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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://torrentfreak.com/lawsuit-accuses-annas-archive-of-hacking-worldcat-stealing-2-2-tb-data-240207/

American nonprofit OCLC is known globally for its leading database of bibliographic records, WorldCat. A few months ago, many of these records were posted publicly by the shadow library search engine, Anna's Archive. OCLC believes that this is the result of a year-long hack and, with a lawsuit filed at an Ohio federal court, it demands damages.

Anna's Archive is a meta-search engine for book piracy sources and shadow libraries.

Launched in the fall of 2022, just days after Z-Library was targeted in a U.S. criminal crackdown, its self-stated goal is to ensure and facilitate the availability of books and articles to the broader public.

A few months ago, the search engine expanded its offering by making available data from OCLC's proprietary WorldCat database. Anna's Archive scraped several terabytes of data over the course of a year and published roughly 700 million unique records online, for free.

These records contain no copyrighted books or articles. However, they can help to create a to-do list of all missing shadow library content on the web, with the ultimate goal of making as much content publicly available as possible.

[...] It is no secret that publishers fiercely oppose the search engine's stated goals. The same also applies to OCLC, which has now elevated its concerns into a full-blown lawsuit, filed this month at a federal court in Ohio.

The complaint accuses Washington citizen Maria Dolores Anasztasia Matienzo and several "John Does" of operating the search engine and scraping WorldCat data. The scraping is equated to a cyberattack by OCLC and started around the time Anna's Archive launched.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/daily-telescope-a-solar-eclipse-from-the-surface-of-mars/

Good morning. It's February 12, and today's image is a real treat from the surface of Mars.

In it we see the larger of Mars' two moons, Phobos, passing in front of the Sun.

[...] NASA released a bunch of these raw images last week, and planetary scientist Paul Byrne helpfully put them into a video sequence that can be seen here.

[...] Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ASU

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Original Submission

owl writes:

https://a.wholelottanothing.org/2024/02/05/todays-youtubers-are-repeating-the-mistakes-of-yesterdays-bloggers/

I watch a ton of YouTube, on the order of an hour or two each day and I can honestly say the no-ads premium family account on YouTube is one of the best bargains on the internet for everyone in my house.

Lately, YouTube creators are going through a reckoning, and I think it's unfortunate to see some creators I've come to know and trust over the years squander their work as they chase percentage points of revenue instead of focusing on the craft.

It reminds me a lot of how blogging changed around 2005-2009, when ad money came pouring in, and while it was great for bloggers that previously were just publishing for the heck of it (myself included), eventually the money tainted the process as many people rushed to improve their bottom line, often at the expense of whole reason they created their sites.

[...] My hope for YouTube creators is much like bloggers. Don't spend all your time chasing the tea leaves and conventional wisdom. Focus on your channel/site and keep creating things you love that will resonate with your viewers/readers. Hopefully the money will follow, but obsessing over how to eke out every last cent from your work will make your work suffer.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

17% of U.S. adults have noise-induced hearing loss. A new Pitt study uncovers a biologic reason:

It could be a band at a wedding, an explosion on a battlefield or the constant drone of machinery: In the United States, about 17% of adults have hearing loss caused by exposure to loud noises.

Previously, little was known about the exact mechanism by which trauma from those noises led to hearing loss. In a scientific paper published Monday, a Pitt research team has solved part of that puzzle, tying that hearing loss to an excess of a form of zinc in the inner ear. By capturing some of that excess zinc in mice, the researchers were able to prevent hearing loss and even restore lost hearing.

"Hearing loss is a huge problem," said Thanos Tzounopoulos, professor and vice chair of research in the department of otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh. "This can hopefully provide some sort of preventative treatment."

The end goal, a lead researcher said, would be a pill that could be taken preventively or soon after exposure to mitigate the damage.

[...] The research study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, exposed mice to 100 decibels of sound for two hours and then tracked what was happening to the inner ear's "labile" zinc — a form of the element that is not bound to proteins. That free-floating zinc is already known to contribute to damage from strokes and optic nerve injuries, but had not been studied in terms of noise-induced hearing loss.

