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upstart writes:

IBM Says It's Made a Big Breakthrough in Quantum Computing:

[...] Scientists at IBM say they've developed a method to manage the unreliability inherent in quantum processors, possibly providing a long-awaited breakthrough toward making quantum computers as practical as conventional ones — or even moreso.

The advancement, detailed in a study published in the journal Nature, comes nearly four years after Google eagerly declared "quantum supremacy" when its scientists claimed they demonstrated that their quantum computer could outperform a classical one.

Though still a milestone, those claims of "quantum supremacy" didn't exactly pan out. Google's experiment was criticized as having no real world merit, and it wasn't long until other experiments demonstrated classical supercomputers could still outpace Google's.

IBM's researchers, though, sound confident that this time the gains are for real.

"We're entering this phase of quantum computing that I call utility," Jay Gambetta, an IBM Fellow and vice president of IBM Quantum Research, told The New York Times. "The era of utility."

[...] These spooky principles allow for a far smaller number of qubits to rival the processing power of regular bits, which can only be a binary one or zero. Sounds great, but at the quantum level, particles eerily exist at uncertain states, arising in a pesky randomness known as quantum noise.

Managing this noise is key to getting practical results from a quantum computer. A slight change in temperature, for example, could cause a qubit to change state or lose superposition.

owl writes:

https://fanael.github.io/is-x86-risc-internally.html

There is a widespread idea that modern high-performance x86 processors work by decoding the "complex" x86 instructions into "simple" RISC-like instructions that the rest of the pipeline then operates on. But how close is this idea to how the processors actually work internally?

To answer this question, let's analyze how different x86 processors, ranging from the first "modern" Intel microarchitecture, P6, to their current designs, handle the following simple loop (the code is 32-bit just to allow us to discuss very old x86 processors):

x86 assembly
.loop:
add [edx], eax
add edx, 4
sub eax, 1
jnz .loop

Original Submission

hubie writes:

A study suggests sunny weather can influence how investors perform and affect stock market prices:

Sunshine levels have a significant impact on the bidding behaviour of stock market investors, according to new research.

The study examined the relationship between sunny weather and how market participants perform, as well as the subsequent seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). These discounts for shares act as an effective tool for companies to raise finance and are essential for a functioning modern economy.

[...] The data revealed investors made higher bids in sunny periods, which led to lower discounts for shares in the primary market. In fact, just a one standard deviation increase in sunshine intensity caused bid discounts to decline by 2.4 percent, while a one standard deviation increase in sunshine duration caused bid discounts to drop by 3.33 percent.

Professor Jia Liu, CISF Centre Director and Professor of Accounting and Finance at the University of Portsmouth, said: "With sunny weather, often come good spirits – which in many circumstances is a positive, but that's not the case with financial decision-making. When the sunshine intensifies, bidders become overly optimistic and less risk-averse, which can lead to higher bid prices for seasoned equities."

Existing research has shown meteorological conditions, especially exposure to sunshine, affects a person's emotional state and sentiment. These weather-driven moods have been proved to influence a buyer's car choice, art prices at auction, and the tendency to take risks in a lottery.

[...] Professor Liu added: "We want to make investors aware that during periods of sunny weather, they become more optimistic about their investments. This will make them more inclined to take risks that aren't justified by asset values. Therefore, they should factor this consideration in when bidding for shares or they might suffer losses.

"Maintaining the stability of markets could depend upon our understanding of this phenomenon, since the onset of climate change might have an increasingly destabilizing impact on the judgment of investors and market-makers, with unpredictable consequences for global trading."

Journal Reference:
Qian Sun, Xiaoke Cheng, Shenghao Gao, Tao Chen, Jia Liu, Sunshine-induced mood and SEO pricing: Evidence from detailed investor bids in SEO auctions, Journal of Corporate Finance, 80, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2023.102411

Original Submission

upstart writes:

iPhone maker Foxconn to switch to cars as US-China ties sour:

iPhone maker Foxconn is betting big on electric cars and redrawing some of its supply chains as it navigates a new era of icy Washington-Beijing relations.

In an exclusive interview, chairman and boss Young Liu told the BBC what the future may hold for the Taiwanese firm.

[...] "Look at this - this is a big iPhone, so we're very familiar with this," he said, pointing to a panel that controlled the car he had taken us for a drive in. Built for families and priced for an aspiring global middle class, the shiny white SUV is one of several models manufactured by Foxconn.

