SoylentNews

upstart writes:

May be about to join systemd as the new tech for graybeards to scorn... but adopt anyway:

It has taken about 15 years to get there, but there is mounting evidence that the Wayland display server may soon topple X11 as the most common way to get a GUI on Linux.

We've reported on growing endorsement for Wayland recently. The team developing Linux for Apple Silicon Macs said they didn't have the manpower to work on X.org support. A year ago, the developers of the Gtk toolkit used by many Linux apps and desktops said that the next version may drop support for X11. But this sort of thing feels to us like it's trying to push users towards Wayland, rather than actually attracting anyone.

One of the developers of the Budgie desktop, Campbell Jones, recently published a blog post with a wildly controversial title that made The Reg FOSS desk smile: "Wayland is pretty good, actually." He lays out various benefits that Wayland brings to developers, and concludes:

Primarily, what I've learned is that Wayland is actually really well-designed. The writing is on the wall for X, and Wayland really is the future.

Partly as a result of this, it looks likely that the next version of the Budgie desktop, Budgie 11, will only support Wayland, completely dropping support for X11. The team point out that this is not such a radical proposition: there was a proposal to make KDE 6 sessions default to Wayland as long ago as last October.

caseih writes:

A thoughtful post on the Adafruit Blog chronicles the problems facing open-source hardware companies, and how more and more companies, including Sparkfun, Arduino and Prusa, are becoming more and more proprietary and closed source. In Arduino's case, they are deliberately trying to stamp out the clones undercutting them. The new Arduino Pro is not open source in any way, and the web site has now removed references to being an open source company. This is indeed sad news and I'm not sure how this will impact the vibrant maker community.

As always there are subtleties and nuances. In the case of Prusa, not only are Chinese companies taking Prusa designs and source to make proprietary, closed-source products, they are also actively patenting designs and algorithms they've taken from open source, freezing out the companies and developers that made it all possible.

With Red Hat moving to be a proprietary software company (which happens to use and work on open source projects) and now these reports, what are soylenters' thoughts on the future of open source companies and economics? Are truly open source companies doomed to failure, especially when overseas companies do not respect or even understand the principles of open source development? To me this reinforces the importance of the GPLv3, not that that stops dishonest companies.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Communities should reconsider walking away from curbside recycling, study shows:

Curbside recycling can compensate for the greenhouse gas emissions from garbage destined for landfills, says a new study that encourages towns and cities to continue offering recycling services to meet their climate goals.

The study's authors took a deep dive into the economic and environmental value of community recycling efforts and compared it to the value of other climate change mitigation practices. They concluded that recycling provides a return on investment similar to or better than environmentally friendly strategies like transitioning to electric vehicles or purchasing green power, which is electricity from clean, renewable energy sources.

[...] Towns and cities across the country have canceled or scaled back recycling programs due to rising costs. Recent restrictions on recyclable material collected by major international markets have contributed to the cost increase, according to the study, which was published today in Nature Sustainability.

[...] When recycling markets were most lucrative in 2011, U.S. recycling costs were as little as $3 a year per household. Beginning in 2018 and through 2020, tighter restrictions went into place and the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the markets, and the cost for recycling ranged from $34 to $42. The study asserts that even with higher costs, the investment offsets the greenhouse gas emissions from non-recycled waste buried in landfills.

Townsend and Anshassi say that if local governments restructure their curbside recycling programs to target materials with the greatest market value and the highest potential for carbon offset, recycling can pay for itself and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They identify higher-value materials as newspaper, cardboard, aluminum and steel cans, and HDPE and PET plastic bottles.

[...] Researchers also suggest that local and state governments could implement policies to help relieve the cost burden of recycling, like establishing a minimum amount of recyclable materials that manufacturers must use in packaging or products and placing some of the responsibility for recycling costs on the manufacturers.

"If we learn collectively to recycle better, we can reduce the costs to pretty much break even," Townsend says. "From an environmental perspective, that's a good return on your investment."

Journal Reference:
Anshassi, M., Townsend, T.G. The hidden economic and environmental costs of eliminating kerb-side recycling. Nat Sustain (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01122-8

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Senators move to require release of US government UFO records

The Senate in the coming days is expected to consider a bipartisan measure that would compel the U.S. government to publicly release records relating to possible UFO sightings after decades of stonewalling.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, has teamed up with Senator Mike Rounds, a Republican, in leading an effort to force the disclosure of information relating to what the government officially calls "unidentified anomalous phenomena," or UAPs. Their 64-page proposal is modeled after a 1992 U.S. law spelling out the handling of records related to the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy.