The researchers found "a huge dysregulation of zinc signaling" after the noise exposure, said Tzounopoulos. "There was much more of the zinc, it was in different locations — it was all over."

In the next step of the experiment, two days before a planned noise exposure, they injected mice with a slow-release chemical gel solution that would chelate the zinc, essentially trapping it so that it is not able to float freely in the ear. Assessing the hearing of the mice by putting electrodes on their skulls and measuring their auditory brain responses, the researchers were able to see a significant improvement in the hearing of the mice who received the chelation solution, compared to those who did not.

[...] One avenue is working on the chemistry of the chelation compound in anticipation of eventually making sure it is safe to be given to humans. They also plan to explore what happens when the treatment is given after noise exposure, versus given preventively.

Freeman writes:

Flipper's new Video Game Module is powered by Raspberry Pi

Our friends at Flipper Devices have made a fantastic new video game accessory for their popular Flipper Zero. It turns your Flipper into a mini games console, adding device UI output to TV, motion sensing, and crazy-powerful GPIO expansion. It's all built on our powerful RP2040 microcontroller.
[...]
The Video Game Module lets you play retro games on your TV, or mirror your Flipper's UI to the TV. You can also do some other cool new stuff, like using Flipper as an air mouse to control your computer over Bluetooth.
[...]
To learn more about the new Video Game Module, visit Flipper's website here. Or head to our RP2040 documentation to learn more about our microcontroller.

Canada declares Flipper Zero public enemy No. 1 in car-theft crackdown

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has identified an unlikely public enemy No. 1 in his new crackdown on car theft: the Flipper Zero, a $200 piece of open source hardware used to capture, analyze and interact with simple radio communications.

On Thursday, the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada agency said it will "pursue all avenues to ban devices used to steal vehicles by copying the wireless signals for remote keyless entry, such as the Flipper Zero, which would allow for the removal of those devices from the Canadian marketplace through collaboration with law enforcement agencies." A social media post by François-Philippe Champagne, the minister of that agency, said that as part of the push "we are banning the importation, sale and use of consumer hacking devices, like flippers, used to commit these crimes."
[...]
Presumably, such tools subject to the ban would include HackRF One and LimeSDR, which have become crucial for analyzing and testing the security of all kinds of electronic devices to find vulnerabilities before they're exploited. None of the government officials identified any of these tools, but in an email, a representative of the Canadian government reiterated the use of the phrase "pursuing all avenues to ban devices used to steal vehicles by copying the wireless signals for remote keyless entry."
[...]
One thing the Flipper Zero is exceedingly ill-equipped for is defeating modern antihack protections built into cars, smartcards, phones, and other electronic devices.

owl writes:

https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-defeats-patent-troll-sable-at-trial

For almost seven years, Cloudflare has been fighting against patent trolls. We've been doing this successfully through the efforts of our own legal team, external counsel, and the extraordinary efforts of people on the Internet looking for prior art (and getting rewarded for it) through our Project Jengo.

While we refuse to pay trolls for their meritless claims, we've been happy to award prizes to Project Jengo participants who help stop the trolls through prior art that invalidates their patents or claims. Project Jengo participants helped us in the past roundly beat the patent troll Blackbird (who subsequently went out of business).

[...] The jury found that Cloudflare did not infringe the patent asserted against Cloudflare by patent trolls Sable IP and Sable Networks.

And while that would have been enough to decide the case by itself, the jury went further and found that Sable's old and broadly-written patent claim was invalid and never should have been granted in the first place–meaning they can no longer assert the claim against anyone else. Since Sable first sued us, we've invalidated significant parts of three Sable patents, hamstringing their ability to bring lawsuits against other companies.

It's worth noting that very few lawsuits ever reach a jury. Most non-lawyers are shocked to learn that only about 1% of civil cases make it to trial, because trials are generally what they see on TV or in film. But professional litigators know that almost all cases are resolved much earlier through procedures that are much less entertaining to watch on screen: written motions, delay, or settlement. A big reason for this is that taking a case to trial–even on simple matters–is extremely costly. In patent cases, that means millions of dollars.

