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upstart writes:

Facebook parent Meta fined $24.6M for violating Washington state's political ad disclosure law:

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was fined the maximum penalty of $24.6 million on Wednesday for violating Washington state's campaign finance transparency law.

King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North found that Meta intentionally violated Washington law 822 times. Each fine carried a penalty of $30,000. Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office called the judgement "the largest campaign finance penalty anywhere in the country — ever."

"I have one word for Facebook's conduct in this case — arrogance," Ferguson said in a news release. "It intentionally disregarded Washington's election transparency laws. But that wasn't enough. Facebook argued in court that those laws should be declared unconstitutional. That's breathtaking.

"Where's the corporate responsibility?" Ferguson continued. "I urge Facebook to come to its senses, accept responsibility, apologize for its conduct, and comply with the law. If Facebook refuses to do this, we will beat them again in court."

[...] According to the attorney general, the law requires campaign advertisers, including entities such as Meta that host political ads, to make information about Washington political ads that run on their platforms available for public inspection in a timely manner. The state asserted that Meta violated the law repeatedly since December 2018 and committed hundreds of violations.

In court filings, Meta called Washington state "an outlier," arguing that the disclosure law violates the First Amendment by unfairly targeting political speech, and imposing onerous timelines for disclosing what Meta considers unreasonable degrees of detail to people who request information about political ads.

A judge rejected that argument in September and granted Washington's motion for summary judgment, resolving the case without trial.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Mathematical Formula Tackles Complex Moral Decision-Making in AI:

An interdisciplinary team of researchers has developed a blueprint for creating algorithms that more effectively incorporate ethical guidelines into artificial intelligence (AI) decision-making programs. The project was focused specifically on technologies in which humans interact with AI programs, such as virtual assistants or "carebots" used in healthcare settings.

[...] "For example, let's say that a carebot is in a setting where two people require medical assistance. One patient is unconscious but requires urgent care, while the second patient is in less urgent need but demands that the carebot treat him first. How does the carebot decide which patient is assisted first? Should the carebot even treat a patient who is unconscious and therefore unable to consent to receiving the treatment?

"Previous efforts to incorporate ethical decision-making into AI programs have been limited in scope and focused on utilitarian reasoning, which neglects the complexity of human moral decision-making," Dubljević says. "Our work addresses this and, while I used carebots as an example, is applicable to a wide range of human-AI teaming technologies."

[...] To address the complexity of moral decision-making, the researchers developed a mathematical formula and a related series of decision trees that can be incorporated into AI programs. These tools draw on something called the Agent, Deed, and Consequence (ADC) Model, which was developed by Dubljević and colleagues to reflect how people make complex ethical decisions in the real world.

[...] "With the rise of AI and robotics technologies, society needs such collaborative efforts between ethicists and engineers. Our future depends on it."

Journal Reference:
Michael Pflanzer, Zachary Traylor, Joseph B. Lyons, et al. Ethics in human–AI teaming: principles and perspectives [open]. AI Ethics (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-022-00214-z

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Most lithium deposits in the US are on or near tribal land:

From The Guardian (CC-BY-SA 2.0) :

[...] Three-quarters of all known deposits of lithium in America are found near tribal land, igniting fears that a decline in destructive fossil-fuel mining could simply be replaced by a new form of harmful extraction.

Plans for a major, controversial new lithium mine in northern Nevada – a 1,000-acre site called Thacker Pass – will "will turn what is left of my ancestral homelands into a sacrifice zone for electric car batteries", Shelley Harjo, a member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe, has warned, all still without meeting the burgeoning thirst for lithium.

Lithium demand is of course on the rise thanks to the mineral's role in battery stage and the ongoing global energy crisis. According to The Guardian, there's enough lithium at Silver Peak for 80,000 electric cars — that's not an insignificant contribution to decarbonization efforts! But there is some concern about the lithium battery production process, which involves massive water use and some higher emissions upfront. Even if it is ultimately a more environmentally-friendly option (assuming we can figure out better means of recycling or disposal), the threat of that resource extraction, particularly when the impact hits indigenous communities the hardest, is ... well, not great, to say the least, as evidenced by the entirety of US history.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Another GeForce RTX 4090 16-pin Adapter Bites The Dust (Updated):

Update 10/26/2022 6:15 pm PT

Gigabyte has sent Redditor reggie gakil a replacement for his GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC. Next, the damaged graphics card and melted power adapter will make their way to Nvidia for inspection.

Meanwhile, a fifth GeForce RTX 4090 owner has come forward on Reddit to report a similar meltdown on his power adapter. He accidentally discovered it when disconnecting his Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition to install his newly acquired Core i9-13900K Raptor Lake processor.