They plan to offer the measure as an amendment to sweeping legislation moving through Congress that would authorize U.S. defense funding for the fiscal year beginning on Oct. 1.

[...] It also establishes that the federal government would have "eminent domain" over any recovered technologies of unknown origin and any biological evidence of "non-human intelligence" that may be controlled by private individuals or entities.

Also at NewsNation:

Schumer's announcement comes after whistleblower David Grusch, a former member of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, told NewsNation about his allegations that government officials are retrieving extraterrestrial, nonhuman spacecraft.

And The New York Times:

Support in the House is also likely. On Wednesday, the chamber included a narrower measure in its version of the annual defense bill that would push the Pentagon to release documents about unidentified aerial phenomena.

[...] President Biden would appoint the nine-person review board, subject to Senate approval. Senate staff members say the intent is to select a group of people who would push for disclosure while protecting sensitive intelligence collection methods.

See also: Schumer, Rounds Introduce New Legislation To Declassify Government Records Related To Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena & UFOs – Modeled After JFK Assassination Records Collection Act – As An Amendment To NDAA

Amendment PDF (64 pages)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Ofcom launches investigation into whether telco is making it difficult for people to cancel services:

Virgin Media, which provides broadband, phone and TV services in the UK, is in hot water with regulators over allegations that the company is making it difficult for customers to cancel their contracts.

Ofcom announced that it had opened an investigation into the broadband provider today after receiving a number of similar complaints.

"Being able to switch provider easily is an important part of a competitive market," Ofcom said. "Telecoms customers can choose from a wide range of providers, services and packages, and can often save hundreds of pounds by switching to a new deal. This ability for customers to shop around, switch and save is particularly important given the current cost-of-living crisis facing UK households."

[...] Ofcom expressed concern at the number of complaints it had received from subscribers who tried to leave but claimed the company made it difficult.

"Some struggled to get through to an agent on the phone," the regulator said. "Some found their call was dropped mid-way through or they were put on hold for long periods. And many said they had to make lengthy and repeated requests to cancel, as their initial instruction was not actioned."

[...] "If Ofcom's investigation finds the company in breach of its rules the damage to its reputation is likely to far outweigh any fine. Hopefully when the long-awaited One Touch Switch process is launched later in the year it will mean an end to out-of-contract customers having to announce their intention to leave their current provider before moving to a new one. In the meantime, any Virgin Media customers wanting to cancel should persevere and make sure they don't overpay by staying on a rolling deal."

"One Touch Switch" refers to new Ofcom rules designed to make it easier for customers to change telecoms providers. The regulation, which is much like the mobile arena's text-to-switch rules enforced in 2019, was supposed to be implemented by April 3, but Ofcom noted that industry missed the deadline.

See also: Publishers and Advertisers Push Back at FTC's 'Click-to-Cancel' Proposal

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The Janus asteroid probes will remain on Earth:

Two small spacecraft should have now been cruising through the Solar System, on their way to study unexplored asteroids, but after several years of development and nearly $50 million in expenditures, NASA announced Tuesday the probes will remain locked inside a Lockheed Martin factory in Colorado.

That's because the mission, called Janus, was supposed to launch last year as a piggyback payload on the same rocket with NASA's much larger Psyche spacecraft, which will fly to a 140-mile-wide (225-kilometer) metal-rich asteroid—also named Psyche—for more than two years of close-up observations. Problems with software testing on the Psyche spacecraft prompted NASA managers to delay the launch by more than a year.

An independent review board set up to analyze the reasons for the Psyche launch delay identified issues with the spacecraft's software and weaknesses in the plan to test the software before Psyche's launch. Digging deeper, the review panel determined that NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the Psyche mission, was encumbered by staffing and workforce problems exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Psyche is now back on track for liftoff in October on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, but Janus won't be aboard.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/report-linux-desktops-hit-3-global-market-share-but-are-declining-in-us

According to one measurement by one firm, Linux reached 3.07 percent market share of global desktop operating systems in June 2023. It's a notable first for the more than 30-year-old operating system, though other numbers in Statcounter's chart open it up to many more interpretations. It's either the year of the Linux desktop or a notable asterisk—your call.

