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DeathMonkey writes:

The Synthetic Party, a new Danish political party with an artificially intelligent representative and policies derived from AI, is eyeing a seat in parliament as it hopes to run in the country's November general election.

The party was founded in May by the artist collective Computer Lars and the non-profit art and tech organization MindFuture Foundation. The Synthetic Party's public face and figurehead is the AI chatbot Leader Lars, which is programmed on the policies of Danish fringe parties since 1970 and is meant to represent the values of the 20 percent of Danes who do not vote in the election. Leader Lars won't be on the ballot anywhere, but the human members of The Synthetic Party are committed to carrying out their AI-derived platform.

"We're representing the data of all fringe parties, so it's all of the parties who are trying to get elected into parliament but don't have a seat. So it's a person who has formed a political vision of their own that they would like to realize, but they usually don't have the money or resources to do so," Asker Staunæs, the creator of the party and an artist-researcher at MindFuture, told Motherboard.

[...] So far, The Synthetic Party has only 11 signatures out of the 20,000 that would make it eligible to run in this November's election. If the party were to be in the parliament, Staunæs said that it would be the AI powering policies and its agenda, and humans acting as the interpreter of the program.

This Danish Political Party Is Led by an AI

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A new material is set to provide us with faster and higher resolution displays. Hokkaido University researchers explain what makes this material so special, opening the door to its application and further development.

All displays consist of a lattice of tiny dots of light, called pixels, the brightness of which can be individually controlled. The total number of pixels—and therefore, the resolution and display size—is limited by how many of these pixels can be addressed within a given fraction of a second. Therefore, display manufacturers try, in the pixel control units, to use materials that exhibit a very high "electron mobility," which is a measure for how quickly current will start to flow through a control unit as a response to voltage being applied—and thus, how quick the pixel is.

A new material called ITZO (for its constituent elements indium, tin, zinc and oxygen) promises to be up to seven times faster than the current state-of-the-art material. However, it has not been clear where this improvement comes from, hampering its adoption for industrial applications.

Hokkaido University material scientist Hiromichi Ohta and his team used their unique measurement technique to clarify this point. In their recent paper published in the journal ACS Applied Electronic Materials, they showed that the higher electron mobility results from the unusual fact that in ITZO films of sufficient thickness, free charges accumulate at the interface with the carrier material and thus enable passing-through electrons to travel through the bulk of the material unhindered.

Elon Musk under federal investigation over Twitter deal:

Elon Musk is under a federal investigation related to his $44 billion takeover deal for Twitter.

The news came from a court filing made public on Thursday about the latest in ongoing legal disputes between the billionaire and the social network.

While the filing said he was under investigation, it did not say what the focus was.

"This game of 'hide the ball' must end," the company said in the court filing.

Mr Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Twitter - which sued Mr Musk in July to force him to close the deal - said lawyers for the Tesla CEO had claimed "investigative privilege" when refusing to hand over documents it wanted.

It also said it had requested that Mr Musk's attorneys produce their communications with federal authorities months ago, but they had not done so.

hubie writes:

Research suggests behaviour of co-workers can mirror hostility of their leaders:

A new study has found that hostile behaviours from "abusive" bosses can lead to co-workers adopting similar behaviour, leading to a toxic atmosphere of insecurity and exhaustion in the workplace.

[...] Examples of hostile behaviour in the workplace considered by the researchers included use of inappropriate language, sexual harassment, outbursts, humiliation and misuse of power.

[...] The study also reported an association between experiencing hostile behaviour from leaders and emotional exhaustion and job insecurity, suggesting that mistreatment from peers can damage employees' confidence in their job and their role within an organisation.

[...] Co-author Dr Nadeem Khalid, Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Strategy at ARU, said:

It's clear from our study that hostile behaviour at the top of a workplace is not only likely to be damaging to individuals in terms of their emotional exhaustion and job security, it is also likely to encourage other employees to act in unethical ways, creating a toxic environment across the entire organisation.

That effluent flows downhill perhaps isn't too surprising, but do you think the converse is true, or is it really the case that nice guys finish last?

Journal Reference:
Miao Li, Ammar Ahmed, Obed Rashdi Syed, et al., Impact of abusive leader behavior on employee job insecurity: A mediating roles of emotional exhaustion and abusive peer behavior, Front Psychol, 2022. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.947258

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The University of Gothenburg has deployed three underwater robots in the Baltic waters around the leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. This is done to be able to follow how chemistry and life in the sea changes over time due to the large release of methane gas. In addition, research vessel Skagerak is set to deploy on a new expedition to the Baltic Sea to test run the large, unmanned vessel Ran.

