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upstart writes:

Hopes it might wake during the Martian solstice, but not with much confidence:

China has finally confirmed that its Zhurong Mars rover is inoperable, and may never again roll across the red planet.

The rover's chief designer, Zhang Rongqiao said in an interview with Chinese state media on Tuesday that a pile-up of dust had likely affected the vehicle's ability to generate power. He did not speculate whether this represents a final end for Zhurong.

Zhang said if dust accumulation exceeds 40 percent, the rover is designed to go into a dormant state.

It has been pointed out that active cleaning measures could revive the rover when the summer solstice arrives in July.

The six-wheeled explorer was thought to have failed since at least December 2022 when it didn't wake from the sleep mode it entered in May. Zhurong's slumber was intended to preserve power as winter arrived and the sun's rays on its solar panels weakened.

Hypotheses circulated in early January that the solar panels became coated in dust kicked up by winter storms, preventing the rover from collecting energy.

In late February, images released by NASA revealed the vehicle had been parked for months.

fliptop writes:

Months before OpenAI released ChatGPT, Google engineer and AI ethicist Blake Lemoine went viral after going on record with The Washington Post to claim that LaMDA, Google's powerful large language model (LLM), had come to life, an act that cost him his job.

Now that the dust has settled, Futurism has published an interview with Lemoine to talk about the state of the AI industry, what Google might still have in the vault, and whether society is actually ready for what AI may bring.

Which begs the question, if AI is sentient, what kind of mind does it have?

What kinds of new minds are being released into our world? The response to ChatGPT, and to the other chatbots that have followed in its wake, has often suggested that they are powerful, sophisticated, imaginative, and possibly even dangerous. But is that really true? If we treat these new artificial-intelligence tools as mysterious black boxes, it's impossible to say. Only by taking the time to investigate how this technology actually works—from its high-level concepts down to its basic digital wiring—can we understand what we're dealing with. We send messages into the electronic void, and receive surprising replies. But what, exactly, is writing back?

[...] The idea that programs like ChatGPT might represent a recognizable form of intelligence is further undermined by the details of their architecture. Consciousness depends on a brain's ability to maintain a constantly updated conception of itself as a distinct entity interacting with a model of the external world. The layers of neural networks that make up systems like ChatGPT, however, are static: once they're trained, they never change. ChatGPT maintains no persistent state, no model of its surroundings that it modifies with new information, no memory of past conversations. It just cranks out words one at a time, in response to whatever input it's provided, applying the exact same rules for each mechanistic act of grammatical production—regardless of whether that word is part of a description of VCR repair or a joke in a sitcom script.

upstart writes:

The National Academies call for the US to be smart about new reactor designs:

"The race against climate change is both a marathon and a sprint," declares a new report from the US National Academies of Science. While we need to start decarbonizing immediately with the tech we have now—the sprint—the process will go on for decades, during which technology that's still in development could potentially play a critical role.

The technology at issue in the report is a new generation of nuclear reactors based on different technology; they're smaller and easier to build, and they could potentially use different coolants. The next generation of designs is working to avoid the delays and cost overruns that are crippling attempts to build additional reactors both here and overseas. But their performance in the real world will remain an unknown until next decade at the earliest, placing them squarely in the "marathon" portion of the race.

The new report focuses on what the US should do to ensure that the new generation of designs has a chance to be evaluated on its merits.

Most of the next generation of nuclear power designs fall into the category of what are termed small modular reactors (SMRs). These designs have two emphases: They are modular and could potentially be mass-produced, and they focus on inherent safety. Combined, these factors will theoretically allow for rapid and cheap production of reactors and a far lower footprint for the supporting power plant where the reactors are installed.

upstart writes:

Performing the famous double-slit experiment near a black hole will never work:

Don't try to do a quantum experiment near a black hole — its mere presence ruins all quantum states in its vicinity, researchers say.

The finding comes from a thought experiment that pits the rules of quantum mechanics and black holes against each other, physicists reported April 17 at a meeting of the American Physical Society. Any quantum experiment done near a black hole could set up a paradox, the researchers find, in which the black hole reveals information about its interior — something physics says is forbidden. The way around the paradox, the team reports, is if the black hole simply destroys any quantum states that come close.

That destruction could have implications for future theories of quantum gravity. These sought-after theories aim to unite quantum mechanics, the set of rules governing subatomic particles, and general relativity, which describes how mass moves on cosmic scales.

"The idea is to use properties of the [theories] that you understand, which [are] quantum mechanics and gravity, to probe aspects of the fundamental theory," which is quantum gravity, says theoretical physicist Gautam Satishchandran of Princeton University.

Here's how Satishchandran, along with theoretical physicists Daine Danielson and Robert Wald, both of the University of Chicago, did just that.

