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upstart writes:

Modders just changed GPU overclocking forever:

Modders have released two new tools that could change GPU overclocking significantly. OMGVflash and NVflashk have effectively cracked a security feature on recent Nvidia GPUs, allowing extreme overclockers to flash new vBIOS files to graphics cards.

About a decade ago, Nvidia locked down its GPUs. Graphics cards are governed by a vBIOS, which specifies such things as the power limit of the GPU, maximum clock speed, and parameters like when the GPU will shut down due to thermals. Prior to Nvidia's GeForce 900-series GPUs, extreme overclockers could flash a new vBIOS onto the GPU to achieve higher levels of performance. But Nvidia locked this functionality with an on-chip security processor.

The ability is returning with the new tools. Both were developed by members of the TechPowerUp forums independently, and the outlet says it has "hand-inspected the binary code" to ensure they're free of viruses.

Outside of tinkering, the tools can boost performance on cheaper graphics cards. Many brands sell a model close to list price and an overclocked model for slightly more. The only difference between the cards, in most cases, is the vBIOS file. The tools allow for cross-flashing as well, allowing you to flash a vBIOS from one vendor onto the card of a different vendor.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Positive Reviews Signal Film Will Be A Flop; Negative Reviews — a Hit:

When one thinks of movie reviews, one might see them as harbingers of success or failure at the box office. Some researchers have previously found that both positive and negative reviews correlate to box office revenues, and the effect of negative reviews diminishes over time.

However, researchers at the University of California, Davis, suggest that is not the case.

Researchers analyzed pre-release commentary and opening weekend box office revenue, turning the impact of movie reviews on its head and revealing an unexpected harbinger of failure phenomenon in the movie industry.

[...] The study analyzed a plethora of pre-release movie reviews penned by film critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Researchers wanted to see if they could predict a movie's success based on these reviews. As it turned out, the so-called harbingers of failure did exist.

"Interestingly, when these critics penned positive pre-release reviews, they signaled that the movie would be a flop," said Loupos. "Conversely, their negative reviews hinted towards the film being a success. The stronger the sentiment in either direction, the stronger the predictive signal."

[...] What's more surprising, this pattern persisted even with top critics. Expertise, it seems, does not always lead to accurate predictions, Loupos said. "This surprising outcome challenges the prevailing belief that positive reviews equate to better box office revenues," he said.

[...] "Our fresh perspective on the role of critics' personalities opens up new avenues in our understanding of the film review space," Loupos remarked. "It's an important acknowledgment that the movie industry is a puzzle of complexity and unpredictability."

Got any good movie recommendations?

Journal Reference:
Loupos, P., Peng, Y., Li, S. et al. What reviews foretell about opening weekend box office revenue: the harbinger of failure effect in the movie industry [open]. Mark Lett 34, 513–534 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-023-09665-8

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Autonomous Products Like Robot Vacuums Make Our Lives Easier. But Do They Deprive Us of Meaningful Experiences?

[...] Whether it is cleaning homes or mowing lawns, consumers increasingly delegate manual tasks to autonomous products. These gadgets operate without human oversight and free consumers from mundane chores. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that people feel a sense of satisfaction when they complete household chores. Are autonomous products such as robot vacuums and cooking machines depriving consumers from meaningful experiences?

This new research shows that, despite unquestionable benefits such as gains in efficiency and convenience, autonomous products strip away a source of meaning in life. As a result, consumers are hesitant to buy these products.

The researchers argue that manual labor is an important source of meaning in life. This is in line with research showing that everyday tasks have value—chores such as cleaning may not make us happy, but they add meaning to our lives. As de Bellis explains, "Our studies show that 'meaning of manual labor' causes consumers to reject autonomous products. For example, these consumers have a more negative attitude toward autonomous products and are also more prone to believe in the disadvantages of autonomous products relative to their advantages."

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Green Energy Partners (GEP) has tapped IP3 International to help realize its dream of a massive datacenter campus in Virginia powered entirely by small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) and hydrogen gas generators.