As Statcounter explains, its numbers come from tracking code installed on more than 1.5 million websites across the globe, capturing roughly 5 billion page views per month. Statcounter says it does not collate, weigh, or otherwise adjust its data aside from correcting for bots and Google Chrome's prerendering. Laptops are included in "desktop" because there is no easy way to separate them. And they're subject to revision for up to 45 days after publication.
[...]
Because we couldn't help ourselves, we asked GPT-4 to graph out when, assuming a similar growth pattern from 1991 to 2023, Linux would reach 100 percent desktop market share. GPT-4 told us that, assuming linear growth, "which is a significant simplification and not likely accurate for the real world," it could see the existing 0.096 percent-per-year growth rate average reaching 100 percent in the year 3033.

It's worth noting that two other prompts resulted in answers of "January 2121" and "2002." The Year of the Linux Desktop is in the past; it's in the future; it's at 3% or 7.2% or neither; it's global or local; it's impossible and inevitable. It never stops being fascinating [to nerds].

Original Submission

upstart writes:

A New Bill Would Force Tech Companies to Report Their Users for Drugs:

The Cooper Davis Act would force tech companies to report suspected drug activity to the government. Experts say it would be a disaster for digital privacy.

Internet drug sales have skyrocketed in recent years, allowing powerful narcotics to be peddled to American teenagers and adolescents. It's a trend that's led to an epidemic of overdoses and left countless young people dead. Now, a bill scheduled for a congressional vote seeks to tackle the problem, but it comes with a major catch. Critics worry that the legislative effort to crack down on the drug trade could convert large parts of the internet into a federal spying apparatus.

The Cooper Davis Act [...] has been under consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee for weeks. Named after a 16-year-old Kansas boy who died of a fentanyl overdose two years ago, the bipartisan bill, which the committee is scheduled to vote on Thursday, has spurred intense debate. Proponents say it could help address a spiraling public health crisis; critics, meanwhile, see it as a gateway to broad and indiscriminate internet surveillance.

Gizmodo spoke with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation—two organizations involved in the policy discussions surrounding the bill. Both groups expressed concern over the impact the proposed law could have on internet privacy. "There are some very real problems with this bill—both in how it's written and how it's conceptualized," said India McKinney, an analyst with the EFF.

Critics argue that, at its worst, the bill would effectively "deputize" internet platforms as informants for the DEA, creating an unwieldy surveillance apparatus that may have unintended consequences down the line.

upstart writes:

Intel has exited several side businesses as it tries to stop losing money:

Since 2012, Intel has designed and sold its own lineup of mini PCs. The Next Unit of Computing series (NUC—rhymes with yuck) always most closely resembled Mac mini-like desktops, but over the years, it grew to encompass compact workstations and gaming systems as well as mini servers with multiple Ethernet ports.

But Intel is apparently throwing in the towel on the NUC, according to a statement given to The Verge earlier today.

[...] The NUC was an effort to bring the speed, size, and low power usage of an ultrabook into the desktop realm, replacing boxy, ugly office desktops with something you could hold in the palm of your hand. NUC-style mini PCs didn't take over the desktop market in the same way that ultrabooks came to dominate the laptop market, but the NUC is still survived by a large ecosystem of similarly tiny PCs, many of which are ultimately cheaper and easier to buy than most NUCs were. Models include but are not limited to Dell's Optiplex Micro, Lenovo's ThinkCentre Tiny, HP's ProDesk and EliteDesk Mini systems, Gigabyte's Brix systems, a number of models from PC motherboard-makers like Asus and ASRock, and Apple's Mac mini and Mac Studio.

The end of the NUC is due at least in part to Intel's recent financial struggles—the company has had a few rough quarters since the end of the pandemic-era PC boom, losing billions of dollars as its consumer, workstation, and server businesses all falter. The company has already instituted layoffs and cut executive pay in response, and it announced plans to sell its pre-built server business in April.

Although Intel is still investing in a few product lines that aren't processors—the company has said it's still committed to its nascent GPU business—CEO Pat Gelsinger is betting the company's future on his "IDM 2.0" strategy, in which Intel offers its chip manufacturing facilities to third-party chip designers. This will put Intel in competition with the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), Samsung, and GlobalFoundries.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Our universe could be twice as old as current estimates, according to a new study that challenges the dominant cosmological model and sheds new light on the so-called "impossible early galaxy problem."