First the team imagined a person, call her Alice, performing the famous double-slit experiment in a lab orbiting a black hole (SN: 11/5/10). In this classic example of quantum physics, a scientist sends a particle, like an electron or a photon, toward a pair of slits in a solid barrier. If no one observes the particle's progress, an interference pattern typical of waves appears on a screen on the other side of the barrier, as if the particle went through both slits at once (SN: 5/3/19). But if someone, or some device, measures the particle's path, it will register as having gone through one slit or the other. The particle's quantum state of apparently being in two places at once collapses.

canopic jug writes:

FedScoop has pointed out that industry vendors have until June 26 to comment on the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) draft attestation form for government software providers. The draft Secure Software Self-Attestation Common Form was published Thursday and the window for feedback is 60 days so comments will be accepted through June 26, 2023.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Thursday published a draft attestation form for software providers working with federal government agencies.

The agency launched a 60-day request for comment period, during which industry is able to submit feedback on the document.

This stems from Executive Order 14028 and the Office of Management and Budget's (OMB) M-22-18, Enhancing the Security of the Software Supply Chain through Secure Software Development Practices. The CISA has requested that interested parties (that's you FOSS projects) review the Secure Software Development Attestation Common Form, and submit feedback.

Redmond and its minions are already on this. Will the FSF, OSI, EFF, SFLC, SFC, and the others step up and be heard?

Original Submission

Many countries are celebrating a public holiday on 1 May. In view of this, the weekend/holiday posting rate (5 stories/day) will continue through the holiday, with the usual story posting rate restarting on Tuesday. I realise that for the USA this is NOT a holiday, but we will probably celebrate your own Labor Day with you later on this year.

For those who are enjoying the holiday, I hope that you have a pleasant and relaxing time!

upstart writes:

Various options are still available to nudge the important instrument:

It has now been two weeks since the on-target launch of the European Space Agency's 1.5 billion euro probe that is bound for the moons of Jupiter.

This process had been going well until the space agency attempted to extend a 16-meter-long antenna that is part of its radar instrument. The Radar for Icy Moons Exploration, or RIME, is an important scientific instrument on the spacecraft because its ground-penetrating radar will allow for examinations of the interior of intriguing moons such as Europa and Ganymede.

On Friday, the European Space Agency said the long antenna remains stuck to its mounting bracket and is only extended about one-third of its full length. Engineers at the spacecraft's mission control center in Darmstadt, Germany, are working to solve the issue.

"The current leading hypothesis is that a tiny stuck pin has not yet made way for the antenna's release. In this case, it is thought that just a matter of millimeters could make the difference to set the rest of the radar free," the agency said. "Various options are still available to nudge the important instrument out of its current position. The next steps to fully deploy the antenna include an engine burn to shake the spacecraft a little, followed by a series of rotations that will turn Juice, warming up the mount and radar, which are currently in the cold shadows."

upstart writes:

A complete reimplementation of decades-old code is out the of the question:

Historically, the vast majority of security issues encountered on the Windows platform have been memory-related bugs. Rust can provide a highly effective solution to this long-standing problem, and Windows programmers are well aware of its potential.

Although Rust is still a relatively recent programming language, Microsoft has already embraced the technology as one of the most promising upgrades for Windows core programming. Redmond's software engineers have been diligently rewriting crucial parts of the operating system in Rust, bringing significant improvements in both performance and security to the underlying code.

Rust is a fast, memory-efficient programming language created by Graydon Hoare while working at Mozilla, the first company to officially sponsor and adopt it for their experimental browser engine, Servo. As a typical compiled language, Rust offers native performance for various types of applications, including computer software, low-resource devices, and embedded appliances.

Aside from its performance, one of Rust's main attractions is the fact that the language was designed to provide memory safety from the outset, thereby eliminating many categories of bugs and potential vulnerabilities at compile time. Notably, memory safety bugs account for 70% of the CVE-listed security vulnerabilities fixed in Windows since 2006.

According to David "Dwizzle" Weston, VP of OS Security and Enterprise at Microsoft, some Rust code has been implemented in the Windows kernel already. Speaking at BlueHat IL 2023 in Tel Aviv, Israel, last month, Weston mentioned that Windows 11 could boot in Rust, even though the code's port is currently disabled and concealed behind a feature flag.

upstart writes:

Russia had previously threatened to leave the ISS by 2024:

Russia had previously threatened to leave the ISS by 2024, but is now the last of NASA's partners to agree to stay aboard the station for a few more years.

Russia has agreed to keep its cosmonauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) until 2028 despite earlier threats to withdraw from the orbiting lab.