The expedition with R/V Skagerak was not the only measure the university's researchers took when the Nord Stream pipelines began to leak methane gas. With the help of the Voice of the Ocean foundation, VOTO, three remote-controlled underwater robots were placed in the area. They will move around the sea and record water data continuously for the next 15 weeks.

"They are called gliders and are provided by VOTO, who also manages their operation. The robots can give us measurements over a series of time about how the chemistry and quality of the water is affected by the natural gas leak," says oceanographer Bastien Queste at the University of Gothenburg.

Since March 2021, VOTO has had two gliders in the area which functions as one of the foundation's ocean observatories and where the water quality is measured non-stop. The robots go down to the bottom and then turn up to the surface, something that is repeated over a preset distance. Every time the glider is at the surface, the latest measurement data is sent to the researchers via satellite. Thus, plenty of data from this area already exists from before. One of the three additional robots that was dropped into the sea last week has been equipped by the manufacturer Alseamar with a special sensor to be able to measure the change in the methane content over the next 15 weeks.

"Last week's expedition provided valuable data and a snapshot of the state of the ocean immediately after the leakage occurred. With the new robots in place, we receive continuous reports on the state of the water near the Nord stream pipeline leaks. They are deployed solely for this purpose," says Bastien Queste.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Fallen Arecibo Observatory to be transformed into STEM education centre:

The famous observatory, once the largest radio telescope on Earth, collapsed in 2020 after a number of its cables began to fail.

The US National Science Foundation (NSF) has decided to turn the iconic Arecibo Observatory into a STEM-focused education centre.

The 305-metre radio telescope, made internationally famous by movies such as GoldenEye and Contact, was regarded as a beacon for breakthrough science.

The observatory operated for 57 years but was set to be decommissioned in 2020 after a series of incidents left it damaged beyond repair. The platform collapsed at the end of 2020 after a third cable snapped off.

Before the observatory collapsed, the NSF stated that even if repairs were made to Arecibo, the structure would still present long-term stability issues. Rather than rebuild, the NSF has decided to turn the site into a multidisciplinary centre to serve as a hub for STEM education and outreach.

The new education centre will work to promote learning and teaching within STEM and broaden participation. The centre will also seek to build and leverage existing and new collaborations and support fundamental STEM education research.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Techie reported to management for failing to fix a stapler:

On Call The seasons turn, the tides ebb and flow. Just as regularly, each Friday The Register delvers another instalment of On-Call, our reader-contributed tale of another sad constant: IT people being asked to do amazingly dumb things.

This week, meet a reader we'll Regomize as "Phil" who shared a short and sweet tale of his time as a senior systems engineer.

That grand title reflects the skills and qualifications required to tend a sizable fleet of virtualized servers and their respective operating systems.

Which made the support call we recount today all the stranger – because it came from an executive assistant who needed help to fix an electric stapler.

[...] This machine was not even located in the facility wherein Phil toiled. Instead, the call came from another office several states away.

Phil nonetheless tried to help, starting with the – pardon the pun – staple tactics of asking the user if the device was plugged in and then requesting it be turned off and on again.

When that proved ineffective, Phil asked the executive assistant what he felt an IT person hundreds of miles away could do to repair the stapler.

"It plugs into the wall, isn't that what IT fixes?" was the non sequitur reply. Phil's response was to suggest the user contact their facilities department and order a new stapler.

For offering that sensible advice, Phil became the subject of a complaint to corporate that labelled the IT team "unresponsive."

What amusing things have you been asked to do which were nothing to do with your job? For those of you who have worked on help desks, what are your most amusing recollections of problems you have been faced with?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Russian Baikal 48-Core CPU Die Shots, Benchmarks Emerge

Twitter user Fritzchens Fritz has managed to obtain a sample of Baikal Electronics' 48-core BE-S1000 server-grade system-on-chip (SoC) and throw it under an infrared microscope to reveal its internals. In addition, some benchmark results of the SoC have surfaced.

Baikal Electronics has developed several system-on-chips for different devices to replace x86 processors from PCs and various compute appliances made in Russia. However, the pinnacle of the company's design prowess should have been its BE-S1000 server-grade SoC with 48 Arm Cortex-A75 cores, which the company managed to tape out and produce the first sample using TSMC's 16FFC fabrication technology, but which will never be released commercially due to sanctions against Russia for its invasion in Ukraine.

Also at TechPowerUp.