The joint venture between the two companies will see the formation of a 641-acre industrial park located in Surry County, Virginia, called the Surry Green Energy Center (SGEC). Situated in close proximity to the Surry Power Station's two 800MW reactors, GEP and IP3 hope to attract datacenter operators to set up shop during the first phase of the project.

"We're going to create a datacenter park first, and that datacenter park will get power from the local utility, and we will build lots, and we will sell those lots to datacenter providers," IP3 CEO Michael Hewitt, whose company specializes in supporting the development of nuclear power plants in the US and Europe, told The Register. "We see that as a very lucrative investment, particularly when you look at the going rate for a datacenter lot in, say, Northern Virginia."

If successful, these datacenters will serve as the customer base for private investment in the development of SMRs on the site during the second phase of the project.

[...] The idea of using SMRs to power datacenters is by no means a new concept. We spoke with analysts at Omdia last year about the potential for these miniaturized nuclear reactors to alleviate pressure on local utilities, particularly in power-challenged regions, like Virginia.

[...] As for when this might happen, Hewitt conservatively hopes to see the site running on SMRs within a decade. 

Freeman writes:

OpenAI could be fined up to $150,000 for each piece of infringing content:

Weeks after The New York Times updated its terms of service (TOS) to prohibit AI companies from scraping its articles and images to train AI models, it appears that the Times may be preparing to sue OpenAI. The result, experts speculate, could be devastating to OpenAI, including the destruction of ChatGPT's dataset and fines up to $150,000 per infringing piece of content.

NPR spoke to two people "with direct knowledge" who confirmed that the Times' lawyers were mulling whether a lawsuit might be necessary "to protect the intellectual property rights" of the Times' reporting.

Neither OpenAI nor the Times immediately responded to Ars' request to comment.

If the Times were to follow through and sue ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, NPR suggested that the lawsuit could become "the most high-profile" legal battle yet over copyright protection since ChatGPT's explosively popular launch. This speculation comes a month after Sarah Silverman joined other popular authors suing OpenAI over similar concerns, seeking to protect the copyright of their books.

[...] In April, the News Media Alliance published AI principles, seeking to defend publishers' intellectual property by insisting that generative AI "developers and deployers must negotiate with publishers for the right to use" publishers' content for AI training, AI tools surfacing information, and AI tools synthesizing information.

Previously:
Sarah Silverman Sues OpenAI, Meta for Being "Industrial-Strength Plagiarists" - 20230711

Related:
The Internet Archive Reaches An Agreement With Publishers In Digital Book-Lending Case - 20230815

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Google announces new algorithm that makes FIDO encryption safe from quantum computers:

The FIDO2 industry standard adopted five years ago provides the most secure known way to log in to websites because it doesn't rely on passwords and has the most secure form of  built-in two-factor authentication. Like many existing security schemes today, though, FIDO faces an ominous if distant threat from quantum computing, which one day will cause the currently rock-solid cryptography the standard uses to completely crumble.

Over the past decade, mathematicians and engineers have scrambled to head off this cryptopocalypse with the advent of PQC—short for post-quantum cryptography—a class of encryption that uses algorithms resistant to quantum-computing attacks. This week, researchers from Google announced the release of the first implementation of quantum-resistant encryption for use in the type of security keys that are the basic building blocks of FIDO2.

The best known implementation of FIDO2 is the passwordless form of authentication: passkeys. So far, there are no known ways passkeys can be defeated in credential phishing attacks. Dozens of sites and services now allow users to log in using passkeys, which use cryptographic keys stored in security keys, smartphones, and other devices.

"While quantum attacks are still in the distant future, deploying cryptography at Internet scale is a massive undertaking which is why doing it as early as possible is vital," Elie Bursztein and Fabian Kaczmarczyck, cybersecurity and AI research director, and software engineer, respectively, at Google wrote. "In particular, for security keys this process is expected to be gradual as users will have to acquire new ones once FIDO has standardized post-quantum cryptography resilient cryptography and this new standard is supported by major browser vendors."

