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owl writes:

https://www.10stripe.com/articles/why-is-56k-the-fastest-dialup-modem-speed.php

If you've ever had dialup internet service, or still do, or just know someone that does, you have probably heard terms like "56k modem". "56k" has become almost synonymous with dialup Internet access. But it's such an arbitrary number. It's not divisible by ten, it's not a power of two... so why was it chosen as the fastest dialup speed? For the answer, we will have to travel back in time quite a while.

Our visitors from Google should be warned that this is not a "stripped down" explanation; it is intended for relatively technical readers. But if you really want to know where this magic number comes from, you need to understand some of the technical background. As we shall see, "56k" was not just pulled out of a hat.

[...] Anyone that has ever used a dialup modem knows full well that they don't actually get to connect at that speed, though. And that their connection speed varies each time they dial in. There are two factors at work here.

The first is the FCC. If you are in the United States, the FCC places a restriction on the power output of devices connected to the phone network. The result is that you will never be able to connect at a speed faster than 53.3 kbit/s.

The second is the overall complexity of the phone network. 56 kbit/s (or 53.3 kbit/s) requires very good operating conditions, as it is really operating beyond the paramaters of what the phone network is required to be capable of. Operating at these speeds requires that there only be one ADC between the user and their ISP (which is not guaranteed to be true, but typically is), and that the copper wiring in the user's "local loop" have very good electrical properties. Part of the dialup process that is used to initiate a connection is an evaluation of the overall quality of the connection; if it is determined to be lacking, the modem will automatically drop down to a lower data rate.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Nutrition experts are reviewing data on ultra-processed foods for 2025 guidance:

For the first time, health experts who develop the federal government's dietary guidelines for Americans are reviewing the effects of ultra-processed foods on the country's health—a review that could potentially lead to first-of-their-kind warnings or suggested limits in the upcoming 2025 guidance, The Washington Post reports.

Such warning or limits would mark the first time that Americans would be advised to consider not just the basic nutritional components of foods, but also how their foods are processed.

[...] Deirdre K. Tobias, a member of the guidelines advisory committee, told the Post that the study suggested ultra-processed foods seem to promote higher "passive intake" of calories beyond what our bodies need and that the numerous epidemiological studies suggesting a link between eating ultra-processed foods and having a higher risk of many diseases is "as compelling as it can be." She declined to comment directly on the upcoming guidelines, noting that the committee's work is underway.

The Post also notes that the food industry has strongly pushed back—writing directly to the committee telling them not to issue any warnings or limits. One key point of contention is that there is no exact or established definition of what counts as "ultra-processed." Generally, it is considered to include any industrially produced food product with artificial combinations of flavors and additives, such as artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, and synthetic colors. Products that easily fit the definition include things like chips, frozen dinners, boxed sweetened cereals, chicken nuggets, and boxed macaroni and cheese.

Much to the dismay of nutrition experts, the National School Lunch Program allows its 30 million participating schools to serve products clearly in the ultra-processed food category, including Domino's pizza, Lunchables, and Cheez-Its. Currently, the products must only meet the federal dietary guidance's standards for things like sodium, fat, protein, and whole grains—regardless of how many other additives they include.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Russia pivots to Chinese CPUs that aren't subject to US sanctions — Russia's homegrown Linux-based Alt OS now supports Chinese LoongArch chips

The Alt operating system developed by Moscow, Russia-based Basalt SPO has been recompiled to support Chinese Loongson processors based on the LoongArch architecture. Blacklisted Loongson has actively supported the porting process. The OS is available as a distro with a basic set of programs (Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice) that can be installed on desktops, workstations, and servers. The company says the product is offered 'as is,' and its commercial distributives will be available later.

Alt is now the first Russian operating system capable of running on Loongson's processors based on the 64-bit LoongArch architecture, such as LS5000 and LS6000 series, which some in Russia consider alternatives to x86 CPUs from AMD and Intel. Recently, China lifted the export ban on Loongson's latest CPUs to Russia, which opened doors to using these processors in desktops, laptops, servers, storage equipment, and other applications.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware operation has taken extortion to a new level by filing a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission complaint against one of their alleged victims for not complying with the four-day rule to disclose a cyberattack:

Earlier today, the threat actor listed the software company MeridianLink on their data leak with a threat that they would leak allegedly stolen data unless a ransom is paid in 24 hours.

