SoylentNews

wirelessduck writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/broadcom-owned-vmware-kills-the-free-version-of-esxi-virtualization-software/

Since Broadcom's $61 billion acquisition of VMware closed in November 2023, Broadcom has been charging ahead with major changes to the company's personnel and products. In December, Broadcom began laying off thousands of employees and stopped selling perpetually licensed versions of VMware products, pushing its customers toward more stable and lucrative software subscriptions instead. In January, it ended its partner programs, potentially disrupting sales and service for many users of its products.

This week, Broadcom is making a change that is smaller in scale but possibly more relevant for home users of its products: The free version of VMware's vSphere Hypervisor, also known as ESXi, is being discontinued.

ESXi is what is known as a "bare-metal hypervisor," lightweight software that runs directly on hardware without requiring a separate operating system layer in between. ESXi allows you to split a PC's physical resources (CPUs and CPU cores, RAM, storage, networking components, and so on) among multiple virtual machines. ESXi also supports passthrough for PCI, SATA, and USB accessories, allowing guest operating systems direct access to components like graphics cards and hard drives.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Reddit aims for $6.4bn valuation ahead of initial public offering:

Reddit, one of the most popular websites in the world, is hoping for a valuation of up to $6.4bn (£5bn) when its shares go public next week.

The social media company, which has never made a profit, will float shares on the New York Stock Exchange.

A filing in the US revealed that Reddit and its investors are hoping to sell 22 million shares for between $31 and $34 each.

However, many users worry the move will fundamentally change the website.

Some shares will be specially reserved for some Reddit users and moderators.

The company is planning an initial public offering (IPO) which would make some of its shares publicly available to buy for the first time.

"Our users have a deep sense of ownership over the communities they create on Reddit," wrote co-founder Steve Huffman in a letter to prospective investors released a few weeks ago.

"We want this sense of ownership to be reflected in real ownership - for our users to be our owners. Becoming a public company makes this possible."

Reddit, which was founded almost 20 years ago, is an online forum where users can post questions and comment on topics that interest them.

[...] However, some users are worried that the IPO would change the site for the worse.

"When the most important customers shift from [users] to shareholders, the product always [suffers]," said one person.

"It becomes 'what can we do this quarter to squeak out an additional point of revenue', instead of 'how can we make this product better'."

[Hmmm, a site built on user-submitted topics and user-submitted comments that has never made a profit might be worth $6B . . . maybe after the new site is set up we should IPO while the iron is still hot! --hubie]

Original Submission

SomeGuy writes:

The Verge is reporting, in what appears to be a surprise move, that Microsoft is ending support for its Android subsystem in Windows.

Microsoft is ending support for its Android subsystem in Windows 11 next year. The software giant first announced it was bringing Android apps to Windows 11 with Amazon's Appstore nearly three years ago, but this Windows Subsystem for Android will now be deprecated starting March 5th, 2025.

"Microsoft is ending support for the Windows Subsystem for Android" (WSA), reads a new support document from Microsoft. "As a result, the Amazon Appstore on Windows and all applications and games dependent on WSA will no longer be supported beginning March 5, 2025."

If you currently use Android apps from the Amazon Appstore, then you'll continue to have access to these past the support cutoff date, but you won't be able to download any new ones once Microsoft makes its Android subsystem end of life next year. [Since] March 6th [2024], Windows 11 users will no longer be able to search for Amazon Appstore or associated Android apps from the Microsoft Store.

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://newatlas.com/biology/tap-honeybee-colony/

Delivering a gentle automated tap to the outside of a hive and recording the honeybees' collective response can give an indication of the colony's health without having to look inside, new research has found.

At last check, there were an estimated 115,000 to 125,000 beekeepers in the US, most of whom were hobbyists. In particular, ownership of honeybee colonies appears to have risen in recent years, with amateur apiarists wanting to help preserve these powerful pollinators in addition to generating their own source of sweet, sticky goodness.

But caring for honeybees can be tricky. Colonies follow very specific activity patterns throughout the year; they should be very busy in warmer months and idle when it's cold. So, they need to be checked regularly for health and productivity. Beekeepers can inspect hives by opening them, but this invasive process risks harm to the colony, particularly the all-important queen.