"Our newly-devised model stretches the galaxy formation time by a several billion years, making the universe 26.7 billion years old, and not 13.7 as previously estimated," says author Rajendra Gupta, adjunct professor of physics in the Faculty of Science at the University of Ottawa.

For years, astronomers and physicists have calculated the age of our universe by measuring the time elapsed since the Big Bang and by studying the oldest stars based on the redshift of light coming from distant galaxies. In 2021, thanks to new techniques and advances in technology, the age of our universe was thus estimated at 13.797 billion years using the Lambda-CDM concordance model.

However, many scientists have been puzzled by the existence of stars like the Methuselah that appear to be older than the estimated age of our universe and by the discovery of early galaxies in an advanced state of evolution made possible by the James Webb Space Telescope. These galaxies, existing a mere 300 million years or so after the Big Bang, appear to have a level of maturity and mass typically associated with billions of years of cosmic evolution. Furthermore, they're surprisingly small in size, adding another layer of mystery to the equation.

Reinventing cosmology

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Perovskite-modified LEDs reveal rot in spoiled food before it is visible:

A team of researchers has developed new LEDs which emit light simultaneously in two different wavelength ranges, for a simpler and more comprehensive way to monitor the freshness of fruit and vegetables. As the team write in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, modifying the LEDs with perovskite materials causes them to emit in both the near-infrared range and the visible range, a significant development in the contact-free monitoring of food.

Perovskite crystals are able to capture and convert light. Being simple to produce and highly efficient, perovskites are already used in solar cells but are also being intensively researched for suitability in other technologies. Angshuman Nag and his team at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Pune, India, are now proposing a perovskite application in LED technology that could simplify the quality control of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Without light converters, LEDs would emit light in rather narrow light bands. To cover the whole range of white light produced by the sun, the diodes in "phosphor-converted" (pc) LEDs are coated with luminescent substances. Nag and his team have used a double emission coating with the purpose to produce pc-LEDs that emit both white ("normal") light and also a strong band in the near-infrared range (NIR).

To make the dual-emission pc-LED, they applied a double perovskite doped with bismuth and chromium. Part of the bismuth component emits warm white light and another part transfers energy to the chromium component, de-exciting it and causing an additional emission in the NIR range, the researchers found out.

NIR is already used in the food industry to examine freshness in fruit and vegetables. Nag and Ph.D. student Sajid Saikia, first author of the paper, explain their idea. "Food contains water, which absorbs the broad near-infrared emission at around 1,000 nm. The more water that is present [due to rotting], the greater the absorption of near-infrared radiation, yielding darker contrast in an image taken under near-infrared radiation. This easy, non-invasive imaging process can estimate the water content in different parts of food, assessing its freshness."

Using these modified pc-LEDs to examine apples or strawberries, the team observed dark spots that were not visible in standard camera images. Illuminating the food with both white and NIR light revealed normal coloring that could be seen by the naked eye, as well as those parts which were starting to rot, but not yet visibly so.

Journal Reference:
Sajid Saikia et al, Broad Dual Emission by Codoping Cr³⁺ (d → d) and Bi³⁺ (s → p) in Cs₂Ag_0.6Na_0.4InCl₆ Double Perovskite, Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2023). DOI: 10.1002/anie.202307689

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Research reveals people schedule their binge watching and will pay with money or time to binge shows:

If viewers sometimes feel guilty about binge-watching television programing, they really shouldn't. Though its name implies impulsive behavior, binge-watching TV is a common activity planned out by viewers, suggests new research from the University of California San Diego's Rady School of Management and School of Global Policy and Strategy.

The study, in collaboration with the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University and Fox School of Business at Temple University, reveals that viewers prefer to binge-watch certain types of programming over others. They're also more likely to pay to watch shows consecutively and/or wait to be able to consume more than one episode at a time.

"We find that the notion of a show being so interesting that it just sucks people in and they can't pull away is not the whole story," said study coauthor Uma Karmarkar, assistant professor of marketing and innovation at UC San Diego's Rady School of Management and School of Global Policy and Strategy. "Binge-watching can have a negative connotation, like binge eating or binge drinking. It is generally seen as impulsive, maybe problematic, but certainly very indulgent. However, media consumption is more complex. Binge-watching is not always about a failure of self-control; it can also be a thoughtful preference and planned behavior."

The paper that is forthcoming in "The Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied" finds that people tend to plan to binge shows they perceive to be more sequential and connected—those that have an overarching narrative. [...]

