been in "a severe car crash." While it has been reported that this feature had not worked when a person was hit by another car while parked, a report by The Wall Street Journal shows that some iPhone users had this feature activated while on a roller coaster.

The Wall Street Journal's Joanna Stern reports that the iPhone 14 Crash Detection feature was triggered by at least six different iPhone users while they were on a roller coaster ride at Kings Island rides.

[...] When Crash Detection is triggered, it shows a warning on the screen for ten seconds, then it starts a ten-second countdown accompanied by an alarm sound. After that, the phone calls 911 and an automatic message says that "the owner of this iPhone was in a severe car crash and is not responding to their phone" with the location of the accident.

[...] While at first, it could sound like just a little error from the iPhone algorithm, it's actually a problem for 911, which is sending teams to rescue people that are not in a "severe car crash." In addition to that, the Wall Street Journal reports that this function also sends an emergency alert to the user's emergency contacts, making them worry about the person that is actually fine.

[...] Apple's spokesman said that "the technology provides peace of mind, and Apple will continue to improve it over time." While the company doesn't acknowledge a system update to minimize these errors, the best is to avoid riding roller coasters with a brand-new iPhone 14.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Tesla Removes Ultrasonic Sensors from Vehicles, Temporarily Disables Autopilot Features - ExtremeTech:

No matter what car you drive, it's still not smart enough to get you from point A to point B all on its own. Arguably, Tesla is closer to letting you safely nap behind the wheel than any other automaker, but now its vehicles are going to be less smart in the short term. Tesla has announced that it's dropping ultrasonic sensors from the Model 3 and Model Y, and its more expensive cars will lose them starting next year. And that means Tesla has to temporarily disable some Autopilot features.

[...] New Model 3 and Model Y vehicles rolling off production lines in North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Taiwan will now lack ultrasonic sensors. Enhanced camera-based Tesla Vision will take over the same tasks, but it won't be ready immediately. That means Tesla is going to have to disable several features, including Park Assist, Autopark, Summon, and Smart Summon. Tesla didn't say how much it's saving by not using the ultrasonic sensors, but it must be significant if it's willing to stop supporting some of its trademark features while it works on new computer vision tech.

Those who already have their Model 3 and Y won't have to worry about losing features, but new vehicles will be limited. Tesla says that will change in the "near future" as it works on those Tesla Vision enhancements. The features will come back in a series of over-the-air updates. Presumably, this work will be completed by the time its more expensive vehicles lose the ultrasonic sensors next year.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Apple's manufacturing moves away from China are a drop in the ocean:

Matching the scale of Chinese operations is a gargantuan task even for the world's most valuable company.

Production centers are popping up in Mexico, India, Vietnam, as well as the US, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal, which cites a recent list of suppliers released by Apple. But no country can yet match the scale of operations Apple built in China, and that presents risks for the Cupertino giant.

Operations in China have suffered because of heightening geopolitical tensions. More recent pandemic-induced lockdowns and squeezed supply chains have made diversify production even more important for the American firm.

Why Apple needs to detach from China:

• China's "covid zero" strategy is inviting a string of uncertain lockdowns. Apple's partner in Guiyang, which operates the server center that houses all online data generated and stored by hundreds of millions of Chinese iPhone users, barred employees from leaving the premises.
• Apple, which paused sales in Russia after the country invaded Ukraine, might be reconsidering its ties to countries ruled by autocrats.
• Dissociating from China is politically advantageous for Apple's image at home, where president Joe Biden recently signed a law assigning $50 billion direct aid for building semiconductor plants in the US.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Volocopter completes crewed eVTOL test flight out of Rome vertiport:

German electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) startup Volocopter conducted its first crewed public test flight in Italy Thursday morning. The flight launched from a vertiport built at Rome's Fiumicino Airport, Italy's first advanced air mobility (AAM) testing vertiport, during a two-day event meant to demonstrate what a service between the airport and the city of Rome would look like.

The Aeroporti di Roma is working toward launching commercial operations between the airport and Rome by 2024, so the reveal of the vertiport as a functional station for eVTOL takeoff and landing is a milestone in Italy's AAM industry.

The five-minute test flight was less about taking on passengers (which it didn't) and more about showing off the two-seater VoloCity air taxi to relevant stakeholders.

[...] Italy's aim for its first vertiport is to set an example for designing and building international vertiports. During the vertiport demo, Volocopter also displayed its branded VoloIQ digital platform, which the startup says supports everything from booking to managing flight operations, and will help support the scaling up of AAM in cities around the world.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The Rust team is putting more resources into helping developers write code faster:

The Rust programming language is getting so popular that the team behind is creating a team that's dedicated to defining the default Rust coding style.

