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upstart writes:

TSMC may not expand in US if double taxation rule continues:

As Apple's major chip manufacturer TSMC nears the opening of its Arizona plant, US officials want it to build more — but US versus China politics are complicating matters.

Taiwanese company TSMC has already invested $40 billion in its new Arizona factory, which it says will open in 2024. But since the US does not have a income tax agreement with Taiwan, TSMC faces double taxation on its profits from this or any other factory it could build in the States.

According to the Financial Times, unless there is a change in the law, TSMC will be paying out over 50% of its profits earned in the US. In comparison, Samsung pays much less because its home country of South Korea has a tax treaty with the States.

Naturally, then, US politicians who want to see the firm expand in the States argue that President Biden should negotiate a tax accord with Taiwan. TSMC officials have reportedly also asked for such an agreement to ease this double taxation burden.

However, at present the US does not recognize Taiwan as a separate country or sovereign nation. Instead, it sees it as part of China.

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upstart writes:

Newly Declassified Government Report Suggests Havana Syndrome Might Be Caused by an Energy Weapon:

After years of debate about the cause of the strange malady, a recently declassified document points the finger (once again) at "electromagnetic energy."

Several weeks after the intelligence community came out to disavow claims that "Havana Syndrome"—the bizarre rash of neurological disorders plaguing U.S. foreign service officers—was the result of a directed energy weapon, a newly declassified report alleges that may very well be what it is.

The group behind the report, the Intelligence Community Experts Panel on Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs), was established by the government to figure out just what the heck had happened to the 1,000-ish American officials who claim to have suffered from "Havana"'s bizarre symptoms. Those symptoms, which first cropped up at a U.S. embassy in Cuba in 2016 and soon spread to other parts of the globe, include a rash of inexplicable ailments—things like hearing and memory loss, severe headaches, light sensitivity, nausea, and a host of other debilitating issues.

Well, after a substantial research effort to get to the bottom of Havana Syndrome's seemingly impenetrable mystery, the IC panel ultimately released their findings to the government, but the contents of the report have remained classified—until now, that is.

[...] According to the report, a plausible explanation for the disorders may be "pulsed electromagnetic energy." It reads:

Electromagnetic energy, particularly pulsed signals in the radio frequency range, plausibly explains the core characteristics, although information gaps exist. There are several plausible pathways involving forms of electromagnetic energy, each with its own requirements, limitations, and unknowns. For all the pathways, sources exist that could generate the required stimuli, are concealable, and have moderate power requirements.

upstart writes:

DRAM got cheaper and prices will continue to fall:

While prices for computer hardware have remained relatively high in the past few years, the slowing of PC and component sales are starting to take effect. DRAM is the latest piece of hardware to become even cheaper, and projections show that prices will continue to fall in the coming months.

According to a report from TrendForce, DRAM prices have fallen 20% in the first quarter of 2023. This is a continued decline for the DRAM market as sales have been slowing for all sectors of the industry. Some DRAM manufacturers have already started layoffs as they see their revenues on a steep decline. For the second quarter of 2023, TrendForce says that prices are expected to fall another 10 to 15%.

Despite production cuts already in effect, PC makers still have between 9 and 13 weeks of DRAM inventory. The mobile sector seems to be having healthier levels of inventory as mobile manufacturers were more conservative in their plans.

Nonetheless, mobile DRAM pricing is also expected to decline by 10 to 15%. As consumer demand for DRAM was sluggish, suppliers looked to the server side of the business for sales, however this simply resulted in a huge pile-up of inventory for server DRAM.

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fliptop writes:

Jenny Blessing and Ross Anderson have evaluated the security of systems designed to allow the various Internet messaging platforms to interoperate with each other:

The Digital Markets Act ruled that users on different platforms should be able to exchange messages with each other. This opens up a real Pandora's box. How will the networks manage keys, authenticate users, and moderate content? How much metadata will have to be shared, and how?

In our latest paper, One Protocol to Rule Them All? On Securing Interoperable Messaging, we explore the security tensions, the conflicts of interest, the usability traps, and the likely consequences for individual and institutional behaviour.

Originally spotted on Schneier on Security.

One Protocol to Rule Them All? On Securing Interoperable Messaging, Jenny Blessing, Ross Anderson https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2303.14178

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Seattle-area county plans 'world leading' sustainable aviation fuel R&D center:

Washington state wants to create a "world leading" research and development center focused on low-carbon, sustainable aviation fuels. The facility is planned for Snohomish County's Paine Field — Boeing's historic home and a hub for low-carbon aerospace startups including ZeroAvia and MagniX.

Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers on Tuesday announced plans for the center, which would be built in partnership with Washington State University. Sen. Marko Liias and Rep. Brandy Donaghy, both leaders from the county, are calling for $6.5 million in the state's transportation budget to get the project rolling.

"We have been at the forefront of the aviation industry for decades and this will now put us in a place to lead the world in shaping the future of clean aviation," said Liias, chair of the Washington State Senate Transportation Committee.

WSU has a Bioproducts, Science, and Engineering Laboratory at its Tri-Cities campus. One of the focal areas for the lab is biofuels, which includes sustainable aviation fuels.

Liquid Salts Bring Pushbutton Lenses Into Focus

upstart writes:

First-ever piezoelectric liquids could spark new technologies in optics and hydraulics:

Scientists have discovered the first known piezoelectric liquids, which are able to convert mechanical force to electric charge, and vice versa. The generally environmentally friendly nature of these materials suggests they may find many applications beyond standard piezoelectric compounds, such as novel, electrically controlled optics and hydraulics. However, much remains unknown about how they work, and therefore what they may be capable of.

Piezoelectricity was first discovered in 1880. The effect has since found a wide range of applications, including cellphone speakers, inkjet printers, ultrasound imaging, sonar equipment, pressure sensors, acoustic guitar pickups, and diesel fuel injectors.

Until now, all known piezoelectric materials were solid. Now scientists have for the first time discovered piezoelectric liquids. They detailed their findings in a study online 9 March in the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

The researchers experimented with ionic liquids. These fluids are salts—compounds that are each made of both a positively charged cation and a negatively charged anion—that are liquid at unusually low temperatures. In comparison, table salt melts at roughly 800 ºC.

"They are often relatively viscous—think about them like motor oil, or maple syrup," says Gary Blanchard, one of the authors of the study and a professor of chemistry at Michigan State University, in East Lansing.

upstart writes:

If you believe, they'll put 4G internet on the moon:

A Nokia executive recently confirmed the company is preparing to launch 4G internet on the moon, hopefully before the end of 2023. We put a man on the moon in 1969, and now the Finnish Telecom company wants to give the rock an internet connection.

For those unaware, Nokia announced these bold ambitions back in 2020 when NASA selected it for the project, and now it sounds like things are moving in the right direction.

According to CNBC, this is a big undertaking and will be a joint mission by Nokia, NASA, SpaceX, and others. The company Intuitive Machines’s upcoming IM-2 mission, currently scheduled to launch in November aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, will carry the 4G payload.

Once delivered, Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lunar lander will be able to have an active connection with its Rovers, helping aid in lunar discoveries, not to mention developing a human presence on the surface of the moon.

The hope is that this system can meet the needs of future space missions, including NASA's Artemis mission. If everything goes according to plan, Nokia's moon 4G signal will improve critical command and control functions, give teams remote control of rovers, and offer real-time navigation, not to mention stream back HD video of the moon's surface (and more) to Earth.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Disney appears to be the latest company to pull back the metaverse, as CEO Bob Iger reverses more decisions from his predecessor:

The entertainment giant's metaverse team has reportedly been eliminated as part of the ongoing round of job cuts at Disney. The Wall Street Journal reports all 50 team members who were developing the company's metaverse strategies have been let go.

The metaverse was a pet project of former CEO Bob Chapek, who called it "the next great storytelling frontier."

[...] Last November, however, Chapek was unceremoniously dismissed from Disney. And Bob Iger returned to the CEO role, quickly reversing several of Chapek's decisions.

The metaverse ambitions appear to be the latest to be targeted by Iger. Despite the many ideas that were publicly floated, the metaverse unit had apparently not made much progress on the new technology and did not have many clear plans in place.

Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Geoffrey Hinton, a computer scientist who has been called "the godfather of artificial intelligence", says it is "not inconceivable" that AI may develop to the point where it poses a threat to humanity:

The computer scientist sat down with CBS News this week about his predictions for the advancement of AI. He compared the invention of AI to electricity or the wheel.

Hinton, who works at Google and the University of Toronto, said that the development of general purpose AI is progressing sooner than people may imagine. General purpose AI is artificial intelligence with several intended and unintended purposes, including speech recognition, answering questions and translation.

"Until quite recently, I thought it was going to be like 20 to 50 years before we have general purpose AI. And now I think it may be 20 years or less," Hinton predicted. Asked specifically the chances of AI "wiping out humanity," Hinton said, "I think it's not inconceivable. That's all I'll say."

[...] Hinton said it was plausible for computers to eventually gain the ability to create ideas to improve themselves.