MeridianLink is a publicly traded company that provides digital solutions for financial organizations such as banks, credit unions, and mortgage lenders.

According to DataBreaches.net, the ALPHV ransomware gang said they breached MeridianLink's network on November 7 and stole company data without encrypting systems.

The ransomware actor said that "it appears MeridianLink reached out, but we are yet to receive a message on their end" to negotiate a payment in exchange for not leaking the supposedly stolen data.

The alleged lack of response from the company likely prompted the hackers to exert more pressure by sending a complaint to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) about MeridianLink not disclosing a cybersecurity incident that impacted "customer data and operational information."

[...] In their own words, the attacker told the SEC that MeridianLink suffered a "significant breach" and did not disclose it as required in Form 8-K, under Item 1.05.

The SEC's new cybersecurity rules are set to take effect on December 15, 2023.

Originally spotted on Schneier on Security.

Related: Teens With "Digital Bazookas" Are Winning the Ransomware War, Researcher Laments

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/from-toy-to-tool-dall-e-3-is-a-wake-up-call-for-visual-artists-and-the-rest-of-us/

In October, OpenAI launched its newest AI image generator—DALL-E 3—into wide release for ChatGPT subscribers. DALL-E can pull off media generation tasks that would have seemed absurd just two years ago—and although it can inspire delight with its unexpectedly detailed creations, it also brings trepidation for some. Science fiction forecast tech like this long ago, but seeing machines upend the creative order feels different when it's actually happening before our eyes.

"It's impossible to dismiss the power of AI when it comes to image generation," says Aurich Lawson, Ars Technica's creative director. "With the rapid increase in visual acuity and ability to get a usable result, there's no question it's beyond being a gimmick or toy and is a legit tool."

[...] ChatGPT and DALL-E 3 currently work hand-in-hand, making AI art generation into an interactive and conversational experience. You tell ChatGPT (through the GPT-4 large language model) what you'd like it to generate, and it writes ideal prompts for you and submits them to the DALL-E backend. DALL-E returns the images (usually two at a time), and you see them appear through the ChatGPT interface, whether through the web or via the ChatGPT app.

[...] However, those scraped captions—written by humans—aren't always detailed or accurate, which leads to some faulty associations that reduce an AI model's ability to follow a written prompt.

To get around that problem, OpenAI decided to use AI to improve itself. As detailed in the DALL-E 3 research paper, the team at OpenAI trained this new model to surpass its predecessor by using synthetic (AI-written) image captions generated by GPT-4V, the visual version of GPT-4. With GPT-4V writing the captions, the team generated far more accurate and detailed descriptions for the DALL-E model to learn from during the training process.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

On Nov 15, the Intel 4004, the world's first commercially produced microprocessor, was launched

The Intel 4004 was released on Nov 15 52 years ago, and it was an incredibly important chip with an interesting history.

On Nov. 15, 1971, the Intel 4004 CPU was released. It was the first commercially produced microprocessor and the first-ever CPU for Intel, which later went on to become a domineering force in the PC industry. It all started thanks to Nippon Calculating Machine Corp. asking Intel to produce 12 custom chips for the Busicom 141-PF printing calculator. Intel's engineers went on to recommend a family of just four chips instead, but one that could be used for a variety of products. These four chips were known as the MCS-4 (Micro Computer System, 4-bit), laying the groundwork for Intel to succeed as one of the most influential companies in modern electronics.

[...] In the Intel 4000 family, these were split up as follows:

• Intel 4001: A 256-byte 4-bit ROM.
• Intel 4002: DRAM with four 20-nibble registers. A nibble is four consecutive binary digits, otherwise known as half an 8-bit byte.
• Intel 4003: I/O with a 10-bit static shift register with serial and parallel outputs.
• Intel 4004: A CPU.

This system, when fully expanded, could interface with 16 4001 chips for a total of 4KB ROM, 16 4002 chips for 640 bytes of RAM, and any number of Intel 4003 chips. With these designs complete, Busicom went on to prototype the calculator that would use them. In April 1971, they could confirm that the calculator worked, packing one 4004, two 4002, three 4003, and four 4001 chips.

