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upstart writes:

Unix is dead. Long live Unix!:

It's the end of an era. As The Reg covered last week, IBM has transferred development of AIX to India. Why should IBM pay for an expensive US-based team to maintain its own proprietary flavor of official Unix when it paid 34 billion bucks for its own FOSS flavor in Red Hat?

Here at The Reg FOSS desk, we've felt this was coming ever since we reported that Big Blue was launching new POWER servers which didn't support AIX – already nearly eight years ago. Even if it was visibly coming over the horizon, this is a significant event: AIX is the last proprietary Unix which was in active development, and constitutes four of the 10 entries in the official Open Group list.

Within Oracle, Solaris is in maintenance mode. Almost exactly six year ago, we reported that the next major release, Solaris 12, had disappeared from Oracle's roadmap. HPE's HP-UX is also in maintenance mode because there's no new hardware to run it on. Itanium really is dead now and at the end that's all HP-UX could run on. It's over a decade since we reported that HP investigated but canceled an effort to port it to x86-64.

The last incarnation of the SCO Group, Xinuos, is still around and offers not one but two proprietary UNIX variants: SCO OpenServer, descended from SCO Xenix, and UnixWare, descended from Novell's Unix. We note that OpenServer 10, a more modern OS based on FreeBSD 10, has disappeared from Xinuos's homepage. It's worth pointing out that the SCO Group was the company formerly known as Caldera, and isn't the same SCO as the Santa Cruz Operation which co-created Xenix with Microsoft in the 1980s.

fliptop writes:

US firm Getty Images on Tuesday threatened to sue a tech company it accuses of illegally copying millions of photos for use in an artificial intelligence (AI) art tool:

Getty, which distributes stock images and news photos including those of AFP, accused Stability AI of profiting from its pictures and those of its partners. Stability AI runs a tool called Stable Diffusion that allows users to generate mash-up images from a few words of text, but the firm uses material it scrapes from the web often without permission.

The question of copyright is still in dispute, with creators and artists arguing that the tools infringe their intellectual property and AI firms claiming they are protected under "fair use" rules.

Tools like Stable Diffusion and Dall-E 2 exploded in popularity last year, quickly becoming a global sensation with absurd images in the style of famous artists flooding social media.

Related:

• Adobe Stock Begins Selling AI-Generated Artwork
• Pixel Art Comes to Life: Fan Upgrades Classic MS-DOS Games With AI
• NVIDIA Research's GauGAN AI Art Demo Responds to Words
• Alien Dreams: An Emerging Art Scene

Original Submission

takyon writes:

CAMM = Compression Attached Memory Module

CAMM to Usurp SO-DIMM Laptop Memory Form Factor Says JEDEC Member

So, farewell, SO-DIMM. After a quarter century of service in laptop, all-in-ones and other compact designs, it looks like the end of the road for SO-DIMM is in sight. JEDEC committee member and Dell Senior Distinguished Engineer, Tom Schnell, told PC World that the new 'CAMM Common Spec' will be the next RAM standard for laptops. There already seems to have been a lot of progress in the background, with the v0.5 spec already approved by 20 or so companies in the task group, and JEDEC expected to finalize the v1.0 spec in the second half of this year.

[...] The new information from PC World editor Gordon Ung's chat with Tom Schnell helps us weigh up some of the pros and cons of CAMM, and point to some ways it has progressed from Dell's pre-JEDEC-approved spec. Apparently, as well as improved density (more RAM capacity in a smaller space), CAMM is amenable to "scaling to ever higher clock speeds." Specifically, the new information indicates that the DDR5-6400 'brick wall' for SO-DIMMs will be shrugged off by CAMMs.

When CAMM reaches devices, there are a couple of tech advances which could help spur its adoption. We mentioned the faster DDR5 speeds above, but it is thought that CAMM could really take off when DDR6 arrives. Another appealing variation might be for adding LPDDR(6) memory to laptops. Traditionally LPDDR memory is soldered, so the new spring contact fitting modules might mean much better upgradability for the thinnest and lightest devices which tend to use LPDDR memory.

DIMM, memory module.

Previously: Dell Defends its Controversial New Laptop Memory (CAMM)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Controversy erupts over non-consensual AI mental health experiment:

On Friday, Koko co-founder Rob Morris announced on Twitter that his company ran an experiment to provide AI-written mental health counseling for 4,000 people without informing them first, The Verge reports. Critics have called the experiment deeply unethical because Koko did not obtain informed consent from people seeking counseling.