NASA announced that its Russian counterpart "has confirmed it will support continued station operations through 2028," the space agency wrote in a blog post on Thursday. Russia was the last to sign on to extended operations on the ISS, with Japan, Canada, and the participating countries of the European Space Agency (ESA) having already agreed to support space station operations until 2030, when the ISS is due to retire.

In light of geopolitical tensions between Russia and its Western counterparts, Russia had previously threatened to pull out of the ISS in a series of vague statements. The Russian space agency then downplayed its threats, stating that it was planning on leaving the ISS after 2024.

"We will fulfill all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made." Yury Borisov, the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos, told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a meeting in July 2022. "I think that by this time we will begin to assemble the Russian orbital station." At that time, it still wasn't clear whether that meant Russia was planning on staying beyond 2024, or if that was the hard cutoff.

Russia is planning on building its own space station in low Earth orbit. The Russian Orbital Space Station, nicknamed 'ROSS,' would launch in two phases. The first phase, which Russia hopes to launch in 2025, would include four modules, while the second phase would add two more modules and a service platform.

NASA and Roscosmos have had a longstanding partnership aboard the ISS for more than two decades. There has been at least one NASA astronaut and one Roscosmos cosmonaut on board the space station at all times since the ISS launched in 1998.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

An exploded star can pose more risks to nearby planets than previously thought:

This newly identified threat involves a phase of intense X-rays that can damage the atmospheres of planets up to 160 light-years away.

[...] Earth is not in danger of such a threat today because there are no potential supernova progenitors within this distance, but it may have experienced this kind of X-ray exposure in the past, scientists say.

Before this study, most research on the effects of supernova explosions focused on the danger from two periods: the intense radiation produced by a supernova in the days and months after the explosion, and the energetic particles that arrive hundreds to thousands of years afterward.

However, even these alarming threats do not fully catalog the dangers in the wake of an exploded star. Researchers have discovered that between these two previously identified dangers lurks another. The aftermaths of supernovae always produce X-rays, but if the supernova's blast wave strikes dense surrounding gas, it can produce a particularly large dose of X-rays that arrives months to years after the explosion and may last for decades.

[...] "The Earth is not in any danger from an event like this now because there are no potential supernovae within the X-ray danger zone," said Illinois undergraduate student Connor O'Mahoney, a co-author of the study. "However, it may be the case that such events played a role in Earth's past."

upstart writes:

This Active Camouflage Technology Could Change The Future Of Warfare - SlashGear:

H. G. Wells's "The Invisible Man" brought the idea of invisibility to the mainstream over a century ago. Not long after, the fascination with invisibility became a hot trope in fantasy and sci-fi stories. Scientists have also been at work, trying to materialize their invisibility dreams with tech. Virginia-based defense and aerospace company BAE Systems is yet another player in the invisibility tech race, creating a camouflage system called ADAPTIV.

BAE System's secret sauce to creating invisibility (in infrared, at least) is a cloaking device capable of hiding equipment as large as a military tank and helping them blend with natural surroundings. ADAPTIV seeks to conceal the infrared signature of objects by allowing them to copy the temperature of nearby objects. BAE Systems says its tech can make things such as military vehicles look like a harmless cow, a mound of rocks, or shrubs.

A fruit of three years of research, ADAPTIV isn't a do-it-all invisibility tech that can hide something as heavy as a rocket-raining chopper or a truck from the naked eye. Instead, the tech targets invisibility for infrared sensors, especially for "peacekeeping operations" conducted in urban and remote areas like deserts and forests.

ADAPTIV aims to counter the detection capabilities of infrared sensors in hostile scenarios. Infrared sensors are widely deployed for reliable motion detection, especially in challenging light scenarios. In addition to mapping distances, the most significant advantage of using infrared detectors is their ability to read heat signatures, especially of suspicious objects that may not be a natural part of their immediate environment.

fliptop writes:

I recently finished reading Breath, The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor and the information has been a revelation to me. I've always wondered how other people can be "in to" meditating and now, after learning the proper breathing techniques, it's become clear to me. Starting off each day with a brief meditation and breathing session works wonders for preparing my mental and physical state for the day. So I suppose it's no surprise research has found that spending just 15 minutes in reflective solitude really helps your mood and your mind:

Spending time alone can induce fear in a lot of people, which is understandable. At the same time, the difference between moments of solitude and loneliness is often misunderstood. As a psychologist, I study solitude – the time we spend alone, not interacting with other people. I started this research more than ten years ago and, up to that point, findings on young people's time alone had suggested they often experience low moods when alone.

On social media, television or in the music we listen to, we typically picture happiness as excitement, enthusiasm and energisation. From that perspective, solitude is often mistaken for loneliness. In psychology, researchers define loneliness as a distressed feeling that we experience when we don't have, or are unable to get, the kind of social connections or relationships we hope for. Solitude is different.