Previously:
TSMC Ships First Batch of Baikal BE-M1000 ARM CPUs
UK Sanctions Russian Microprocessor Makers, Banning Them From ARM
BITBLAZE Titan BM15 Arm Linux Laptop Features Russian Baikal-M1 Processor
Former Co-Owner of Russia's Baikal Microelectronics Goes Bankrupt

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Archaeologists from the University of Bristol have suggested that mysterious stone spheres found at various ancient settlements across the Aegean and Mediterranean could be playing pieces from one of the earliest ever board games:

There has been quite a lot of speculation around these spheres found at sites on Santorini, Crete, Cyprus, and other Greek Islands with theories around their use including being for some sort of sling stones, tossing balls, counting/record-keeping system or as counters/pawns.

Previous research by the same team from the University of Bristol indicated that there was variability in sphere size within specific clusters and collections of spheres. Following on from this the team wanted to explore potential patterning within these sphere concentrations, to help give an insight into their potential use.

[...] The stones, which are smaller than golf balls, are in various colours and made from different materials. The analysis put the stones into two groups of larger stones and smaller. In addition, in Akrotiri and in other settlements across the Aegean there are stone slabs with shallow cup marks where the spheres could have sat or been placed.

Dr Ferneé said: "The most important finding of the study is that the speres fit two major clusters (one of smaller and one of larger stones). This supports the hypothesis that they were used as counters for a board game with the spheres most possibly have been collected to fit these clusters rather than a counting system for which you would expect more groupings."

If these spheres are in-fact part of a boardgame, they will be one of the earliest examples, along with similar examples from the Levant and Egypt, such as the Egyptian Mehen and Senet.

Journal Reference:
C. Ferneé and K. Trimmis. The rolling stones of Bronze Age Aegean: Applying machine learning to explore the use of lithic spheres from Akrotiri, Thera [open], J Archaeol Sci, 45, 2022. (DOI: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103615)

Original Submission

liar writes:

Human brain cells implanted in rats: Human brain cells transplanted into baby rats' brains grow and form connections

Also:

• Human brain cells implanted in rats prompt excitement — and concern
• Scientists grow human brain cells in rats to study diseases

Scientists have successfully implanted and integrated human brain cells into newborn rats, creating a new way to study complex psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism, and perhaps eventually test treatments.

Scientists can assemble small sections of human brain tissue derived from stem cells in petri dishes, and have already done so with more than a dozen brain regions...

But in dishes, "neurons don't grow to the size which a human neuron in an actual human brain would grow", said Sergiu Pasca, the study's lead author and professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University.

And isolated from a body, they cannot tell us what symptoms a defect will cause.

To overcome those limitations, researchers implanted the groupings of human brain cells, called organoids, into the brains of young rats.

The rats' age was important: human neurons have been implanted into adult rats before, but an animal's brain stops developing at a certain age, limiting how well implanted cells can integrate.

"By transplanting them at these early stages, we found that these organoids can grow relatively large, they become vascularized (receive nutrients) by the rat, and they can cover about a third of a rat's (brain) hemisphere," Pasca said.

Journal Rereference:
Omer Revah, Felicity Gore, Kevin W. Kelley, et al. Maturation and circuit integration of transplanted human cortical organoids Nature 610, pages 319–326 (2022) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03238-x

Original Submission

takyon writes:

NVIDIA cancels GeForce RTX 4080 12GB

Facing never-ending criticism, NVIDIA has just announced it will not launch GeForce RTX 4080 12GB model, the card that we knew and will always know as RTX 4070. In a last-minute change in September, the company had decided to launch two RTX 4080 models with vastly different specifications. Turns out this has backfired hard.

NVIDIA has just announced it is 'unlaunching' its RTX 4080 12GB GPU. Only the 16GB model will be released. NVIDIA has confirmed that, 4080 16GB launches on November 16th.

Nvidia blog post.

Also at AnandTech, Guru3D, and Wccftech.

Previously: Nvidia Announces the RTX 4090, 4080 (16 GB and 12 GB), and More

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Explained: Why a new lawsuit targeting Google & YouTube can potentially change the internet forever- Technology News, Firstpost;:

Legislators have often debated whether social media platforms and search result aggregators should be held responsible for objectionable content that users post, which then gets recommended to different users by an algorithm, based on the user's interest.

The Supreme Court of the United States of America is now going to consider a case against Google, which may settle the debate and potentially change the internet forever.

The Supreme Court of the US is going to listen to the case of Gonzalez v. Google. The case was filed by the parents of Nohemi Gonzalez, who was killed in the 2015 ISIS attack in Paris.

