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Traditional microelectronic architectures, with transistors to control electrical currents along wires, power everything from advanced computers to everyday devices.

But with the integrated circuits offering diminishing returns in terms of speed and adaptability, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists are developing nanometer-scale light-based systems that could deliver breakthroughs for ultrafast microelectronics, room-temperature infrared detection (for example, night vision) and a wide variety of technological applications.

"Most modern technologies, from computers to applications like energy harvesting, are built on the ability to push electrons around," said Jacob Pettine, Los Alamos physicist at the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT). "But the way we control this charge flow remains very limited by conventional materials and structures."

As described in an article just published in Nature, the research team designed and fabricated asymmetric, nano-sized gold structures on an atomically thin layer of graphene. The gold structures are dubbed "nanoantennas" based on the way they capture and focus light waves, forming optical "hot spots" that excite the electrons within the graphene. Only the graphene electrons very near the hot spots are excited, with the rest of the graphene remaining much less excited.

The research team adopted a teardrop shape of gold nanoantennas, where the breaking of inversion symmetry defines a directionality along the structure. The hot spots are located only at the sharp tips of the nanoantennas, leading to a pathway on which the excited hot electrons flow with net directionality—a charge current, controllable and tunable at the nanometer scale by exciting different combinations of hot spots.

"These metasurfaces provide an easy way to control the amplitude, location and direction of hot spots and nanoscale charge current with a response speed faster than a picosecond," said Hou-Tong Chen, a scientist at CINT supervising the research. "You can then think about more detailed functionalities."

owl writes:

http://www.righto.com/2019/11/ibm-sonic-delay-lines-and-history-of.html

What explains the popularity of terminals with 80×24 and 80×25 displays? A recent blog post "80x25" motivated me to investigate this. The source of 80-column lines is clearly punch cards, as commonly claimed. But why 24 or 25 lines? There are many theories, but I found a simple answer: IBM, in particular its dominance of the terminal market. In 1971, IBM introduced a terminal with an 80×24 display (the 3270) and it soon became the best-selling terminal, forcing competing terminals to match its 80×24 size. The display for the IBM PC added one more line to its screen, making the 80×25 size standard in the PC world. The impact of these systems remains decades later: 80-character lines are still a standard, along with both 80×24 and 80×25 terminal windows.

In this blog post, I'll discuss this history in detail, including some other systems that played key roles. The CRT terminal market essentially started with the IBM 2260 Display Station in 1965, built from curious technologies such as sonic delay lines. This led to the popular IBM 3270 display and then widespread, inexpensive terminals such as the DEC VT100. In 1981, IBM released a microcomputer called the DataMaster. While the DataMaster is mostly forgotten, it strongly influenced the IBM PC, including the display. This post also studies reports on the terminal market from the 1970s and 1980s; these make it clear that market forces, not technological forces, led to the popularity of various display sizes.

Original Submission

quietus writes:

I have my country and my convictions. And I don't want to give up on either. I can't betray either one. If your convictions mean anything, you must be ready to stand up for them. And, if necessary, make sacrifices [for them]. If you're not ready [to do that], then you have no convictions. You just think you do. But those aren't convictions or principles; they're just thoughts in your head.

It so happens that in today's Russia, I have to pay for my right to have and to openly express my convictions by sitting in solitary confinement. And, of course, I don't like being in prison. But I won't renounce my convictions or my homeland. My convictions aren't exotic, sectarian, or radical. On the contrary, everything I believe in is based on science and historical experience. Those in power must change. The best way to elect leaders is through honest and free elections. Everyone needs a fair court. Corruption destroys the state. There should be no censorship. The future lies with these principles.

Alexey Navalny, Russia's most famous dissident, has died. (4 June 1976 – 16 February 2024).

Returning to Russia in 2021, after having been treated in Berlin for novichok poisoning, Navalny was immediately arrested on arrival at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. Since then, he has been in and out of (but mostly in) solitary confinement all over the country, with his final station being the Polar Wolf penal colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Siberia.

On Monday, he had been visited by his parents. In reacting to the news of her son's death, his mother reacted:

"I don't want to hear any condolences. We saw our son in the colony on Feb. 12th. He was alive, healthy, cheerful."

More info here.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/medical/gold-nanocrystals-energy-activity-brain-neurodegenerative-disease/

Phase 2 clinical trials using orally administered gold nanocrystals to treat multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease have produced promising results, restoring metabolites linked to crucial energy activity in the brain that are depleted in these neurodegenerative conditions.