Original Submission

DannyB writes:

From The Register: 'Literally bulletproof' but needs constant cleaning to stave off corrosion

It's only been a few months since Tesla's long-awaited Cybertruck made its way to those at the front of the queue, but the arrival has been tarnished for some.

[....] according to reports in the Cybertruck Owners Club forum. A trending thread titled "Rust Spots/Corrosion is the Norm" from a user going by "Raxar" states:

Just picked up my Cybertruck today. The advisor specifically mentioned the cybertrucks develop orange rust marks in the rain and that required the vehicle to be buffed out. I know I heard the story of never take out your Delorean in the rain but I just never read anything about rust and Cybertrucks.

This, as you might expect, provoked a strong reaction from the faithful. "Liar. Is this fun for you?" one asked, while another incorrectly riposted: "If it 'rusts', it's not stainless steel." This is a common misconception. Stainless steel is resistant to rust, but not completely immune.

[....] corrosion reports may stem from owners believing that "ultra-hard stainless steel" doesn't require much care. Tesla, it appears, would vehemently disagree.

Another thread from January included a screenshot of Cybertruck's maintenance documentation, where it is said that the car does not have a clear coat. Clear coat is the outermost layer of transparent paint that serves as a protective barrier, preventing UV radiation and weather from damaging the colored paint layer. Clear coat also takes abrasions that might otherwise scratch the paint job.

Cybertruck owners will be relieved to know that Starship has not exhibited this problem, so far.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/rare-bubonic-plague-case-in-oregon-spread-from-very-sick-pet-cat/

An Oregon resident contracted bubonic plague from their "very sick" pet cat, marking the first time since 2015 that someone in the state has been stricken with the Black Death bacterium, according to local health officials.

Plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, circulates cryptically in the US in various types of rodents and their fleas. It causes an average of seven human cases a year, with a range of 1 to 17, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The cases tend to cluster in two regions, the CDC notes: a hotspot that spans northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado, and another region spanning California, far western Nevada, and southern Oregon.

The new case in Oregon occurred in the central county of Deschutes. It was fortunately caught early before the infection developed into a more severe, systemic bloodstream infection (septicemic plague).

[...] It's unclear how or why the cat became infected. But cats are particularly susceptible to plague and are considered a common source of infection in the US. The animals, when left to roam outdoors, can pick up infections from fleas as well as killing and eating infected rodents. Though dogs can also pick up the infection from fleas or other animals, they are less likely to develop clinical illness, according to the CDC.

[...] According to the CDC, there were 496 plague cases in the US between 1970 and 2020. And between 2000 and 2020, the CDC counted 14 deaths.

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Ovrdrive does not encrypt its contents by default but has a uniquely physical security mechanism and can be rigged to self-destruct - by heating itself to over 100 degrees C:

Through GitHub and Crowd Supply, Ryan Walker of Interrupt Labs (via CNX Software) is releasing a security-focused, open-source USB flash drive called Ovrdrive USB, which boasts a self-destruct mechanism that heats the flash chip to over 100 degrees Celsius.

The Ovrdrive USB is unencrypted by default, so it should still be legal in countries where encryption is otherwise illegal while providing an extra degree of (physical) security not matched by our current best flash drives.

First, the Ovrdrive USB design functions pretty simply. It's mostly a run-of-the-mill USB flash drive with a unique activation mechanism. For it to be detected by your machine, you have to rapidly insert the drive three consecutive times actually to turn it on. Failure to do so will hide the drive's partition and give the impression that it's broken. Initially, it was supposed to self-destruct, but it proved too challenging to mass produce, forcing Walker to change the drive.

[...] In its crowdfunding campaign on Crowd Supply, the flash drive is slated for an August 2024 release and priced at $69 with free US domestic shipping or $12 international shipping for the rest of the world. At the original time of writing, the flash drive has reached 70% of its funding, with two days remaining on the funding deadline.