Koko is a nonprofit mental health platform that connects teens and adults who need mental health help to volunteers through messaging apps like Telegram and Discord.

On Discord, users sign into the Koko Cares server and send direct messages to a Koko bot that asks several multiple-choice questions (e.g., "What's the darkest thought you have about this?"). It then shares a person's concerns—written as a few sentences of text—anonymously with someone else on the server who can reply anonymously with a short message of their own.

During the AI experiment—which applied to about 30,000 messages, according to Morris—volunteers providing assistance to others had the option to use a response automatically generated by OpenAI's GPT-3 large language model instead of writing one themselves (GPT-3 is the technology behind the recently popular ChatGPT chatbot).

Original Submission

upstart writes:

SEC sues law firm for client list in the Hafnium cyberattack:

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued international law firm Covington & Burling for details about 298 of the biz's clients whose information was accessed by a Chinese state-sponsored hacking group in November 2020.

The data theft in question is the now-infamous Microsoft Exchange attack in which Hafnium exploited four zero-day vulnerabilities in the email platform to steal data from US-based defense contractors, law firms, and infectious disease researchers.

Covington was one of the breached law firms, and the intrusion gave the Beijing-backed cyberspies access to some of Covington's clients that are regulated by the US agency.

"Covington has admitted that a foreign actor intentionally and maliciously accessed the files of Covington's clients, including companies regulated by the Commission," the lawsuit says [PDF]. "In light of this reported breach, the Commission is seeking to determine whether the malicious activity resulted in violations of the federal securities laws to the detriment of investors."

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Airbus Begins Testing Autonomous Emergency Flight Tech:

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Chuck E. Cheese still uses floppy disks in 2023, but not for long:

On Sunday, a Chuck E. Cheese employee named Stewart Coonrod posted a TikTok video that documents the process of installing a new song-and-dance show on an old Chuck E. Cheese animatronics system—a process that involves a 3.5-inch floppy disk and two DVDs. Coonrod says it is the last update before his store undergoes a remodel that will remove the animatronics altogether.

Coonrod's Chuck E. Cheese location in Darien, Illinois, was originally a Show-Biz Pizza restaurant but changed over to Chuck E. Cheese branding in 1991. It includes a single Chuck E. Cheese animatronics character (called "Cyberamics" in the parlance of the company) surrounded by four video screens in a setup called "Studio C," first introduced in 1998.

Currently, those 25-year-old setups are being phased out nationwide in favor of a remodel that replaces the animatronics character with a dance floor. It's the end of the line for Cyberamics, but a few stores still use them, and the parent company ships out updates on floppy and DVD to match the legacy system.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Peering deep into the cellular universe: Allen Institute researchers map cell parts in 3D:

Our cells are built from smaller structures that specialize in the key tasks of life, from cell division to cellular trash collection. And how those smaller parts fit together in three dimensions can affect the health of cells and of the body.

Researchers at Seattle's Allen Institute for Cell Science and their colleagues have now developed a way to quantitatively map how these cellular components are arranged in space. Their approach, published in Nature, has the potential to be adapted broadly by scientists to investigate how cells operate.

The researchers analyzed more than 200,000 human stem cells at high resolution in three dimensions. They assessed the position of multiple internal structures, each visualized by a fluorescent label.

[...] The researchers found that some structures were always located in about the same place, whereas others showed more variability in their placement. They could measure how cellular organization shifted as cells entered cell division or otherwise changed state. And they could simulate cell transitions such as changes in the cytoskeleton that occur in cells at the edge of a cell colony. .

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Messenger billed as better than Signal is riddled with vulnerabilities:

Academic researchers have discovered serious vulnerabilities in the core of Threema, an instant messenger that its Switzerland-based developer says provides a level of security and privacy "no other chat service" can offer. Despite the unusually strong claims and two independent security audits Threema has received, the researchers said the flaws completely undermine assurances of confidentiality and authentication that are the cornerstone of any program sold as providing end-to-end encryption, typically abbreviated as E2EE.

Threema has more than 10 million users, which include the Swiss government, the Swiss army, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and other politicians in that country. Threema developers advertise it as a more secure alternative to Meta's WhatsApp messenger. It's among the top Android apps for a fee-based category in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Canada, and Australia. The app uses a custom-designed encryption protocol in contravention of established cryptographic norms.