More about security keys from Wikipedia.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://www.righto.com/2023/08/datapoint-to-8086.html

The Intel 8086 processor started the x86 architecture that is still extensively used today. The 8086 has some quirky characteristics: it is little-endian, has a parity flag, and uses explicit I/O instructions instead of just memory-mapped I/O. It has four 16-bit registers that can be split into 8-bit registers, but only one that can be used for memory indexing. Surprisingly, the reason for these characteristics and more is compatibility with a computer dating back before the creation of the microprocessor: the Datapoint 2200, a minicomputer with a processor built out of TTL chips. In this blog post, I'll look in detail at how the Datapoint 2200 led to the architecture of Intel's modern processors, step by step through the 8008, 8080, and 8086 processors.

The Datapoint 2200

In the late 1960s, 80-column IBM punch cards were the primary way of entering data into computers, although CRT terminals were growing in popularity. The Datapoint 2200 was designed as a low-cost terminal that could replace a keypunch, with a squat CRT display the size of a punch card. By putting some processing power into the Datapoint 2200, it could perform data validation and other tasks, making data entry more efficient. Even though the Datapoint 2200 was typically used as an intelligent terminal, it was really a desktop minicomputer with a "unique combination of powerful computer, display, and dual cassette drives." Although now mostly forgotten, the Datapoint 2200 was the origin of the 8-bit microprocessor, as I'll explain below.

The memory storage of the Datapoint 2200 had a large impact on its architecture and thus the architecture of today's computers. In the 1960s and early 1970s, magnetic core memory was the dominant form of computer storage. It consisted of tiny ferrite rings, threaded into grids, with each ring storing one bit. Magnetic core storage was bulky and relatively expensive, though.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Eventually everything will evaporate, not only black holes:

New theoretical research by Michael Wondrak, Walter van Suijlekom and Heino Falcke of Radboud University has shown that Stephen Hawking was right about black holes, although not completely. Due to Hawking radiation, black holes will eventually evaporate, but the event horizon is not as crucial as has been believed. Gravity and the curvature of spacetime cause this radiation too. This means that all large objects in the universe, like the remnants of stars, will eventually evaporate.

[...] Van Suijlekom: 'We show that far beyond a black hole the curvature of spacetime plays a big role in creating radiation. The particles are already separated there by the tidal forces of the gravitational field.' Whereas it was previously thought that no radiation was possible without the event horizon, this study shows that this horizon is not necessary.

Falcke: 'That means that objects without an event horizon, such as the remnants of dead stars and other large objects in the universe, also have this sort of radiation. And, after a very long period, that would lead to everything in the universe eventually evaporating, just like black holes. This changes not only our understanding of Hawking radiation but also our view of the universe and its future.'

Journal Reference:
Michael F. Wondrak, Walter D. van Suijlekom and Heino Falcke, Gravitational Pair Production and Black Hole Evaporation, Phys. Rev. Lett., 2 June 2023. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.221502

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A non-profit called the Open Enterprise Linux Association (OpenELA) has been formed by Oracle, SUSE, CIQ, and other organizations that make Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and CentOS rebuilds.

The OpenELA homepage opens with some strong, even confrontational words: "No subscriptions. No passwords. No barriers. Freeloaders welcome." That's a reference to the drama around RHEL and the recently erected paywall around its source code.

The non-profit's primary backers naturally all issued statements: Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ.

[...] . The Reg FOSS Desk is reminded strongly of UnitedLinux, an organization founded in 2002 to offer an enterprise Linux distro mainly distinguished by being, well, not Red Hat. A year later, it offered certification, but after emitting a SUSE-based version 1.0 product, it disappeared.

What is chiefly notable by its absence from the OpenELA membership list is the main other modern RHEL rebuild AlmaLinux, which is backed by CloudLinux – as well as AMD and some others. AlmaLinux is also notable because it's also endorsed by CERN and FermiLab, although the latter formerly had their own RHEL rebuild, the now-dormant Scientific Linux. Another AlmaLinux backer, Sine Nomina Associates, formerly offered the ClefOS rebuild of CentOS for IBM z.