[...] At the time, the Intel 4004 really was as influential as the company made it out to be. It had 2,300 transistors, whereas nowadays, the Apple Silicon M3 Max has 97 billion. It was a massively important chip that changed the course of the computing industry forever, as it was a building block that engineers could purchase to customize with software. It was used in ATMs, pinball machines, and more.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/ai-outperforms-conventional-weather-forecasting-for-the-first-time-google-study/

On Tuesday, the peer-reviewed journal Science published a study that shows how an AI meteorology model from Google DeepMind called GraphCast has significantly outperformed conventional weather forecasting methods in predicting global weather conditions up to 10 days in advance. The achievement suggests that future weather forecasting may become far more accurate, reports The Washington Post and Financial Times.

In the study, GraphCast demonstrated superior performance over the world's leading conventional system, operated by the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). In a comprehensive evaluation, GraphCast outperformed ECMWF's system in 90 percent of 1,380 metrics, including temperature, pressure, wind speed and direction, and humidity at various atmospheric levels.

Original Submission

upstart writes on behalf of aristarchus:

AMD Readies 8-Core Ryzen 7 5700X3D and 6-Core Ryzen 5 5500X3D With 96MB L3 Cache:

As per information from chi11eddog, a reliable source for hardware leaks regarding CPU and motherboard launches, AMD is reportedly in the process of developing at least two additional CPUs in the Ryzen 5000X3D series. One of these is a more affordable 8-core model known as the Ryzen 7 5700X3D, anticipated to boast a base clock of 3.0 GHz and a boost clock of 4.1 GHz. This particular CPU is expected to have clock speeds that are 400 MHz lower than the 5800X3D SKU.

[...] The current report does not offer details on the potential availability of the newly discussed CPUs. Right now, AMD has two new CPUs with 3D V-Cache. One is called the 5800X3D and is considered the best gaming CPU for the AM4 platform. The other is called the 5600X3D and can only be bought from MicroCenter in the United States. The prospect of AMD broadening the availability of 3D V-Cache options globally, rather than confining them to specific retailers, would indeed be noteworthy.

The introduction of the 5700X3D and 5500X3D models for the AM4 platform could make it better for gamers who don't want to spend too much money. The release of more cost-effective SKUs could offer gamers an attractive upgrade path without imposing a substantial financial burden, paving the way for a transition to newer AM5/LGA-1851 sockets in the future.

A noteworthy aspect of the X3D series is its compatibility with various entry-level motherboards. These CPUs do not support overclocking. Hence, their requirements are lower. Despite this limitation, these CPUs show superior performance in gaming tests compared to their non-X3D counterparts.

Source: @g01d3nm4ng0

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/capacitor-based-heat-pumps-see-big-boost-in-efficiency/

Various forms of heat pumps—refrigerators, air conditioners, heaters—are estimated to consume about 30 percent of the world's electricity. And that number is almost certain to rise, as heat pumps play a very large role in efforts to electrify heating to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Most existing versions of these systems rely on the compression of a class of chemicals called hydrofluorocarbons, gasses that were chosen because they have a far smaller impact on the ozone layer than earlier refrigerants. Unfortunately, they are also extremely potent greenhouse gasses, with a short-term impact several thousand times that of carbon dioxide.

Alternate technologies have been tested, but all of them have at least one major drawback in comparison to gas compression. In a paper released in today's issue of Science, however, researchers describe progress on a form of heat pump that is built around a capacitor that changes temperature as it's charged and discharged. Because the energy spent while charging it can be used on discharge, the system has the potential to be highly efficient.

[...] For hydrofluorocarbons, the difference in heat content can be controlled by altering the pressure. Compressing a gas will heat it up while lowering the pressure cools it down. However, various other materials undergo similar heating and cooling in response to other external influences, including physical stress, magnetic fields, or electric fields. In many cases, these materials remain solid despite experiencing significant changes in temperature, which could potentially simplify the supporting equipment needed for heating and cooling.