Also at CBS News. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.

Previously: OpenAI's New ChatGPT Bot: 10 "Dangerous" Things it's Capable of

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A close look at one of TRAPPIST-1's planets shows it's bare and baking:

At this point, we've discovered lots of exoplanets that fall under the general label "Earth-like." They're rocky, and many orbit at distances from their host stars to potentially have moderate temperatures. But "like" is doing a lot of work there. In many cases, we have no idea whether they even have an atmosphere, and the greenhouse effect means that the atmosphere can have a huge impact on the planet's temperature. So the Earth-like category can include dry, baking hellscapes like Venus with its massive atmosphere, as well as dry, frozen tundras with sparse atmospheres like Mars.

But we're slowly getting the chance to image the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets. And today, researchers are releasing the results of turning the Webb Space Telescope on a rocky planet orbiting a nearby star, showing that the new hardware is so sensitive that it can detect the star blocking out light originating from the planet. The results suggest that the planet has very little atmosphere and is mostly radiating away heat from being baked by its nearby star.

TRAPPIST-1 is a small, reddish star—in astronomical terminology, it's an "ultra-cool dwarf"—that's about 40 light-years from Earth. While the star itself is pretty nondescript, it's notable for having lots of planets, with seven in total having been identified so far. All of these are small, rocky bodies, much like the ones that occupy the inner portion of our Solar System. While the star emits very little light, the planets are all packed in closer to it than Mercury is to the Sun.

[...] So, TRAPPIST-1 provides a fantastic opportunity—really, seven opportunities—to test some of our ideas about exoplanet atmospheres. And both the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have imaged some starlight that passes close to some of the planets as they pass between Earth and TRAPPIST-1. These observations didn't provide any indications of an atmosphere, setting limits on how thick any gases above these planets could be.

upstart writes:

State governments might be inadvertently helping Chinese-owned app in data collection:

More than two dozen state government websites contain web-tracking code made by TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd., according to a new report from a cybersecurity company, illustrating the difficulties U.S. regulators face in curtailing data-collection efforts by the popular Chinese-owned app.

A review of the websites of more than 3,500 companies, organizations and government entities by the Toronto-based company Feroot Security found that so-called tracking pixels from the TikTok parent company were present in 30 U.S. state-government websites across 27 states, including some where the app has been banned from state networks and devices. Feroot collected the data in January and February of this year.

[...] Site administrators usually place such pixels on the government websites to help measure the effectiveness of advertising they have purchased on TikTok. It helps government agencies determine how many people saw an ad on the social-media app and took some action—such as visiting a website or signing up for a service. The pixels' proliferation offers another vector for data collection beyond TikTok's popular mobile app, which is increasingly under fire in Washington as a possible way for the Chinese government to collect data on Americans.

[...] "Like other platforms, the data we receive from advertisers is used to improve the effectiveness of our advertising services," a TikTok spokeswoman said in a statement. "Our terms instruct advertisers not to share certain data with us, and we continuously work with our partners to avoid inadvertent transmission of such data."

[...] Tracking pixels, also called web beacons, are ubiquitous on commercial websites. The free bits of software code are intended to support digital marketing and advertising by logging a visitor's interactions with the site, such as what is clicked on and the duration of a visit.

upstart writes:

With new detection, officials warn of spring and summer transmission risks:

Health officials in New York have once again detected poliovirus in wastewater from Rockland County, where a case of paralytic polio occurred last summer.

Wastewater samples from Rockland and several nearby counties were positive for poliovirus for months after the initial case was reported in July, suggesting widespread circulation of the virus in the region.

So far this year, officials have only detected poliovirus in one sample, which was collected from Rockland in February. Two samples from the county taken during March were negative. Before the detection in February, the last positive sample from the region was found in mid-December in Orange County, just north of Rockland. The last positive detection in Rockland was in October.

While the data doesn't suggest that poliovirus is again circulating widely in the region, health officials are wary that the virus could easily restart. Rockland has one of the lower vaccination rates in the state; as of August, only 60.34 percent of 2-year-olds in the county were up to date on their polio vaccinations. Some areas of the county have rates in the 50s.

Officials are concerned about the potential for international spread of polio to Rockland's sizable Jewish community during upcoming holiday travel.

[...] Officials continue pushing for vaccination in parts of the county where anti-vaccine sentiments are high. They're offering free polio boosters at walk-in clinics, working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to audit vaccination coverage at day cares and schools, and trying to improve vaccination messaging.