Rust, as developed analyst RedMonk put it, is the "developer darling" of the moment and the most desirable contender for new code that would otherwise be written in C or C++ thanks to its automated way of ensuring secure memory management.

[...] Each language has style guides and, if they're popular enough, may have multiple style guides from major users, like Google, which has its guide for C++ — the language Chrome is written in. Python's Guido van Rossum's posted his styling conventions here.

Rust, which reached version 1.0 in 2015, has a style guide in the "rustfmt" or 'Rust formatting tool' published on GitHub.

[...] "As the Rust language develops, we have a regular need for improvements to the style guide, such as to support new language constructs. This includes minor language changes, as well as highly anticipated new features such as let-chaining (RFC 2497) and let-else (RFC 3137). New constructs like these, by default, get ignored and not formatted by rustfmt, and subsequently need formatting added. Some of this work has fallen to the rustfmt team in recent years, but the rustfmt team would prefer to implement style determinations made by another team rather than making such determinations itself," writes Triplett.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

This is how we can get a high-resolution image of an exoplanet:

One of the most exciting aspects of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is its ability to image and gather information about exoplanets. But while JWST will give us tons of information about these celestial bodies, there's something that it can't do: take a high-resolution image of an earth-like exoplanet — specifically, an image where we can clearly see evidence of possible life on another world, such as land masses, clouds, and bodies of water.

Slava Turyshev of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory is working on a solution that would give us a clearer picture of an exoplanet.This method would use a phenomenon called gravitational lensing to capture that kind of an image. Gravitational lensing occurs when the gravity of a massive object, like a galaxy or star, bends the space-time around it. This curvature in space-time acts as a lens, causing the light from objects that are much further away to bend around it and become magnified. When viewed at the right angle and distance, the magnified light will appear as a ring, known as an Einstein ring.

Turyshev's proposed solar gravitational lens would use the sun as that massive object, magnifying the light of a distant exoplanet in order to construct a high-resolution image we otherwise couldn't visualize. We sat down with Turyshev to talk about what it would take to reach this goal and how he hopes to achieve it within just a few decades. Watch our video above to see more.

Link to video

Original Submission

upstart writes:

In sudden reversal, Valve will let a cult classic visual novel onto Steam:

Last week, publisher Spike Chunsoft regretfully informed customers that Valve-mandated game changes meant the first official English translation of Chaos;Head Noah would not be launching on Steam as planned. Now, the company says the visual novel will be coming to Steam later today, thanks to a change of heart from Valve's content review team.

In a statement, the publisher said it was told that Steam's content review team had "re-examined" the game and will now allow it to launch on Steam "as is." That's a major reversal from last week, when Spike Chunsoft cited "Steam's guideline-required changes to the game's content" that "would not allow the game to be released to [the publisher's] standards." It also brings Valve more in line with Nintendo, which was already allowing the ESRB M-rated game to launch on the Switch without any apparent issues.

"We believe this decision is the result of the unwavering support from fans of the Science Adventure Series as well as all of the players who are eagerly awaiting the release of this title," Spike Chunsoft said in its statement. "Your voices have been heard. We sincerely appreciate your commitment. We look forward to your continued support of Spike Chunsoft and the Science Adventure Series."

hubie writes:

Researchers at Baylor and Campbell universities found that smartphone users seeking meaning and purpose through their devices and social media could experience the opposite:

Smartphone users will be disappointed if they expect their devices and social media to fill their need for purpose and meaning. In fact, it will probably do the opposite, researchers at Baylor and Campbell Universities found in a recently published study.

[...] The researchers' results provide a sociological link to the psychological studies that point to connections between digital devices and media use with feelings of loneliness, depression, unhappiness, suicidal ideation and other poor mental health outcomes.

"Human beings are seekers – we seek meaning in our relationships, our work, our faith, in all areas of social life," Pieper said. "As researchers, we were interested in the role that smartphones – and the media they give us instant access to – might be playing in meaning-seeking.

"We conclude that smartphone attachment...could be anomigenic, causing a breakdown in social values because of the unstructured and limitless options they provide for seeking meaning and purpose and inadvertently exacerbate feelings of despair while simultaneously promising to resolve them," Pieper said. "Seeking itself becomes the only meaningful activity, which is the basis of anomie and addiction."

[...] "Our research finds that meaning-seeking is associated with increased smartphone attachment – a feeling that you would panic if your phone stopped working," Nelson said. "Social media use is also correlated with increased feelings of attachment."