The other academic-sponsored RHEL rebuild whose name is thus far missing from the list is Springdale Linux, formerly if less euphoniously known as PUIAS Linux, after its parent organizations, Princeton University and the Institute of Advanced Studies. After issuing a cautious comment about Red Hat's source code distribution changes, it has gone quiet.

[...] . We note with some amusement that Microsoft's Linux container distro CBL Mariner, version 2.0.2 of which appeared Thursday, is also RPM-based. Perhaps the Seattle giant might like to join the OpenELA, too.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A recently discovered security vulnerability impacting select Intel CPUs released between 2015 and 2019 has been patched thanks to a new software-level microcode update. Unfortunately, early testing has revealed some pretty significant performance penalties introduced by the mitigation effort.

Rob published a comprehensive report on Downfall yesterday. For the sake of brevity, I'll simply direct you to his article should you need to get up to speed on the vulnerability. Intel also has a list of affected processors.

Michael Larabel from Phoronix has put the microcode update to the test using a variety of processors including a pair of Xeon Platinum 8380 chips, a Xeon Gold 6226R, and a Core i7-1165G7 across multiple workloads in Linux.

[...] . It's worth noting that there is an opt-out mechanism in the microcode that allows users to disable the mitigation should they deem the performance hit too steep or don't believe they operate in an environment where they'd be susceptible to an attack. As Tom's Hardware notes, the complexity of the attack could also play into your decision on whether or not to bypass the mitigation.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-08-zinc-air-batteries-future-powering-electric.html

Zinc-air batteries have emerged as a better alternative to lithium in a recent Edith Cowan University (ECU) study into the advancement of sustainable battery systems.

ECU's Dr. Muhammad Rizwan Azhar led the project which discovered lithium-ion batteries, although a popular choice for electric vehicles around the world, face limitations related to cost, finite resources, and safety concerns. The work is published in the journal EcoMat.
...
A zinc–air battery consists of a zinc negative electrode and an air positive electrode.
...
ECU's breakthrough has enabled engineers to use a combination of new materials, such as carbon, cheaper iron and cobalt based minerals to redesign zinc-air batteries.
"The new design has been so efficient it suppressed the internal resistance of batteries, and their voltage was close to the theoretical voltage which resulted in a high peak power density and ultra-long stability," Dr. Azhar said.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

And this time nobody got sued:

In early August of 2008, almost exactly 15 years ago, the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas was hit with one of the worst scandals in its history. Just before a group of MIT students planned to give a talk at the conference about a method they'd found to get free rides on Boston's subway system—known as the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority—the MBTA sued them and obtained a restraining order to prevent them from speaking. The talk was canceled, but not before the hackers' slides were widely distributed to conference attendees and published online.

In the summer of 2021, 15-year-olds Matty Harris and Zachary Bertocchi were riding the Boston subway when Harris told Bertocchi about a Wikipedia article he'd read that mentioned this moment in hacker history. The two teenagers, both students at Medford Vocational Technical High School in Boston, began musing about whether they could replicate the MIT hackers' work, and maybe even get free subway rides.

They figured it had to be impossible. "We assumed that because that was more than a decade earlier, and it had got heavy publicity, that they would have fixed it," Harris says.

Bertocchi skips to the end of the story: "They didn't."

Now, after two years of work, that pair of teens and two fellow hacker friends, Noah Gibson and Scott Campbell, have presented the results of their research at the Defcon hacker conference in Las Vegas. In fact, they not only replicated the MIT hackers' 2008 tricks, but took them a step further. [...]

dw861 writes:

As reported by The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/17/23836287/microsoft-ai-recommends-ottawa-food-bank-tourist-destination

and

the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/artificial-intelligence-microsoft-travel-ottawa-food-bank-1.6940356

In 2020 Microsoft laid off dozens of journalists, in a move to rely on artificial intelligence. Those journalists were responsible for selecting content for Microsoft platforms, including MSN and the Edge browser. A recent tourism article now reminds us of that earlier business decision.

