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upstart writes:

Soylent Advice for those on the wrong side of 50.

New study questions the effectiveness of colonoscopies:

Colonoscopies are a dreaded rite of passage for many middle-age adults. The promise has been that if you endure the awkwardness and invasiveness of having a camera travel the length of your large intestine once every decade after age 45, you have the best chance of catching -- and perhaps preventing -- colorectal cancer. It's the second most common cause of cancer death in the United States. Some 15 million colonoscopies are performed in the US each year.

Now, a landmark study suggests the benefits of colonoscopies for cancer screening may be overestimated.

The study marks the first time colonoscopies have been compared head-to-head to no cancer screening in a randomized trial. The study found only meager benefits for the group of people invited to get the procedure: an 18% lower risk of getting colorectal cancer, and no significant reduction in the risk of cancer death. It was published Sunday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Study researcher Dr. Michael Bretthauer, a gastroenterologist who leads the clinical effectiveness group at the University of Oslo in Norway, said he found the results disappointing.

But as a researcher, he has to follow the science, "so I think we have to embrace it," he said. "And we may have oversold the message for the last 10 years or so, and we have to wind it back a little."

Other experts say that as good as this study was, it has important limitations, and these results shouldn't deter people from getting colonoscopies.

upstart writes:

They will expand their coverage over the next five years:

Zipline has teamed up with a healthcare provider servicing the Intermountain Region in the US to deliver medicine to customers using its drones. The company has started doing drone deliveries to select Intermountain Healthcare patients in the Salt Lake Valley area. For now, it can only do drops for local communities within several miles of its distribution center. Zipline intends to add more centers over the next five years, though, so it can eventually expand beyond Salt Lake Valley and deliver medicine throughout Utah.

[...] Intermountain Healthcare patients in the Salt Lake Valley area can now sign up for Zipline deliveries. The company will then evaluate their eligibility based on their location, their yard size — its target delivery area must be at least two parking spaces big — and their surrounding airspace. Zipline's drones are six-foot gliders with a wingspan that's 10 feet long. These drones fly 300 to 400 feet above the ground, though they drop down to an altitude of around 60 to 80 feet to deliver packages outfitted with a parachute.

Pizza from the sky: maybe this could be the next delivery model for DoorDash?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Linux creator Linus Torvalds can't merge kernel code fast enough because of a particular hardware problem:

For most people, hardware problems and slow deliveries are annoying. But if you're the person behind the operating system that underpins much of the cloud, Android and IoT, your problems could easily become a big issue for lots of other people too.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds told a kernel contributor on Sunday that he's doing merges "very slowly" from one of his laptops as he waits for "new ECC memory DIMMS to arrive".

[...] "It was literally a DIMM going bad in my machine randomly after 2.5 years of it being perfectly stable. Go figure. Verified first by booting an old kernel, and then with memtest86+ overnight," he explains in a Linux kernel developer mailing list spotted by The Register.

[...] In early 2020, during the first wave of pandemic restrictions, Torvalds switched his main 'frankenbox' PC from one with an i9-9900k to one equipped with a monster 32-core AMD Threadripper 3970x-based processor. It was, as he said then, the first time in 15 years that his desktop wasn't Intel-based. As a consequence of moving off Intel, his 'allmodconfig' test builds accelerated by a factor of three.

[...] Torvalds last year took a swipe at Intel for its ECC memory policies. "Intel has been detrimental to the whole industry and to users because of their bad and misguided policies wrt [with regards to] ECC. Seriously," he wrote.

Torvalds has also been using an Apple M1 silicon laptop for some development work, thanks to the Asahi Linux project, which has been working on bringnig the Arch Linux distro to Apple's M1 architecture.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

China semiconductor production experienced its largest-ever decline in August:

The South China Morning Post reports that output of ICs was down 24.7% year-on-year to 24.7 billion units in August, the single largest monthly fall recorded since records began in 1997. Production volume was the lowest on record since October 2020.

This is the second month in a row that Chinese IC production has fallen; it was down 16.6% to 27.2 billion units in July. There had been a slight rebound in May and June, the result of lockdowns easing in Shanghai, where many assembly plants are located.

The SCMP writes that the decline can be attributed to new coronavirus outbreaks coupled with China's zero-Covid policy, as well as consumer spending cuts, power shortages caused by local heatwaves, and the global economic downturn. But a significant factor is likely to have been US sanctions.

[...] The Post notes that a record 3,470 companies in China, including those that use the Chinese word for "chip" in their registered names, brands, or operations, went out of business in the first eight months of the year. With the impact of the most recent US restrictions yet to be felt, there's likely more woe in store for the country's tech industry.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Prices of PCs have been trending upwards recently; that could be changing:

Cooling demand plus supply chain problems meant PC shipments declined 15% year on year in the third quarter (Q3) of 2022, totaling 74.2 million units, according to IDC's preliminary count in its worldwide personal computing device tracker.

Shipments by Lenovo, HP, Dell and Asus were all down for the quarter. Apple's share of the PC market, which includes desktops, notebooks and workstations, is now 13.5%, up from 8.2% in the same quarter a year ago, leaving Apple as the only vendor with growing shipments – up 40% on the same time last year.