The brain depends on a continuous supply of energy in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) to fuel its resting and active-state functions. Essential to ATP production is the molecule nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+).

As glucose is broken down into smaller molecules by the cells, the chemical bonds holding it together break. The energy held in the broken bonds is harnessed when an electron freed during the process is captured by NAD⁺, converting it to its reduced form, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide + hydrogen (NADH). NADH donates the electron to the mitochondria, which use the electron's energy to produce ATP, a process that oxidizes NADH back to NAD⁺.

Energy metabolism is compromised as we age, evidenced by a reduced NAD⁺/NADH ratio, which is considered a measure of global brain energy capacity. In neurodegenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson's disease (PD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), this reduction is much faster and more severe.

Now, researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern (UT Southwestern) Medical Center have conducted two phase 2 clinical trials on patients with MS and PD to see whether treating these neurodegenerative diseases with orally administered gold nanocrystals could restore the NAD⁺/NADH ratio.

"We are cautiously optimistic that we will be able to prevent or even reverse some neurological disabilities with this strategy," said Peter Sguigna, one of the study's co-authors and lead on the MS trial.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/nvidia-ceo-calls-for-sovereign-ai-as-his-firm-overtakes-amazon-in-market-value/

On Monday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that every country should control its own AI infrastructure so it can protect its culture, Reuters reports. He called this concept "Sovereign AI," which an Nvidia blog post defined as each country owning "the production of their own intelligence."

Huang made the announcement in a discussion with UAE's Minister of AI, Omar Al Olama, during the World Governments Summit in Dubai. "It codifies your culture, your society's intelligence, your common sense, your history—you own your own data," Huang told Al Olama.
[...]
Nvidia is well-known for its production of powerful GPU chips that accelerate the training and running of AI models, which are currently being deployed in data centers used by Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI. The demand for Nvidia's chips has led to massive financial success for the company over the past year.
[...]
Relatedly, the market capitalization of Nvidia first overtook the market cap of Amazon on Monday before slipping behind again, making the two companies neck-and-neck for the fourth most valuable company in the US, behind Microsoft, Apple, and Google parent Alphabet. Reuters reported that when Nvidia first overtook Amazon, it held a stock value of $734.96 per share Monday morning, making Nvidia worth $1.82 trillion in market value versus $1.81 trillion for Amazon. As of this writing, the two companies are still close in value, with Nvidia again in the lead.

[Just think of this, whenever you notice a spike in GPU costs / shortage of GPUs.]

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

FYI: SWOT = Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.

Orit Hazzan at ACM.org says:

Over the past year, I have published a series of CACM blogs in which I analyzed the introduction of generative AI, in general, and of ChatGPT, in particular, to computer science education (see, ChatGPT in Computer Science Education – January 23, 2023; ChatGPT in Computer Science Education: Freshmen's Conceptions, co-authored with Yael Erez - August 7, 2023; and ChatGPT (and Other Generative AI Applications) as a Disruptive Technology for Computer Science Education: Obsolescence or Reinvention - co-authored with Yael Erez - September 18, 2023).

One of the messages of these blogs was that computer science high school teachers and computer science freshmen clearly see the potential contribution of ChatGPT to computer science teaching and learning processes and highlight the opportunities it opens for computer science education, over the potential threats it poses. Another message was that generative AI, and specifically LLM-based conversational agents (e.g., ChatGPT), may turn out to be disruptive technologies for computer science education and, therefore, should be conceived of as an opportunity for computer science education to stay relevant.

In this blog, we address high school teachers' perspective on the incorporation of ChatGPT into computer science education. [...]

The author then presents the SWOT analysis, concluding:

With respect to the adoption of generative AI, it seems that the chasm in its adoption process has already been crossed and that, due to the simplicity of using the various generative AI applications available, a huge population, either with or without a technological background, has already adopted them.

Based on the SWOT analysis presented above, the meaningful question for our discussion is: With respect to the community of computer science teachers, what stage of the adoption process of innovation is generative AI at? Has the chasm already been crossed?

Related: Amid ChatGPT Outcry, Some Teachers are Inviting AI to Class

Original Submission

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

Related stories on SoylentNews:
Annular Solar Eclipse October 2023 and Total in April 2024 - 20231002
NASA's Perseverance Rover Captures Video of Solar Eclipse on Mars - 20220422
How to Watch Rare "Ring of Fire" Solar Eclipse - 20210609
Coming Jan 31st: a Super Blue Blood Moon Eclipse - First Time in 150 Years - 20180105

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