Related: Report Reveals Decline In Quality Of USB Sticks And MicroSD Cards

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Damn Small Linux returns after a 12-year break – grows from 50MB to 700MB

Damn Small Linux (DSL) has returned with a new 2024 edition. The arrival of DSL 2024 has surprised many, as the last release of this compact Linux OS was more than a decade ago. Over the years DSL has put on weight (haven't we all) inflating from 50MB in 2008 to today's 700MB. That sounds like a lot, but the philosophy of making a usable desktop distribution for older PCs with limited hardware resources is similar. Moreover "applications, the kernel, and drivers have all mushroomed," explains John Andrews, the driving force behind this project.

Originally, DSL was launched as a business card-size live CD Linux distribution based on Debian and Knoppix. The relaunched version [is] a Debian and antiX distribution, will still run from a live CD, but it needs a full-sized CD. Andrews asserts that 700MB is a new hard limit for DSL going forward, and it needs to be for standard CDR compatibility.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ancient-dna-elucidate-prehistoric-community.html

Deciduous and evergreen forests dominate the limestone karst formations of the northwestern highlands of Thailand. A vast number of caves and rock shelters intersperse the mountains.

In over 40 such caves in Mae Hong Son province, large wooden coffins mounted on stilts, dating between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, can be found. During the Iron Age period, each of these up to several-meter-long coffins was crafted from a single teak tree and features refined carvings of geometric, animal- or human-like shapes at the handles of both ends.

This archaeological assemblage has been studied for more than two decades by members of the Prehistoric Population and Cultural Dynamics in Highland Pang Mapha Project, led by Professor Rasmi Shoocongdej, from the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University.

"Our research examines the relationship between humans and their environments in the seasonal tropics. One crucial aspect is the exploration of the social structure of these prehistoric communities, as well as explaining their connections with other pre-Neolithic, Neolithic and post-Neolithic groups in this region," says Shoocongdej, an archaeologist and senior author of the study.

To understand the genetic profile of the Log Coffin-associated communities, and the connection of individuals buried in different caves, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Germany and Thailand has analyzed the DNA of 33 ancient individuals from five Log Coffin sites. The genomes recovered from the ancient individuals allow the first detailed study of the structure of a prehistoric community from Southeast Asia. The paper is published in the journal Nature Communications.

mendax writes:

Ars is reporting:

It turns out some of the informed speculation about the US military's latest X-37B spaceplane mission was pretty much spot-on.

When the semi-classified winged spacecraft launched on December 28, it flew into orbit on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, which is much larger than the Atlas V and Falcon 9 rockets used to launch the X-37B on its previous missions. [...] This immediately sparked speculation that the X-37B would reach higher altitudes than its past flights, which remained in low-Earth orbit at altitudes of a few hundred miles. A discovery from Tomi Simola, a satellite tracking hobbyist living near Helsinki, Finland, appears to confirm this suspicion.

On Friday, Simola reported on social media and on SeeSat-L, a long-running online forum of satellite tracking enthusiasts, that he detected an unidentified object using a sky-watching camera. [...]

"Exciting news!" Simola posted on social media. "Orbital Test Vehicle 7 (OTV-7), which was launched to classified orbit last December, was seen by my SatCam! Here are images from the last two nights!"

Now if only we knew what it was doing so high in orbit!

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Contents of Charles Darwin's entire personal library revealed for first time:

Details of Charles Darwin's vast personal library, from a paper on epileptic guinea pigs to the Elizabeth Gaskell novel he adored, are being published in their entirety for the first time.

The project has involved nearly two decades of painstaking, detective-like work to track down the thousands of books, journals, pamphlets and articles in the naturalist's library.

John van Wyhe, the academic who has led the "overwhelming" endeavour, said it showed the extraordinary extent of Darwin's research into the work of others.

"It also shows how insanely eclectic Darwin was," Van Wyhe said. "There is this vast sea of things which might be an American or German news clipping about a duck or invasive grasshoppers. That's been the fun part, not the formal books but the other things ... all of which pool together to make the theories and publications we all know."

The 300-page catalogue published by Darwin Online details 7,400 titles across 13,000 items including journals, pamphlets and reviews.

Some of the books date back to Darwin's school days such as Oliver Goldsmith's A history of England (1821), which he won as a prize, or his headmaster's textbook on ancient geography.

canopic jug writes:

Multiple sites have covered the 100^th anniversary of the premier of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was premiered one hundred years ago today, on the snowy afternoon of February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Hall on Manhattan's West 43rd Street.