In a nutshell, high-end PCs are selling well as consumer and education sales have slowed. Shipments of cheaper PCs have continued falling since 2021, amid inflation fears and the industry's supply chain woes, with vendors manufacturing fewer Chromebooks as they pursue profits in higher-end Windows PCs.

Gartner noted that to maintain profits as inflation leads to increased costs, the PC industry wants to raise average selling prices (ASPs) despite weakening demand. The reduction in the mix of PCs from Chromebooks, which tend to have low price points, and the shift to premium products also helped increase the average ASP – but an increase in inventory, especially in the consumer channel, could cause an ASP decline as vendors try to lower inventory.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/this-thermal-attack-can-read-your-password-from-the-heat-your-fingertips-leave-behind/

Thermal keyboard attack

While an interesting idea I wonder, like with a lot of these "attacks" how useful in practice they really are.

The heat doesn't last very long, so you have to be there basically as you type or within seconds. After just 20 seconds the heat is dropping fast and after a minute you are basically guessing.

Still 4 digit ATM pins could be in deep trouble. But then after you entered the 4 digit pin you usually push a few more numbers to get your money and make various choices at the machine. So it might be a difference between real live usage and laboratory usage.

The heat or colour will then tell the order in what was used last to the keys that are fading was the once used earliest.

But still unless it can tell a few keys appear that might be very similar in heat you end up with options. But then getting or guessing a password from a limited pool of characters is better or faster then guessing one from a larger pool.

So the new security feature or recommendation will be to before you leave the ATM press ALL the keys or after you get your money just stand there for a minute or so and put the money into your wallet so you let the machine or the keypad cool down.

How will the camera note if you use the same keys over again (AxxxxAxxxxxA)? Will it know if you hit the A key then multiple times?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

UK govt launches procurement for tax agency systems:

The UK government has kicked off procurement to modernize aging legacy applications used by the national tax collector, HMRC (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs).

Crown Commercial Services, which sits within the Cabinet Office, has released the contract notice for the Digital and Legacy Application Services (DALAS) framework, which could be worth up to £4.2 billion (c $4.64 billion) over four years.

But the invitation to tender, the process through which suppliers bid for the places on the framework deals, is set to be split. Phase 1 will begin in February next year, with the timetable for Phase 2 yet to be announced.

HMRC has one of the largest and most complex IT estates in Europe with over 600 systems, 800 terabytes of data, 1,000 IT changes a month, and a 24/7 IT operation. It serves 45 million citizens and more than 5 million business taxpayers.

In August, HMRC released a prior information notice, which starts early conversations with suppliers before the formal competition begins.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Chemistry World has an article about how the best-selling organic chemistry textbook has become open access. The 10^th edition of John McMurry's textbook, Organic Chemistry, will be available free-of-charge. It appears likely that it will be under one of the Creative Commons Attribution licenses.

John McMurry's Organic Chemistry has been one of the best selling chemistry textbooks since it was first printed in 1984. Under his agreement with Cengage Learning, the book's publisher, McMurry realised he could ask for the book's copyright to be returned to him 30 years after it was first printed. Without copyright of the first edition, the publisher is unable to produce any more new editions, McMurry notes.

[...] Now McMurry is writing the book's tenth edition, releasing it for free next summer on OpenStax, an educational technology nonprofit run out of Rice University, US. The book's ninth, 2015, edition is currently sold for around £70 in the UK and $80 in the US. The upcoming edition - and likely any future editions - will be freely available worldwide as digital download.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

DeepMind unveils first AI to discover faster matrix multiplication algorithms:

Can artificial intelligence (AI) create its own algorithms to speed up matrix multiplication, one of machine learning’s most fundamental tasks? Today, in a paper published in Nature, DeepMind unveiled AlphaTensor, the “first artificial intelligence system for discovering novel, efficient and provably correct algorithms.” The Google-owned lab said the research “sheds light” on a 50-year-old open question in mathematics about finding the fastest way to multiply two matrices.

Ever since the Strassen algorithm was published in 1969, computer science has been on a quest to surpass its speed of multiplying two matrices. While matrix multiplication is one of algebra’s simplest operations, taught in high school math, it is also one of the most fundamental computational tasks and, as it turns out, one of the core mathematical operations in today’s neural networks.

[...] This research delves into how AI could be used to improve computer science itself, said Pushmeet Kohli, head of AI for science at DeepMind, at a press briefing.

“If we’re able to use AI to find new algorithms for fundamental computational tasks, this has enormous potential because we might be able to go beyond the algorithms that are currently used, which could lead to improved efficiency,” he said.

This is a particularly challenging task, he explained, because the process of discovering new algorithms is so difficult, and automating algorithmic discovery using AI requires a long and difficult reasoning process — from forming intuition about the algorithmic problem to actually writing a novel algorithm and proving that the algorithm is correct on specific instances.

“This is a difficult set of steps and AI has not been very good at that so far,” he said.

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.