The Redditor's photograph showed that some pins had experienced excessive heat. The corner terminals look slightly backed out, whereas one of the ports has already started to melt. The user shared another photograph of his system, and the power adapter appears to be seated properly, and the cable isn't overly bent, which discards a bad installation.

Original Article:

[...] Previously, two GeForce RTX 4090 owners have reported experiencing 16-pin power adapter meltdowns. Both owned custom models, with the first owner rocking a Gigabyte GeForce RTX 4090 Gaming OC and the second user with an Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090 OC Edition. The third report comes from a Facebook user Charlie Woods (then tweeted via WCCF's Hassan Mujtaba), who coincidentally has an Asus TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 4090. According to the owner's recount of the facts, he was benchmarking when he smelled the smoke from the power adapter. Fortunately, he could pull the connector out before it did any damage to the graphics card.

upstart writes:

Ancient 15,000-Year-Old Viruses Found in Melting Tibetan Glaciers:

Ancient creatures are emerging from the cold storage of melting permafrost, almost like something out of a horror movie.

From incredibly preserved extinct megafauna like the woolly rhino, to the 40,000-year-old remains of a giant wolf, and bacteria over 750,000 years old.

Not all of these things are dead.

Centuries-old moss was able to spring back to life in the warmth of the laboratory. So too, incredibly, were tiny 42,000-year-old roundworms.

These fascinating glimpses of organisms from Earth's long distant past are revealing the history of ancient ecosystems, including details of the environments in which they existed.

But the melt has also created some concerns about ancient viruses coming back to haunt us.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Taiwan is in a "precarious" position in the technology industry, Intel Chief Executive Pat Gelsigner said Monday as part of his company's continuing push for more geographic diversity in electronics manufacturing.

[...] Taiwan is home to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the global leader in the semiconductor industry. It makes processors for tech giants including Apple, Nvidia, Qualcomm, AMD, Tesla and even Intel itself. But Taiwan is headquarters to plenty of other big players, including PC makers Acer and Asus, TSMC chipmaking rival United Microelectronics, and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., better known as Foxconn, which assembles iPhones at Chinese facilities.

Intel, of course, stands to benefit from any shift in chip manufacturing away from Taiwan. It's pledged to build chips for other companies, not just itself. To meet expected demand, Intel is building new chip fabrication plants, called fabs, in Ohio, Arizona and Germany. That chip "foundry" effort is new to Intel, but it's the core business for TSMC and Intel's other top rival, Samsung in South Korea.

[...] Taiwan's independence from China has come under greater scrutiny with Russia's invasion of neighboring Ukraine, which helped undermine the assumption that economic fallout would deter countries from going to war. [...]

upstart writes:

SpaceX "will add a donate option to Starlink" for places in need:

The Pentagon has reportedly held talks with SpaceX about funding Starlink in Ukraine, though SpaceX CEO Elon Musk wrote in a tweet yesterday that "SpaceX has already withdrawn its request for funding." Musk also said he'll seek Starlink donations for places in need.

[...] Musk wrote in another tweet that "25,300 terminals were sent to Ukraine, but, at present, only 10,630 are paying for service." He also wrote that SpaceX "will add a donate option to Starlink" for those who "want to donate Starlinks to places in need."

That could include Ukraine and other countries. Musk's tweet about adding a donation option came in response to Ham Serunjogi, co-founder and CEO of a company that runs a service for sending and receiving money in Africa. "I'd be glad to commit $$ to donate Starlink to schools & hospitals in Uganda," Serunjogi wrote.

[...] Musk seemed to backtrack on Saturday, albeit grudgingly. "The hell with it... even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we'll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free," he wrote.

[...] The Pentagon said last week that it's considering other satellite options, too. "There are certainly other Satcom capabilities that exist out there," Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said, according to the Financial Times. "There's not just SpaceX; there are other entities that we can certainly partner with when it comes to providing Ukraine with what they need on the battlefield."

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Australian companies involved in serious or repeated breaches could face penalties of a minimum $50m under new proposed legislation intended to curb the current plethora of serious data breaches. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has been quoted as stating that recent major data breaches at companies, including Optus and Medibank, had shown current measures to be insufficient, while commenting "When Australians are asked to hand over their personal data they have a right to expect it will be protected.". It is expected that these penalties defined in the Privacy Act 1988 will be introduced to parliament within the next month. The proposed changes will not be retrospective. The bill will also provide government entity, the Australian Information Commissioner, with greater information gathering and sharing powers to help resolve privacy breaches.

I trust every company who asks for my name, DOB, current address, previous address, place of birth, medicare number, passport number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, phone numbers, social media account names, email addresses, significant other's name (Neko Neko Floppy Ears btw), driver's licence, and of course a high resolution scan of the above for permanent safe keeping. Don't you?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Apple to put USB-C connectors in iPhones to comply with EU rules

Apple will ditch the Lightning connector on its iPhones, the company has confirmed, after European regulators decided all smartphones should have USB charging as standard in two years' time.