The 25-year-old composer was at the piano, joined by the dance band of Paul Whiteman, the noted bandleader who commissioned the work. It was presented near the end of a marathon concert, organized and promoted by Whiteman, entitled, An Experiment in Modern Music. Purportedly in attendance were such musical luminaries as Sergei Rachmaninov, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Leopold Stokowski, Ernest Bloch, Igor Stravinsky, Walter Damrosch, Victor Herbert, and John Philip Sousa. Whiteman later recalled that

it was a strange audience out front. Vaudevillians, concert managers came to have a look at the novelty, Tin Pan Alleyites, composers, symphony and opera stars, flappers, cake-eaters, all mixed up higgledy-piggledy.

Also at,

• US Library of Congress : Gershwin's "Rhapsody" at 100; Still Capturing the American Character
• US Library of Congress : "Rhapsody in Blue" at 100
• NPR : 'Rhapsody in Blue': After a century, Gershwin's musical melting pot still resonates
• University of Michigan : Category Archives: Rhapsody in Blue
• The New European : Rhapsody in Blue at 100: The European roots of an American anthem
• LPM : As "Rhapsody in Blue" turns 100, it reminds us to experiment boldly

and many others.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A German court has sided with R2 Semiconductor against Intel, ruling that the chip giant infringed one of R2's patent. This decision could lead to sales ban of select Intel processors as well as products based on them in Germany. Intel, for its part, has accused R2 of being a patent troll wielding a low-quality patent, and has said that it will appeal the decision.

The regional court in Düsseldorf, Germany, ruled that Intel infringed a patent covering an integrated voltage regulator technology that belongs to Palo Alto, California-based R2 Semiconductor. The court on Wednesday issued an injunction against sales of Intel's Core-series 'Ice Lake,' 'Tiger Lake,' 'Alder Lake,' and Xeon Scalable 'Ice Lake Server' processors as well as PCs and servers based on these CPUs. Some of these processors have already been discontinued, but there are Alder Lake chips are available in retail and inside many systems that are still on the shelves. Though the ruling does not mean that these CPUs will disappear from the German market immediately.

Meanwhile, the injunction does not cover Intel's current-generation Core 'Raptor Lake' and Core Ultra 'Meteor Lake' processors for desktops and laptops, according to The Financial Times, so the impact of the injunction is set to be fairly limited.

Intel has expressed its disappointment with the verdict and announced its intention to challenge the decision. The company criticized R2 Semiconductor's litigation strategy, accusing it of pursuing serial lawsuits against big companies, particularly after Intel managed to invalidate one of R2's U.S. patents.

"R2 files serial lawsuits to extract large sums from innovators like Intel," a statement by Intel reads. "R2 first filed suit against Intel in the U.S., but after Intel invalidated R2's low-quality U.S. patent R2 shifted its campaign against Intel to Europe. Intel believes companies like R2, which appears to be a shell company whose only business is litigation, should not be allowed to obtain injunctions on CPUs and other critical components at the expense of consumers, workers, national security, and the economy."

In its lawsuit against Intel, R2 requested the court to halt sales of infringing processors, sales of products equipped with these CPUs, and to mandate a recall of items containing these processors, as Intel revealed last September. The company contended that imposing an injunction would be an excessive response.

Meanwhile, it is important to note that in this legal battle Intel is safeguarding its customers by assuming responsibility for any legal expenses or compensations they may incur. Consequently, as of September, Intel was unable to provide a reliable estimate of the possible financial impact or the scope of potential losses that could result from the legal battle as they can be vast.

In a stark contrast with Intel, R2 welcomes the court's decisions and presents the company's own view on the legal dispute.

"We are delighted that the highly respected German court has issued an injunction and unequivocally found that Intel has infringed R2's patents for integrated voltage regulators," said David Fisher, CEO of R2. "We intend to enforce this injunction and protect our valuable intellectual property. The global patent system is here precisely for the purpose of protecting inventors like myself and R2 Semiconductor."

Original Submission