Gonzalez's family is suing Google, claiming that YouTube, which is owned by Google, violated the Anti-Terrorism Act when its algorithm recommended ISIS videos to other users. The complaint states that YouTube not only hosts videos that are used by ISIS to recruit terrorists but also recommends these videos to users, instead of taking them down as per their content moderation policies.

upstart writes:

Microsoft's HoloLens headsets are giving US Army testers nausea:

Microsoft's HoloLens headsets for the US Army have some teething troubles. Bloomberg and Insider say a recent unclassified report reveals the current Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) iteration is creating problems for soldiers in tests. Some testers suffered nausea, headaches and eyestrain while using the augmented reality goggles. Others were concerned about bulk, a limited field of view and a display glow that could reveal a soldier's position even at long distances.

A Microsoft worker talking to Insider claimed IVAS failed four out of six elements in one test. The Defense Department's Operational Test and Evaluation Director, Nickolas Guertin, also said there were still too many failures for essential features. Soldier acceptance is still low, according to the report.

[...] The military appears to be aware of and addressing issues. In a statement to Insider, Brigadier General Christopher Schneider said IVAS was successful in "most" criteria, but that there were areas where it "fell short" and would receive improvements. Army assistant acquisition secretary Doug Bush cleared the acceptance of an initial batch of 5,000 HoloLens units in August, but that the armed forces branch was modifying its plans to "correct deficiencies." Microsoft told Bloomberg it still saw IVAS as a "transformational platform" and was moving ahead with delivery for the initial headsets.

Original Submission

NotSanguine writes:

In a blog post today (12 October 2022), the Signal team announced that they will be removing SMS/MMS send/receive functionality from the Signal Android app.

For many years, the Signal app on Android has supported sending and receiving plaintext SMS and MMS messages in addition to Signal messages. SMS and MMS are standardized communication protocols that allow mobile devices to send and transmit messages, and most people picking up their phone to text or share memes don't really think about them. [...] we continued supporting the sending and receiving of plaintext SMS messages via the Signal interface on Android. We did this because we knew that Signal would be easier for people to use if it could serve as a homebase for most of the messages they were sending or receiving, without having to convince the people they wanted to talk to to switch to Signal first. But this came with a tradeoff: it meant that some messages sent and received via the Signal interface on Android were not protected by Signal's strong privacy guarantees.We have now reached the point where SMS support no longer makes sense. For those of you interested, we walk through our reasoning in more detail below.

In order to enable a more streamlined Signal experience, we are starting to phase out SMS support from the Android app. You will have several months to transition away from SMS in Signal, to export your SMS messages to another app, and to let the people you talk to know that they might want to switch to Signal, or find another channel if not. [...] This change will only affect you if you use Signal as your default SMS app on Android. Meaning that you use Signal on Android to receive and send both Signal and SMS messages from within the Signal interface.

[...] The most important reason for us to remove SMS support from Android is that plaintext SMS messages are inherently insecure. They leak sensitive metadata and place your data in the hands of telecommunications companies. With privacy and security at the heart of what we do, letting a deeply insecure messaging protocol have a place in the Signal interface is inconsistent with our values and with what people expect when they open Signal. [...] We are focused on building secure, intuitive, reliable, and pleasant ways to connect with each other without surveillance, tracking, or targeting. Dropping support for SMS messaging also frees up our capacity to build new features (yes, like usernames) that will ensure Signal is fresh and relevant into the future. After much discussion, we determined that we can no longer continue to invest in accommodating SMS in the Android app while also dedicating the resources we need to make Signal the best messenger out there.

Do many (any?) Soylentils use Signal? What's your use case?

This change will break my primary use case (as the app for SMS and secure messaging on my phone) and will confuse the hell out of the dozens of non-technical folks I've converted to Signal over the years.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Taiwan says destroying TSMC in the event of a Chinese invasion is unnecessary:

Once again, rising tensions between China and the US have put the spotlight on Taiwan and what would happen to TSMC, which manufactures more than half the world's semiconductors, in the event of an invasion. One proposal is to destroy the company's facilities, but the island's security chief said such a move is unnecessary.

Chen Ming-tong, director-general of Taiwan's National Security Bureau, told lawmakers (via Bloomberg) that TSMC's reliance on overseas companies and supplies for its operations means the facilities would be useless if China took over Taiwan.

"If you understand the ecosystem of TSMC, the comments out there are unrealistic," Chen said. "TSMC needs to integrate global elements before producing high-end chips. Without components or equipment like ASML's lithography equipment, without any key components, there is no way TSMC can continue its production."

[...] The US is said to be considering the evacuation of TSMC chip engineers in the event of a Chinese invasion, something the US National Security Council estimates would impact the world economy by more than $1 trillion. Former US officials have suggested making it clear to China that the semiconductor giant's facilities would be destroyed by the US if the attack occurred, thereby prevented TSMC from falling into Chinese hands.

Original Submission