In the new work, done by researchers mostly based in Luxembourg, the researchers focused on materials that change temperature in response to electric fields, generically known as electrocalorics. While a variety of configurations have been tested for these materials, researchers have settled on a layered capacitor structure, with the electric field of the material changing as more charge is stored within it. As charge is stored, an electrocaloric material will heat up. When the charge is drained, they'll draw in heat from the environment.

This has a significant advantage regarding the power needed for the device to operate since the current generated when draining the capacitor can just be used to power something. There's a little energy lost during the round-trip in and out of storage, but that can potentially be limited to less than one percent.

Journal Reference:
Junning Li et al., High cooling performance in a double-loop electrocaloric heat pump, Science, 16 Nov 2023 Vol 382, Issue 6672 pp. 801-805 DOI: 10.1126/science.adi5477

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2

takyon writes:

OpenAI President Greg Brockman quits as shocked employees hold all-hands meeting

On Friday afternoon, not long after news of CEO Sam Altman's abrupt and surprising departure from OpenAI began spreading online, the company held an all-hands meeting at its headquarters in San Francisco, reports The Information. During the meeting, interim CEO Mira Murati attempted to reassure the shocked employees that the search for a new CEO is underway.

Hours later, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman posted a statement on X, saying that after he learned today's news he sent a message to the OpenAI team: "based on todays news, i quit." Brockman, a key technical figure involved in many of the company's successes, was relieved of his OpenAI board membership on Friday, but the company initially announced he would be staying on.

Earlier on Friday, OpenAI released a blog post titled "OpenAI announces leadership transition" where it announced that Atlman "was not consistently candid in his communications with the board, hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities." In a response post on X, Altman wrote, "I loved my time at openai," and hinted at future plans without revealing any details.

OpenAI co-founder and head of research Ilya Sutskever may have led the "coup". Other board members involved in the removal include Adam D'Angelo (Quora CEO), Tasha McCauley (RAND Corporation), and Helen Toner (Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology).

See also:

WTF is going on at OpenAI? We have theories
Why Was Sam Altman Fired As CEO of OpenAI?
Everything We Know About OpenAI's Shocking Ouster of Sam Altman

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/11/apple-discriminated-against-us-citizens-in-hiring-doj-says/

Apple illegally discriminated against US citizens and other US residents in its hiring and recruitment practices for certain types of positions that went to foreign workers, the US Department of Justice said yesterday. Apple agreed to pay up to $25 million in back pay and civil penalties to settle the DOJ allegations.

Apple discriminated "against US citizens and certain non-US citizens whose permission to live in and work in the United States does not expire," the agency said. The $25 million payment was called the largest ever collected by the Justice Department under the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Apple is required to pay $6.75 million in civil penalties and create an $18.25 million fund to provide back pay to those harmed by its hiring practices. Apple did not admit guilt in the settlement. But the company acknowledged in a statement that it had "unintentionally not been following the DOJ standard," according to Reuters.

Original Submission

You may think you have fast fingers from typing or texting, but how fast can you assemble a V-8 NASCAR engine? Jayski (NASCAR news site) reports on the annual Hendrick Motorsports engine building contest, https://www.jayski.com/2023/11/14/danny-emerick-bill-sullivan-win-2023-randy-dorton-hendrick-engine-builder-showdown/

The team of Danny Emerick and Bill Sullivan edged out the team of Scott Vester and Phil Seaton by 0.91 [seconds] to win the 2023 Randy Dorton Hendrick Engine Builder Showdown. With the victory, Emerick joins Vester as a six-time winner of the annual competition.
The two teams were neck and neck coming to the finish with the Emerick-led team overcoming an early miscue to take the title. The Emerick-Sullivan team posted a time of 22:56.46, while the Vester-Seaton squad posted a time of 22:57.37.

[...] The Randy Dorton Hendrick Engine Builder Showdown sees 12 Hendrick Certified Master Technicians from all across the country at Hendrick Automotive Group, paired with 12 Hendrick Motorsports engine department team members. Each two-person team is matched up against another duo looking to post the fastest qualifying time. The two teams assemble 358-cubic-inch Chevrolet engines with 243 parts[1], similar to the fuel-injected engines that run in the NASCAR Cup Series. The builders assemble their engines on their own stage platform as they race against the clock to post the fastest time. Winners are determined by the quickest time with the fewest number of errors. The top two teams with the fastest times face off in the championship round. To date, the quickest time recorded in this competition was 21 minutes and 40 seconds in 2014.