"The reason why we think this is a great opportunity for us is that with the traditional gas engine, you have engines which are mostly mechanical. But with EVs, it's batteries and motors," he explains. That is a familiar language for a technology company like Foxconn, he added.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Young women seem to be less drawn to degrees in science or technology. A sociological study has revealed that outdated gender stereotypes play a major role:

Why do so few female school leavers with good grades in mathematics choose to study a technical subject – despite the high salaries and good employment prospects in the STEM sector? This question has long preoccupied the social sciences, especially as studies show that girls and boys do equally well in mathematics at school.

It is possible that socially embedded gender stereotypes play a role, such as: men think logically and in abstract terms, women are more creative; men should be the breadwinners, women take care of the family; men are competitive, women are more risk-averse. A study by Benita Combet from the Department of Sociology at the University of Zurich has now shown that some of these ingrained beliefs do indeed influence people's subject choices.

[...] "Especially with regard to factors such as logical thinking style and technical skills, strong gender stereotypes still exist, which obviously significantly influence the decisions of female high school students," says Combet. "We should therefore continue to work on challenging and questioning these fixed beliefs." With regard to analytical thinking, for example, it has by no means been scientifically proven that there are differences between men and women. Moreover, the ability to think analytically is a basic requirement for almost every subject area.

Combet also believes schoolchildren should be given better and more detailed information about future subject choices: "Many of their current perceptions are not accurate." For example, many believe that to be good at engineering, all you need is an affinity for technology. In fact, says Combet, "interpersonal and creative skills are also important in engineering, for example working in a team to develop new products."

Journal Reference:
Benita Combet, Women's aversion to majors that (seemingly) require systemizing skills causes gendered field of study choice, European Sociological Review, 2023; https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcad021

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Contemporary linux runs well on decades-old portable hardware : https://raymii.org/s/blog/My_24_year_old_HP_Jornada_can_do_things_your_modern_iPhone_still_cant_do.html

They bother to cite NCommander, even:

NCommander has an excellent video on the 680e and the use of the device at the Dutch Railways (NS).

[hubie] An interesting short article for those who haven't repurposed a mobile device with a new operating system. The author notes:

Boy do I miss the good old days, where devices were programmable by their owners instead of just e-waste consumption slabs.

How many devices do you have lying in a drawer somewhere that are just fine hardware wise, but lack the software updates or development capabilities to be useful today?

[hubie] How often do you extend the life or repurpose retired mobile devices and how have you done it? Through advice and encouragement I got from the SN community, a few years ago I resurrected an old Samsung tablet by installing LineageOS and I use it all the time to play games I get off of F-Droid.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Kim Dotcom still fighting decade-long battle to avoid being shipped to US over copyright abuse:

The decade-long legal brawl over cloud storage locker Megaupload has moved a little closer to resolution after two of the outfit's execs pled guilty to a variety of charges.

Megaupload, fronted by colorful entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, offered users the chance to upload files and store them in a cloud. Files could then be made available to other members. The outfit's heyday was the mid-2000s – a time when plenty of content was available using BitTorrent and before content streaming services offered easy and affordable access to content online.

[...] Big Content of course deluged Megaupload with copyright-related lawsuits, which have been rumbling along for over a decade as Dotcom and his associates argued they should not be held responsible for users' uploads.

US authorities and Big Content have pointed to Megaupload's payments to uploaders of stolen content as evidence the outfit intended to profit from copyright abuse. They attempted to extradite Dotcom and his associates from New Zealand to face American courts.

Yesterday, two of those associates – Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, both programmers for Megaupload – pled guilty in New Zealand's High Court.

DannyB writes:

European Union votes to bring back replaceable phone batteries:

What's old is new again, at least in the European Union. The European Parliament recently voted in favor of new legislation that would overhaul the entire battery life cycle, from design to end-of-life, which includes important caveats for smartphone users.

Among the many changes, the new rules would require batteries in consumer devices like smartphones to be easily removable and replaceable. That's far from the case today with most phones, but that wasn't always the case.

In the earlier days of mobile phones (think Nokia 5190, Nokia 3310, Motorola Razr V3, Palm Treo 700p), swapping out the battery took mere seconds.

[....] For phones with "internal" batteries, you'd simply pop off the rear cover of the device, lift the battery out, put a fresh one in, and button it back up.