[...] What can we gain from solitude? In a series of experiments, I brought undergraduate students into a room to sit quietly with themselves. In some studies, I took away the students' backpacks and devices and asked them to sit with their thoughts; at other times, the students stayed in the room with books or their phones.

After just 15 minutes of solitude, I found that any strong emotions the participants might have been feeling, such as anxiety or excitement, dropped. I concluded that solitude has the capacity to bring down people's arousal levels, meaning it can be useful in situations where we feel frustrated, agitated or angry.

[...] To overcome our fear of solitude, we need to recognize its benefits and see it as a positive choice – not something that happens to us. While taking a solo trip might be a bit much for you right now, taking time out of your busy schedule for small doses of solitude might well be just what you need.

upstart writes:

Studying the rare ability may shed light on how the animals learn:

Do you peel bananas from the top or bottom? One elephant goes with a third option.

When handed a slightly browning banana, Pang Pha, an Asian elephant at Zoo Berlin, will use her trunk to break the fruit, shake the pulp onto the ground, discard the peel and then shove the pulp into her mouth, researchers report in the April 10 Current Biology. The rare behavior, previously recorded in just a few elephants, could help shed light on how the animals learn complex movements.

When a zookeeper first told neuroscientist Lena Kaufmann of Humboldt University of Berlin that one of the elephants peeled bananas, she decided to test it out for herself. For weeks, Kaufmann and colleagues couldn't get Pang Pha to replicate the behavior. That's because the way the elephant eats bananas seems to depend on ripeness.

Pang Pha ate green and yellow bananas whole — peel and all. It was only when Kaufmann offered the gentle giant a brown-spotted banana that she revealed her peeling prowess. But the fruit can't be too brown, Kaufmann's team found. Pang Pha rejected completely brown bananas. Initially she would place them gently on the ground in protest. Now she throws them aside.

[...] The new study shows the value of studying individual animals, Kaufmann says. "There's such a rich landscape of behaviors that we lose if we only look at what all elephants have in common," she says. "If you look at each individual elephant, you can see that they're able to do really amazing things."

Journal Reference:
L.V. Kaufmann et al. Elephant banana peeling. Current Biology. 33, April 10, 2023. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.076

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Sports Direct owner defends live face-recognition camera use:

Sports Direct's parent company says live face-recognition (LFR) technology has cut crime in its shops.

The cameras check faces against a watch-list, using a system called Facewatch.

On Monday, 50 MPs and peers supported a letter opposing the use of LFR by Mike Ashley's Frasers Group, which owns the company and other chains such as Flannels.

The company says it tells shoppers when the technology is installed in a shop.

Frasers Group told BBC News it took its responsibilities around LFR extremely seriously and stressed its effectiveness.

"Since installing this technology, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of criminal offences taking place in our stores," it said.

The letter criticising its use was organised by campaign groups Big Brother Watch, Liberty and Privacy International.

It says research into face-recognition technology suggests;

• 87% of "matches" in Metropolitan Police trials misidentified innocent people
• women and people belonging to some ethnic minorities are more likely to be misidentified than white men are

The technology up-ends the democratic principle of suspicion preceding surveillance and "treats everyone who passes the camera like a potential criminal", the letter adds.

[...] Shop managers' requests to add someone to the database had to be backed-up with full witness statements and explanations, which a panel of former police officers reviewed before accepting, Mr Gordon said.

"There is due process followed to ensure we only include individuals reasonably suspected of crime," he said.

Shop staff and "accredited super-recognisers" - analysts with an aptitude for recognising faces - checked every alert, he told BBC News.

Mr Gordon disputes the accuracy claims the letter makes about the Met Police's LFR, saying Facewatch is more than 99% accurate.

His figures have not been independently audited.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/04/unsolved-mysteries-tetris-creators-alexey-pajitnov-and-henk-rogers/

Despite creating one of the most recognizable video games of all time, Tetris creators Alexey Pajitnov (who first coded the game in Russia) and Henk Rogers (who was instrumental in bringing the game to prominence in the West) have not been all that recognizable to the general public. That has started to change, though, with the recent release of Apple TV's Tetris movie, which dramatizes the real-life story of the pair's unlikely friendship and business partnership.

In Ars Technica's latest Unsolved Mysteries video, Pajitnov and Rogers went all the way back to the game's earliest origins. That includes the origin of "the Tetris song," aka Korobeiniki, which Game Boy Tetris fans have had stuck in their heads for decades now.

Related:
Happy 30th Birthday Tetris! 20140608
Most Addictive Game Since Tetris Released 20140318

Original Submission