New EU rules require all phones sold after autumn 2024 to use the USB-C connector for their charging ports. The oval-shaped plugs are already standard on other consumer electronics such as e-readers, games consoles, laptops and the vast majority of new Android phones.

[...] Now, Apple's head of marketing, Greg "Joz" Joswiak, says the company is conceding defeat. "Obviously we'll have to comply, we have no choice," he told a technology conference in California.

But, he argued, it "would have been better environmentally and better for our customers to not have a government be that prescriptive".

Related:
    UK Will Not Copy EU Demand for Common Charging Cable
    USB-C to be Mandatory for Phones Sold in the EU by Autumn 2024
    Apple May Finally Fix its Flimsy iPhone Charger Cables

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The ships full of gas waiting off Europe's coast:

The huge tankers are waiting. Off the coasts of Spain, Portugal, the UK and other European nations lie dozens of giant ships packed full of liquefied natural gas (LNG). Cooled to roughly -160C for transportation, the fossil fuel is in very high demand. Yet the ships remain at sea with their prized cargo.

After invading Ukraine in February, Russia curtailed gas supplies to Europe, sparking an energy crisis that sent the price of gas soaring. That led to fears of energy shortages and eye-watering bills for consumers.

[...] So why are ships loaded with LNG just hanging around Europe, exactly? The answer, as you might have guessed, is a little complicated.

Someone else who has watched the accumulation of vessels is Fraser Carson, a research analyst at Wood Mackenzie. This month, he counted 268 LNG ships on the water worldwide - noticeably above the one-year average of 241. Of those currently at sea, 51 are in the vicinity of Europe.

He explains that European nations plunged into a gas-buying spree over the summer that aimed to fill onshore storage tanks with gas. This was to ensure that heaps of fuel would be available to cover energy needs this winter.

The original target was to fill storage facilities to 80% of their total capacity by 1 November. That target has been met, and exceeded, far ahead of schedule. The latest data suggests storage is now at nearly 95% in total.

hubie writes:

The Great Salt Lake is getting saltier, creating a serious threat to the ecosystems and the economies that depend on it:

Starved for freshwater, the Great Salt Lake is getting saltier. The lake is losing sources of freshwater input to agriculture, urban growth and drought, and the drawdown is causing salt concentrations to spike beyond even the tolerance of brine shrimp and brine flies, according to Wayne Wurtsbaugh from Watershed Sciences in the Quinney College of Natural Resources.

Deciphering the ecological and economic consequences of this change is complex and unprecedented, and experts are closely observing another stressed saline lake for clues on what to expect next — Lake Urmia in Iran. This "sister lake" offers obvious, and troubling, parallels to the fate of the Great Salt Lake, according to new research from Wurtsbaugh and Somayeh Sima from Tarbiat Modares University in Tehran.

[...] The Great Salt Lake and Lake Urmia in Iran were once remarkably similar in size, depth, salinity and geographic setting. High rates of urban growth there also fueled demand for irrigated agriculture and human uses, putting extreme stress on the ecosystem. Compared to the Great Salt Lake, the fate of Lake Urmia is on fast-forward.

Over just 20 years, diversions caused Urmia's salinity to jump from 190 grams of salt per liter of water to over 350 grams, Sima said. (For comparison, ocean water has a salinity of around 35 grams per liter.) The decline in Lake Urmia's ecosystem has been precipitous and easy to recognize. It has lost nearly all of its brine shrimp. How long brine shrimp can endure in increasingly salty water in the Great Salt Lake is a question researchers are eager to understand, especially for the south arm where salt concentrations are high, but still sustaining some shrimp.

[...] Lake Urmia has already lost most of its ecological and cultural function — but the Great Salt Lake has not yet crossed that precipice, say the authors. The ongoing crises at Great Salt Lake and Lake Urmia are not unique: Around the globe, other saline lakes are facing a similar crisis and are entirely desiccated or quickly losing water, Wurtsbaugh said. But communities are noticing, which gives him hope. Making any progress will require considerable sacrifice from the water users if the lakes are to be sustained, Wurtsbaugh said.

Journal Reference:
Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh and Somayeh Sima. Contrasting Management and Fates of Two Sister Lakes: Great Salt Lake (USA) and Lake Urmia (Iran), MDPI, 2022. DOI: 10.3390/w14193005

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Condensers promise to accelerate Java programs:

Project Leyden, an ambitious effort to improve startup time, performance, and footprint of Java programs, is set to offer condensers. A condenser is code that runs between compile time and run time and transforms the original program into a new, faster, and potentially smaller program.