Manufacturers eventually moved away from easily swappable batteries in favor of "sealed" handsets sporting sleeker designs. Many consumers were vocal about the change but over time, most accepted it as the new norm and moved on.

[....] This is not the first time the EU has prompted a rethink. Last year, the EU set a deadline of December 28, 2024, for phones and other small electronic devices to include a USB-C port for charging. That's a problem for Apple considering the iPhone uses a proprietary Lightning port.

In that final paragraph, that standard USB-C charging port may be a problem for Tesla and other EV charging unless the EV owner has a really good USB-C cable.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/ai-powered-final-beatles-song-due-this-year-says-paul-mccartney/

On Tuesday, BBC Radio 4's Today program aired an interview with Paul McCartney in which he announced that thanks to AI technology, a "final Beatles record" has been finished and will be released later this year. He said that AI techniques have isolated John Lennon's vocals from an old cassette tape demo, enabling him to complete the song.

Though McCartney did not provide the song's title, speculation points towards it being "Now And Then," a 1978 Lennon composition, which McCartney has mentioned wanting to finish in the past. In 1995, the three living Beatles considered including the song in their Anthology series (similar to "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love") but abandoned it due to quality issues and George Harrison's refusal to work on it. Harrison died in 2001.
[...]
During the making of the 2021 Get Back documentary, composer Emile de la Rey and a team of engineers at Peter Jackson's Wingnut Films worked with machine learning researcher Paris Smaragdis of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to develop a neural network called "MAL" (Machine Assisted Learning, also a nod to Beatles roadie Mal Evans) to isolate voices and musical instruments in Beatles recordings. Similar vocal isolation allowed McCartney to virtually duet with Lennon on a recent tour.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Video ads are coming to Uber, so I'm switching to a competitor:

The Wall Street Journal reports that full-length video ads are coming to all Uber apps, including its main ride-hailing app, food delivery service, and alcohol sales platform Drizly. This ad sale is part of a "key growth area," according to Mark Grether, vice president and general manager of Uber Technologies' advertising division.

Users will start seeing video ads when waiting for their drivers to arrive and even during their trips. For cars that have tablets installed inside, they will also appear there. For the Uber Eats app, video ads will play after customers place orders and continue until their deliveries arrive. Drizly, on its way, will have them in search results on its app and website.

WSJ says Grethen praises Uber's ability to "use data based on users' own travel and purchase histories to target them during the critical period between the time they open each app and the time they complete their transactions." He said that a ride usually takes 15 minutes, and 2 of the people are paying attention to the app.

"We have two minutes of your attention. We know where you are, we know where you are going to, we know what you have eaten," he said. "We can use all of that to then basically target a video ad towards you."

[...] While Uber praises its ability to track users – and I understand it's a core business part of several companies – it feels almost disrespectful how it says it's selling ads. While some people try to escape this unwanted tracking, Uber is proud to get every penny from you.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Martian maps are full of monikers recognizing places on Earth, explorers, and even cartoon characters:

NASA's Perseverance rover is currently investigating rock outcrops alongside the rim of Mars's Belva Crater. Some 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) away, NASA's Curiosity rover recently drilled a sample at a location called "Ubajara." The crater bears an official name; the drill location is identified by a nickname, hence the quotation marks.

Both names are among thousands applied by NASA missions not just to craters and hills, but also to every boulder, pebble, and rock surface they study.

[...] The difference between an official name on Mars and an unofficial one is seemingly simple: Official monikers have been approved by a body of scientists known as the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU sets standards for naming planetary features and logs the names in the Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature.

For example, craters larger than 37 miles (60 kilometers) are named for famous scientists or science-fiction authors; smaller craters are named after towns with populations of less than 100,000 people. Jezero Crater, which Perseverance has been exploring, shares the name with a Bosnian town; Belva, an impact crater within Jezero, is named after a West Virginia town that is, in turn, named after Belva Lockwood, the suffragist who ran for president in 1884 and 1888.

[...] Early Mars missions sometimes took a whimsical route with nicknames, even using cartoon character names. "Yogi Rock," "Casper," and "Scooby-Doo" were among the unofficial names applied by the team behind NASA's first rover, Sojourner, in the late 1990s.

upstart writes:

We've pumped so much groundwater that we've nudged the Earth's spin, says new study:

By pumping water out of the ground and moving it elsewhere, humans have shifted such a large mass of water that the Earth tilted nearly 80 centimeters (31.5 inches) east between 1993 and 2010 alone, according to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters.