"It is our obligation to protect all our residents from these debilitating and potentially fatal diseases. The law requiring childhood vaccinations has been in place for many years for this very reason," County Executive Ed Day said. "I urge our residents to act now and protect yourselves, your family, and your community."

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Mental sovereignty, says author Nita Farahany, is no longer a given:

Neurotechnologies today—devices that can measure and influence our brains and nervous systems—are growing in power and popularity. The neurotech marketplace, according to Precedence Research, is worth USD $14.3 billion this year and will exceed $20 billion within four years. Noninvasive brain-computer interfaces, brain stimulation devices, and brain-monitoring hardware (measuring alertness and attention at work, for example) are no longer just laboratory experiments and technological curios. The societal and legal implications of widespread neurotech adoption may be substantial.

Nita Farahany, professor of law and philosophy at Duke University, has written a new book, [...] which explores how our lives may be impacted by the use of brain-computer interfaces and neural monitoring devices.

Farahany argues that the development and use of neurotech presents a challenge to our current understanding of human rights. Devices designed to measure, record and influence our mental processes, used by us or on us, may infringe on our rights to mental privacy, freedom of thought, and mental self-determination. She calls this collection of freedoms the right to cognitive liberty. Spectrum spoke with Farahany recently about the future and present of neurotech and how to weigh its promises—enhanced capabilities, for instance, including bionics and prosthetics and even a third arm—against its potential to interfere with people's mental sovereignty.

An interview with Farahany is in the linked article.

Does neurotech's future fill you with optimism for a better world, or dread of what might follow?

Original Submission

Europol Warns ChatGPT is Already Helping Criminals

upstart writes:

There is no honor among chatbots:

Criminals are already using ChatGPT to commit crimes, Europol said in a Monday report that details how AI language models can fuel fraud, cybercrime, and terrorism.

[...] Now, the European Union's law enforcement agency, Europol, has detailed of how the model can be misused for more nefarious purposes. In fact, people are already using it to carry out illegal activities, the cops claim.

"The impact these types of models might have on the work of law enforcement can already be anticipated," Europol stated in its report [PDF]. "Criminals are typically quick to exploit new technologies and were fast seen coming up with concrete criminal exploitations, providing the first practical examples mere weeks after the public release of ChatGPT."

Although ChatGPT is better at refusing to comply with input requests that are potentially harmful, users have found ways around OpenAI's content filter system. Some have made it spit out instructions on how to create a pipe bomb or crack cocaine, for example. Netizens can ask ChatGPT to learn about how to commit crimes and ask it for step-by-step guidance.

"If a potential criminal knows nothing about a particular crime area, ChatGPT can speed up the research process significantly by offering key information that can then be further explored in subsequent steps. As such, ChatGPT can be used to learn about a vast number of potential crime areas with no prior knowledge, ranging from how to break into a home, to terrorism, cybercrime and child sexual abuse," Europol warned.

The agency admitted that all of this information is already publicly available on the internet, but the model makes it easier to find and understand how to carry out specific crimes. Europol also highlighted that the model could be exploited to impersonate targets, facilitate fraud and phishing, or produce propaganda and disinformation to support terrorism.

[...] ChatGPT's ability to generate code - even malicious code - increases the risk of cybercrime by lowering the technical skills required to create malware.

upstart writes:

Valve is ending Steam support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1:

Are you among the few people still using Windows 7, 8, or 8.1 and playing games via Steam? If so, you might want to upgrade to a newer version of Microsoft's OS before January 1, 2024, as that's the date Valve is terminating Steam support for those older operating systems.

Valve made the surprise announcement in a Steam support post. It writes that as of January 1, 2024, Steam will officially stop supporting the Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1 operating systems. After that date, the Steam Client will no longer run on those versions of Windows. In order to continue running Steam and any games or other products purchased through Steam, users will need to update to a more recent version of Windows. Or they could always switch to Linux.

Valve's reasoning for dropping Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 is due to Steam relying on an embedded version of Google Chrome, which no longer functions on older versions of Windows. The company adds that future versions of Steam will require Windows feature and security updates only present in Windows 10 and above.

It was just last month when Chrome 110 was released, the first version of the world's most popular browser not to support Windows 7. Edge no longer supports these operating systems, either, and Microsoft's extended support for Windows 7 and 8 ended in January.

A quick look at the latest Steam survey shows only a small number of people will be disappointed by Valve's decision – assuming they weren't planning on upgrading in the next nine months. The survey results show that 1.43% of participants still use Windows 7 64-bit, while 0.34% use Windows 8.1 64-bit and 0.09% use Windows 7.

Original Submission