Published last week and titled "Headed to Ottawa? Here's what you shouldn't miss!" the article listed 15 must-see attractions for visitors to the Canadian capital. Microsoft has since removed the article that advised tourists to visit the "beautiful" Ottawa Food Bank on an empty stomach. That appears to be an out-of-context rewrite of a paragraph on the food bank's website. "Life is challenging enough," it says. "Imagine facing it on an empty stomach."

The remainder of the must-see list was rife with errors. It featured a photo of the Rideau River in an entry about the Rideau Canal, and a photo of the Rideau Canal in an entry about Parc Omega near Montebello, Quebec. It advised tourists to enjoy the pristine grass of "Parliament Hills."

The article carried the byline "Microsoft Travel." There is nothing on the page that identifies it as the product of AI. Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how the article was generated. While now removed, it is still available via the Internet Archive.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230814223742/https://www.msn.com/en-gb/lifestyle/travel/headed-to-ottawa-here-s-what-you-shouldn-t-miss/ar-AA1faajY

Original Submission

upstart writes:

To Battle New Threats, Spy Agencies to Share More Intelligence With Private Sector:

U.S. spy agencies will share more intelligence with U.S. companies, nongovernmental organizations and academia under a new strategy released this week that acknowledges concerns over new threats, such as another pandemic and increasing cyberattacks.

The National Intelligence Strategy, which sets broad goals for the sprawling U.S. intelligence community, says that spy agencies must reach beyond the traditional walls of secrecy and partner with outside groups to detect and deter supply-chain disruptions, infectious diseases and other growing transnational threats.

The intelligence community "must rethink its approach to exchanging information and insights," the strategy says.

The U.S. government in recent years has begun sharing vast amounts of cyber-threat intelligence with U.S. companies, utilities and others who are often the main targets of foreign hackers, as well as information on foreign-influence operations with social-media companies.

[...] Illustrating the changing threats, a senior U.S. official said that the daily intelligence briefing prepared for President Biden and his top advisers—once dominated by terrorism and the Middle East—now regularly covers topics as varied as China's artificial-intelligence work, the geopolitical impacts of climate change, and semiconductor chips.

[...] The 16-page document, which contains no budget or program details, also says spy agencies must support the U.S. in its competition with authoritarian governments such as China and Russia, particularly in technological arenas.

On transnational threats such as financial crises, narcotics trafficking, supply-chain disruption and infectious diseases, the document calls on intelligence agencies to strengthen their internal capabilities to warn U.S. policymakers of looming threats.

[...] The emphasis on greater intelligence sharing is part of a broader trend toward declassification that the Biden administration has pursued. The United States has released unprecedented levels of formerly secret intelligence to warn of Russia's plans in Ukraine and its quest for weapons from China, Iran and North Korea.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Study of traditional society in Amazon suggests why evolution hasn't purged harmful variant:

Roughly one in five people are born with at least one copy of a gene variant called APOE4 that makes them more prone to heart disease and Alzheimer's disease in old age. That the variant is so common poses an evolutionary mystery: If it decreases our fitness, why hasn't APOE4 been purged from the human population over time?

Now, a study of nearly 800 women in a traditional society in the Amazon finds that those with the disease-promoting variant had slightly more children. Such a fertility benefit may have allowed the gene to persist during human evolution despite its harmful effects for older people today.

[...] The APOE gene encodes apolipoprotein E, a molecule that helps the body transport cholesterol in the blood. There are three main variants and people can inherit a mix from their parents, with the one called APOE3 being much more common than APOE4. In populations of European ancestry, having one copy of APOE4 raises a person's risk of cardiovascular disease and triples their odds of developing Alzheimer's disease; those with two copies face a 12-fold or higher risk of the brain condition.

[...] University of Copenhagen epidemiologist Rudolf Westendorp notes that his team, which saw a similar result in a Ghanaian population, has also observed such a trade-off in families with another cholesterol-related gene variant that raises heart disease risks: In the 19th century when many people died from infections, carriers actually lived longer. "In the past, carriers of that gene had a survival benefit, which explains why the variants are present nowadays," he says.