Based on climate models, scientists previously estimated humans pumped 2,150 gigatons of groundwater, equivalent to more than 6 millimeters (0.24 inches) of sea level rise, from 1993 to 2010. But validating that estimate is difficult.

[...] Water's ability to change the Earth's rotation was discovered in 2016, and until now, the specific contribution of groundwater to these rotational changes was unexplored. In the new study, researchers modeled the observed changes in the drift of Earth's rotational pole and the movement of water—first, with only ice sheets and glaciers considered, and then adding in different scenarios of groundwater redistribution.

The model only matched the observed polar drift once the researchers included 2150 gigatons of groundwater redistribution. Without it, the model was off by 78.5 centimeters (31 inches), or 4.3 centimeters (1.7 inches) of drift per year.

"I'm very glad to find the unexplained cause of the rotation pole drift," [lead study author Ki-Weon] Seo said. "On the other hand, as a resident of Earth and a father, I'm concerned and surprised to see that pumping groundwater is another source of sea-level rise."

Journal References:
1.) Ki-Weon Seo, et. al. Drift of Earth's Pole Confirms Groundwater Depletion as a Significant Contributor to Global Sea Level Rise 1993–2010, Geophysical Research Letters (DOI: 10.1029/2023GL103509)
2.) Yoshihide Wada, et. al. Global depletion of groundwater resources, Geophysical Research Letters (DOI: 10.1029/2010GL044571)
3.) Surendra Adhikari and Erik R. Ivins, Climate-driven polar motion: 2003–2015, Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1501693)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

From the Wall Street Journal: U.S. Spy Agencies Buy Vast Quantities of Americans' Personal Data, U.S. Says

The partially redacted report is available online: ODNI-Declassified-Report-on-CAI-January2022

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Another 16-pin RTX 4090 power adapter has melted, but from the PSU side this time:

Since October, dozens of RTX 4090 owners have reported melting power adapter cables. Despite investigations from Nvidia and third parties, a definitive cause has yet to be determined. It was thought that pairing the GPU with an ATX 3.0 power supply was a safe solution... until now.

A new report of a burnt GeForce RTX 4090 power cable has emerged on Reddit, but this case is fundamentally different from prior incidents. If it's connected to the same flaw, it could cast doubt on earlier theories as to the problem's source.

User "Shiftyeyes67k" posted a picture of severe burn damage on a 16-pin 4090 12VHPWR power cable connector and the corresponding connection port on a 1000W BeQuet Dark Power 13 ATX 3.0 power supply. This case is potentially significant because despite looking similar to previous examples of scorched 4090 cables, it lacks two common factors between the others.

The few dozen cases that have emerged since October resulted in damage to the connectors plugged into the graphics card. Furthermore, they all affected customers who used the 4090's bundled 16-pin connection adapters to plug the GPU into an ATX 2.0 power supply's 12-pin socket.

Shiftyeyes67k bought an ATX 3.0 PSU with a 16-pin socket specifically to avoid this problem. Prior incidents led users to blame the adapter, and upgrading to an ATX 3.0 power supply is a small investment compared to the $1,600 4090, but this instance involved no adapter. Another owner who reported the problem last month had used a high-end third-party adapter, casting early doubt on Nvidia's included attachments as the source of the issue.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/russia-backed-hackers-unleash-new-usb-based-malware-on-ukraines-military/

Hackers working for Russia's Federal Security Service have mounted multiple cyberattacks that used USB-based malware to steal large amounts of data from Ukrainian targets for use in its ongoing invasion of its smaller neighbor, researchers said.

"The sectors and nature of the organizations and machines targeted may have given the attackers access to significant amounts of sensitive information," researchers from Symantec, now owned by Broadcom, wrote in a Thursday post. "There were indications in some organizations that the attackers were on the machines of the organizations' human resources departments, indicating that information about individuals working at the various organizations was a priority for the attackers, among other things."
[...]
Thursday's post includes IP addresses, hashes, file names, and other indicators of compromise people can use to detect if they have been targeted. The post also warns that the group poses a threat that targets should take seriously.

"This activity demonstrates that Shuckworm's relentless focus on Ukraine continues," they wrote. "It seems clear that Russian nation-state-backed attack groups continue to laser in on Ukrainian targets in attempts to find data that may potentially help their military operations."

Original Submission