However, the authors do find that no matter how bingeable a show is, viewers are much less likely to plan to watch multiple episodes if the streaming service or channel features commercials.

[...] But the differences in plans to binge independent and sequential media were also replicated in how people approach streaming media in the form of online education courses. A separate experiment revealed that people are more likely to plan to binge a Coursera class if it is perceived to be more sequential. Taking this one step further, the authors analyzed real-world data from the Coursera platform and found that these plans to binge-learn accurately predicted viewing behavior in enrolled students.

Original Submission

Halibut writes:

While “hacking” is often used to mean criminal intrusion into computer systems, some, including Bruce Schneier, use a more general definition that includes any kind of creative (mis-)use of something. While this kind of mindset is often talked about in tech circles, it is not restricted to it. The governor of the US state of Wisconsin found a creative use of an apparently-flexible line-item veto power to change the following text:

For the limit for the 2023–24 school year and the 2024–25 school year, add $325 to the result under par.

into:

For the limit for … 2023–…24…25…, add $325 to the result under par.

This essentially changes the time frame of the adjustment from 2 years (2023–2025) to 402 years (2023&ndash2425). Bruce Schneier points out that this is not the first time Wisconsin's line-item veto has been used to change a timeframe, and refers to it as: “Definitely a hack. This is not what anyone thinks about when they imagine using a line-item veto.”

[Ed Note: See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein_veto ]

Original Submission

fab23 writes:

Shortening the Let's Encrypt Chain of Trust

When Let's Encrypt first launched, we needed to ensure that our certificates were widely trusted. To that end, we arranged to have our intermediate certificates cross-signed by IdenTrust's DST Root CA X3. This meant that all certificates issued by those intermediates would be trusted, even while our own ISRG Root X1 wasn't yet. During subsequent years, our Root X1 became widely trusted on its own.

Come late 2021, our cross-signed intermediates and DST Root CA X3 itself were expiring. And while all up-to-date browsers at that time trusted our root, over a third of Android devices were still running old versions of the OS which would suddenly stop trusting websites using our certificates. That breakage would have been too widespread, so we arranged for a new cross-sign – this time directly onto our root rather than our intermediates – which would outlive DST Root CA X3 itself. This stopgap allowed those old Android devices to continue trusting our certificates for three more years.

On September 30th, 2024, that cross-sign too will expire.

In the last three years, the percentage of Android devices which trust our ISRG Root X1 has risen from 66% to 93.9%. That percentage will increase further over the next year, especially as Android releases version 14, which has the ability to update its trust store without a full OS update. In addition, dropping the cross-sign will reduce the number of certificate bytes sent in a TLS handshake by over 40%. Finally, it will significantly reduce our operating costs, allowing us to focus our funding on continuing to improve your privacy and security.

For these reasons, we will not be getting a new cross-sign to extend compatibility any further.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The images shed light on how electrons form superconducting pairs that glide through materials without friction:

When your laptop or smartphone heats up, it's due to energy that's lost in translation. The same goes for power lines that transmit electricity between cities. In fact, around 10 percent of the generated energy is lost in the transmission of electricity. That's because the electrons that carry electric charge do so as free agents, bumping and grazing against other electrons as they move collectively through power cords and transmission lines. All this jostling generates friction, and, ultimately, heat.

But when electrons pair up, they can rise above the fray and glide through a material without friction. This "superconducting" behavior occurs in a range of materials, though at ultracold temperatures. If these materials can be made to superconduct closer to room temperature, they could pave the way for zero-loss devices, such as heat-free laptops and phones, and ultraefficient power lines. But first, scientists will have to understand how electrons pair up in the first place.

[...] "Fermion pairing is at the basis of superconductivity and many phenomena in nuclear physics," says study author Martin Zwierlein, the Thomas A. Frank Professor of Physics at MIT. "But no one had seen this pairing in situ. So it was just breathtaking to then finally see these images onscreen, faithfully."

[...] To directly observe electrons pair up is an impossible task. They are simply too small and too fast to capture with existing imaging techniques. To understand their behavior, physicists like Zwierlein have looked to analogous systems of atoms. Both electrons and certain atoms, despite their difference in size, are similar in that they are fermions — particles that exhibit a property known as "half-integer spin." When fermions of opposite spin interact, they can pair up, as electrons do in superconductors, and as certain atoms do in a cloud of gas.