243 parts in 22 minutes means over 10 parts per minute, or an average of 5 or 6 seconds, per part added to the engine. Each part put in the correct place and in some cases tightened up & torqued (with a power wrench or screwdriver).

[1] your AC contributor believes that some of the "243 parts" may in fact be assemblies that come to the engine builders pre-assembled and tested (thus a _fully_ disassembled engine might have more parts), but that is just a guess.

A quick google suggests that these engines use timing belts instead of chains--in the past the high parts-count of IC engines could be due to counting the individual links and rollers in the timing chain.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

Research suggests that your body may enjoy an exercise routine more than you do:

If you've ever started a new exercise plan or diet, you'll most likely have been told many times that consistency is the key to reaching goals. Now, scientists for the first time have found that sticking to a daily routine of when you work out could be just as important for bone and joint health.

A study out of The University of Manchester has looked at internal body clocks to see how exercising at the same time of day can potentially shield against bone and joint deterioration, protecting against injury and stave off age-related physical decline and associated conditions such as arthritis.

"Among the many health challenges, the age-related musculoskeletal decline – and its adverse consequences – is a major burden to individuals," said senior author Judith Hoyland, and spine/intervertebral disk expert from The University of Manchester. "We have identified a new clock mechanism underlying skeletal aging, which could have far-reaching impacts on understanding frailty and designing more efficient treatment timing of exercise and physiotherapy to maintain good skeletal health and mobility."

[...] "The daily 24-hour cycle that our bodies follow, such as our internal temperature dropping when we sleep and our blood pressure rising at certain times of day, is known as our circadian rhythm," said Lucy Donaldson, Director of Research & Health Intelligence at collaborating organization Versus Arthritis. "There are processes inside our body which keep this rhythm going, known as 'clocks,' which are all linked to our central body clock in the brain."

Studies have shown that if those other clocks are out of whack with our central timekeeper, it presents a higher risk of many health conditions including cardiovascular disease. Research suggests fat cells have their own biological clock, and the cardiovascular system's own ticker may explain the prevalence of morning heart attacks.

owl writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/15/righttorepair_ftc_petition/

iFixit and the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) have teamed up to go straight to the US Federal Trade Commission with a rulemaking petition urging it to implement national right-to-repair rules.

The petition [PDF], sent to the FTC on Tuesday, calls on the Commission to implement new regulations under its Section 5 powers, which gives the agency enforcement authority over "​​unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce."

"The FTC has been a strong ally in protecting our right to fix everything we own," said Director of Sustainability for iFixit, Liz Chamberlain. "But for the FTC to be fully empowered to fix the things stopping us from fixing things, they need new rules. This petition for rulemaking aims to give the FTC the power they need to ensure that we can all fix all our things."

Under the FTC's Section 5 authority, PIRG noted, the FTC could require that consumable components and parts that commonly fail are made readily available through a product's lifespan, ensure consumers have the right to repair devices how and where they see fit, that key functions remain enabled after a manufacturer ends support for a product, and that independent repair shops aren't required to share customer data with manufacturers.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/11/people-think-white-ai-generated-faces-are-more-real-than-actual-photos-study-says/

Eight images used in the study; four of them are synthetic. Can you tell which ones? (Answers at bottom of the article.)

A study published in the peer-reviewed journal Psychological Science on Monday found that AI-generated faces generated with three year-old technology, particularly those representing white individuals, were perceived as more real than actual face photographs, reports The Guardian. The finding did not extend to images of people of color, likely due to AI models being trained predominantly on images of white individuals—a common bias that is well-known in machine learning research.
[...]
Researchers used real and synthetic images sourced from an earlier study, with the synthetic ones generated by Nvidia's StyleGAN2 image generator, which can create realistic faces using image synthesis. It's worth noting that StyleGAN2 was released in 2020, and AI image synthesis has progressed rapidly since then—but newer AI models were not involved in the study.

Original Submission