In an online paper published October 13, Mark Reinhold, chief architect of the Java platform group at Oracle, said a program's startup and warmup times and footprint could be improved by temporarily shifting some of its computation to a point either later in run time or backward to a point earlier than run time. Performance could further be boosted by constraining some computation related to Java's dynamic features, such as class loading, class redefinition, and reflection, thus enabling better code analysis and even more optimization.

Project Leyden will implement these shifting, constraining, and optimizating transformations as condensers, Reinhold said. Also, new language features will be investigated to allow developers to shift computation themselves, enabling further condensation. However, the Java Platform Specification will need to evolve to support these transformations. The JDK's tools and formats for code artifacts such as JAR files will also need to be extended to support condensers.

The condensation model offers developers greater flexibility, Reinhold said. Developers can choose which condensers to apply and in so doing choose whether and how to accept constraints that limit Java's natural dynamism. The condensation model also gives Java implementations considerable freedom. As long as a condenser preserves program meaning and does not impose constraints except those accepted by the developer, an implementation will have wide latitude for optimizing the result.

Original Submission

Mykl writes:

A consortium of companies, including the big hitters Google, Apple and Microsoft, are making another attempt to kill off the password. This time it's through a system known as Passkeys.

Passkeys work almost identically to the FIDO authenticators that allow us to use our phones, laptops, computers, and Yubico or Feitian security keys for multi-factor authentication. Just like the FIDO authenticators stored on these MFA devices, passkeys are invisible and integrate with Face ID, Windows Hello, or other biometric readers offered by device makers. There's no way to retrieve the cryptographic secrets stored in the authenticators short of physically dismantling the device or subjecting it to a jailbreak or rooting attack.

Ars Review Editor Ron Amadeo summed things up well last week when he wrote: "Passkeys just trade WebAuthn cryptographic keys with the website directly. There's no need for a human to tell a password manager to generate, store, and recall a secret—that will all happen automatically, with way better secrets than what the old text box supported, and with uniqueness enforced."

Given the nature of having the OS manage your credentials with other sites (without ever actually sending your biometric data, PIN or similar data), it becomes possible to share the same credentials across all logged in devices (think, iPhone, iPad, Mac all serviced by iCloud). Phishing sites would no longer be able to steal and re-use credentials.

It certainly sounds promising, though obviously a great deal of trust is given to the OS. What are other Soylentils' thoughts?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Postgres is eating relational:

Even as NoSQL databases keep booming, the relational party is very far from over. But among the relational crowd, one database keeps growing in popularity at the expense of its more established peers. Yes, I'm talking about PostgreSQL. The real question isn't why developers like PostgreSQL. There are plenty of reasons. No, the real question is why developers like it so much right now.

The PostgreSQL renaissance is several years old now, something I've written about repeatedly. The reasons for its popularity? There are several, as consultant Tanel Poder neatly summarizes:

1. Rich set of features 2. Extremely extensible (extensions, hooks) 3. Open source 4. 'Permissive' open source license

[...] At any rate, no one questions how good PostgreSQL is nor the part it plays in the industry trend that favors general-purpose databases. This isn't exactly news. What is news is the rush to modernize—and PostgreSQL's role in it.

[...] So even if another database model might actually be better for their use case, the "easy button" is to go PostgreSQL. As ex-AWS engineer Dave Cuthbert notes, "Far more apps are using relational [databases] because it was the only hammer they had."

OK, so the guy likes Postgresql. But what relational database do you or your company use, and why was the choice made? Has it lived up to its promises, or have you found that some things don't quite work as well as they might? What would you recommend today?

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Marine coral shares many chemical and physical properties with bone, which makes it a potential substitute that could 'revolutionise' orthopaedic procedures:

Researchers at University of Galway have teamed up with local start-up Zoan BioMed to test the potential of coral to treat people with bone injuries.

Marine coral, composed of minerals and salts from surrounding water, shares many chemical and physical properties with bone. This may make it an excellent potential bone substitute or 'scaffold'.

Zoan BioMed grows tropical coral from its facility in Galway. Researchers from the university will work with the start-up to design a novel way of tracking and measuring the formation of bone in a lab.

The researchers said coral scaffolds have the potential to treat bone injuries and other issues, such as damage from tumour removal.

[...] "Critical to evaluating the potential of a new scaffold as it enters the market is the evaluation of its compatibility with human cells and its bone-forming potential."

Dr Cynthia Coleman is a cellular manufacturing and therapy expert at University of Galway and a long-time collaborator with Zoan BioMed. Coleman said the technology is "incredibly exciting" as it will allow researchers to measure cell changes as they move through different stages of bone formation.

"This method will help us understand the process by which individual cells become bone tissue and give us the tools to support collaborating academics and industrial partners as they develop technology to support bone formation in the clinic," Coleman added.

Original Submission