Researchers from the Zurich-based ETH research university reported on Monday that they found seven vulnerabilities in Threema that seriously call into question the true level of security the app has offered over the years. Two of the vulnerabilities require no special access to a Threema server or app to cryptographically impersonate a user. Three vulnerabilities require an attacker to gain access to a Threema server. The remaining two can be exploited when an attacker gains access to an unlocked phone, such as at a border crossing.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

89% of the department's high-value assets didn't use multi-factor authentication:

More than a fifth of the passwords protecting network accounts at the US Department of the Interior—including Password1234, Password1234!, and ChangeItN0w!—were weak enough to be cracked using standard methods, a recently published security audit of the agency found.

[...] The results weren't encouraging. In all, the auditors cracked 18,174—or 21 percent—of the 85,944 cryptographic hashes they tested; 288 of the affected accounts had elevated privileges, and 362 of them belonged to senior government employees. In the first 90 minutes of testing, auditors cracked the hashes for 16 percent of the department's user accounts.

The audit uncovered another security weakness—the failure to consistently implement multi-factor authentication (MFA). The failure extended to 25—or 89 percent—of 28 high-value assets (HVAs), which, when breached, have the potential to severely impact agency operations.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Examining the Impact of 6G Telecommunications on Society:

With greater global connectivity, the case for 6G telecommunications has become more apparent than ever before. The generations of wireless cellular technology (or the Gs) have been incrementing every 10 years: 1G prior to 1990, 2G in 1990, 3G in 2000, 4G in 2010, and 5G in 2020. We expect 6G to roll out in 2030.

[...] The pace of technological development is now swifter than ever, but societal implications often become afterthoughts.

[...] In the lead-up to announcing the SDGs, Jeffrey D. Sachs—while he was special advisor to the U.N. secretary-general—proposed in April 2015 an integrated vision for sustainable development. The integrated approach would advance a "holistic vision of systems analysis, where we have to understand how natural, technological, and sociopolitical systems interact," Sachs said.

[...] A recent example that illustrates the point was the rollout of 5G in 2020. It required the installation of cellphone towers or masts. Because community members did not understand the benefits of the installations or were not sufficiently consulted, several of the towers were not renewed. Some even were set on fire. With fast advancements in AI expected thanks to 6G, the fear of technology and what it might or might not do continues to be discussed in many parts of the world.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Over 120 PLC models contain a serious vulnerability—and no fix is on the way:

In 2009, the computer worm Stuxnet crippled hundreds of centrifuges inside Iran's Natanz uranium enrichment plant by targeting the software running on the facility's industrial computers, known as programmable logic controllers. The exploited PLCs were made by the automation giant Siemens and were all models from the company's ubiquitous, long-running SIMATIC S7 product series. Now, more than a decade later, Siemens disclosed today that a vulnerability in its S7-1500 series could be exploited by an attacker to silently install malicious firmware on the devices and take full control of them.

The vulnerability was discovered by researchers at the embedded device security firm Red Balloon Security after they spent more than a year developing a methodology to evaluate the S7-1500's firmware, which Siemens has encrypted for added protection since 2013. Firmware is the low-level code that coordinates hardware and software on a computer. The vulnerability stems from a basic error in how the cryptography is implemented, but Siemens can't fix it through a software patch because the scheme is physically burned onto a dedicated ATECC CryptoAuthentication chip. As a result, Siemens says it has no fix planned for any of the 122 S7-1500 PLC models that the company lists as being vulnerable.

Siemens says that because the vulnerability requires physical access to exploit on its own, customers should mitigate the threat by assessing "the risk of physical access to the device in the target deployment" and implementing "measures to make sure that only trusted personnel have access to the physical hardware." The researchers point out, though, that the vulnerability could potentially be chained with other remote access vulnerabilities on the same network as the vulnerable S7-1500 PLCs to deliver the malicious firmware without in-person contact. [...]

upstart writes:

The FTC has scheduled a hearing for August 2, well after the deal is supposed to close:

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has thrown a monkey wrench into Microsoft's plan to acquire Activision. According to a scheduling order filed last week, the FTC's antitrust lawsuit hearing against the deal will not begin until August 2. This date is well past the contracted deadline of July 18, 2023, effectively triggering a breach in the agreement.

Technically, a failed closure would require Microsoft to pay Activision a $3 billion "breakup fee." However, since something outside of Microsoft's and Activision's control is causing the delay, it's more likely the two will have to start over and cut a new deal. What that means is as yet unclear.

The original agreement was to pay Activision $95 per share, a 40-percent premium over its then $65 market price. Since then, Activision's stock has traded in the mid-to-high 70s. It is currently priced at $76.90, theoretically putting Activision in a better bargaining position for a redeal.

However, Activision's public stance has been that it wants the merger just as much as Microsoft does. So it's within the realm of possibility that the two shake hands and say, "Same deal."

Microsoft and Activision agreed to the merger nearly a year ago. At the time, both companies expected to have the acquisition closed as early as November 2022. However, the record-breaking $68.7 billion buyout immediately got the attention of multiple regulators in several countries, including the FTC.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

The latest version of Pi's mainstream camera module has autofocus, HDR and wide angle:

Raspberry Pi has released an updated camera, Camera Module 3 (aka Camera v3 or Camera Module v3), with an MSRP of $25 for standard or $35 for the wide angle version. The new module brings more pixels, rivalling the High Quality Camera's 12MP while keeping the smaller sensor-on-a-board form factor. What's new about this tiny camera is autofocus. This is the first official Raspberry Pi camera with autofocus, though Arducam's High Resolution camera delivered that functionality last year.

The Raspberry Pi camera was the first official accessory from Raspberry Pi, way back in 2013. The original 5MP model was updated to v2 in 2016 which brought 8MP to the game. Then the cameras got a bit more "serious" with the 12MP Raspberry Pi High Quality Camera in 2020; this version brought interchangeable lenses and a plethora of choices for the keen photographer, but it's pricey and doesn't come with a lens.

Fast forward to 2023 and we have a new mainstream Pi camera, the Raspberry Pi Camera v3 which updates the original camera's sensor-on-a-board form factor to pack a 12MP Sony IMX708 sensor and auto focus. It also comes in four flavors: standard, wide angle, NOIR and NOIR wide angle.

Specs, comparisons to legacy cameras and test results available at Tom's Hardware.

Previously:

• Arducam Reveals Hawk-Eye, a 64MP Raspberry Pi Camera
• Raspberry Pi Launches Camera With Interchangeable Lens System for $50

Original Submission

JoeMerchant writes:

With all the bruhaha around ChatGPT, GPT-3 and friends like: Jasper, Article Forge and growthbar, let me just reminisce about the summer of 1984 when I made a word-salad generator that would log on to (teenage enemy) BBSs at 4 in the morning and fill their pages with uncanny valley residing content peppered with local usernames and hot topics of the day, fed at a semi-human imitating 140-240 baud with occasional pauses "for thought" - sysops would sometimes listen to their servers and content dumped in at full speed sounds different than human driven keyboard output, but humans can be imitated...

Swerving back to the title content: Garage Band, similar to AI story writers, Garage Band is one of many Digital Audio Workstation programs out there, used by the likes of Moby, Ed Sheeran, Trent Reznor, and let's be honest: "Avid Pro Tools is the DAW of choice, being used by producers on 65% of the top 100 albums from the past 10 years." The thing about Garage Band is: if you have any recent Apple gear (we still have a 6 year old iPad mini), then you have it included with your OS: for free. If not, there are many many free, low cost, and not so low cost DAW tools out there, but focusing on the "so free it's bundled with the OS" Garage Band, which has gadzillions of tutorials available, let me just hit the high points of what I discovered yesterday after basically ignoring the depth of what DAWs have become over the last 40 years.

See, in 1983 I was directly programming the 4 channel sound synthesizer on Atari 400/800 computers, in 1989 I built a MIDI controlled sound synthesizer out of some PLDs and a (fixed point 16 bit) TI DSP. I briefly opened various DAW softwares over the years since then, including Garage Band about 5-6 years ago - even bought a little keyboard as controller input to Garage Band for the kids to see if they would take an interest (they didn't). At that time, I went just deep enough into the software to see the drum sequencer and the thousands upon thousands of synthesizer voices, fancy real instrument interfaces, etc. What I didn't discover at that time were the Autoplayers - which basically give the DAW operator a studio full of session musicians who can drum in various styles and auto-play appropriate melody lines, chord progressions, etc. on basically all the instruments, started with a single click, then tunable in three to thirty dimensions to whatever you may be looking for in your musical production.

Couple this with ChatGPT writing lyrics and a good singing synthesizer or two, and Pop music is going to have a hard time keeping up with the flood of semi-original studio quality productions coming out of pre-teens' bedrooms.