A new study led by researchers from Nottingham Trent University in the UK suggests they have a solution: gauging health by gently tapping the hive and listening for the bees' collective response.

"It's a bit like a bear that falls asleep for the winter; sometimes, you cannot tell if the animal is alive or not," said Martin Bencsik, the study's lead and corresponding author. "A gentle tap, causing a tiny, but measurable reaction, will reveal whether the animal is in its normal state or not."

The researchers' 'gentle tap' was delivered at random times by an electromagnetic shaker attached to a hive's outer wall, driven by a computer that provided a 0.1-second pulse at 340 Hz. The honeybees' response was recorded by an accelerometer embedded in the middle of the hive's frame, which was sensitive to the insects' vibrations.

upstart writes:

SpaceX Plans Test Launch of Super Heavy and Starship:

The third flight test of Starship is targeted to launch Thursday, March 14. The 110-minute test window opens at 7:00 a.m. CT (8:00 a.m. ET).

A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to stay tuned to our X account for updates.

Starship's second flight test achieved a number of major milestones and provided invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship. Each of these flight tests continue to be just that: a test. They aren't occurring in a lab or on a test stand, but are putting flight hardware in a flight environment to maximize learning.

The third flight test aims to build on what we've learned from previous flights while attempting a number of ambitious objectives, including the successful ascent burn of both stages, opening and closing Starship's payload door, a propellant transfer demonstration during the upper stage's coast phase, the first ever re-light of a Raptor engine while in space, and a controlled reentry of Starship. It will also fly a new trajectory, with Starship targeted to splashdown in the Indian Ocean. This new flight path enables us to attempt new techniques like in-space engine burns while maximizing public safety.

This rapid iterative development approach has been the basis for all of SpaceX's major innovative advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink. Recursive improvement is essential as we work to build a fully reusable transportation system capable of carrying both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, help humanity return to the Moon, and ultimately travel to Mars and beyond.

Original Submission

wirelessduck writes:

Google's swanky new "Bay View" campus apparently has a major problem: bad Wi-Fi. Reuters reports that Google's first self-designed office building has "been plagued for months by inoperable or, at best, spotty Wi-Fi, according to six people familiar with the matter." A Google spokesperson confirmed the problems and said the company is working on fixing them.

Bay View opened in May 2022. At launch, Google's VP of Real Estate & Workplace Services, David Radcliffe, said the site "marks the first time we developed one of our own major campuses, and the process gave us the chance to rethink the very idea of an office." The result is a wild tent-like structure with a striking roofline made up of swooping square sections. Of course, it's all made of metal and glass, but the roof shape looks like squares of cloth held up by poles—each square section has high points on the four corners and sags down in the middle. The roof is covered in solar cells and collects rainwater while also letting in natural light, and Google calls it the "Gradient Canopy."

According to one AI engineer assigned to the building, which also houses members of the advertising team, the wonky Wi-Fi has been no help for Google pushing a three day per week return-to-office mandate.

"You'd think the world's leading internet company would have worked this out," he said. Like others, he spoke to Reuters on the condition of anonymity because Google has not authorized them to talk about work conditions.

Managers have encouraged workers to stroll outside or sit at the adjoining cafe where the Wi-Fi signal is stronger.

Original Submission

[We have had several complaints recently (polite ones, not a problem) regarding the number of AI stories that we are printing. I agree, but that reflects the number of submissions that we receive on the subject. So I have compiled a small selection of AI stories into one and you can read them or ignore them as you wish. If you are making a comment please make it clear exactly which story you are referring to unless your comment is generic. The submitters each receive the normal karma for a submission. JR]

Image-scraping Midjourney bans rival AI firm for scraping images

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/03/in-ironic-twist-midjourney-bans-rival-ai-firm-employees-for-scraping-its-image-data/

On Wednesday, Midjourney banned all employees from image synthesis rival Stability AI from its service indefinitely after it detected "botnet-like" activity suspected to be a Stability employee attempting to scrape prompt and image pairs in bulk. Midjourney advocate Nick St. Pierre tweeted about the announcement, which came via Midjourney's official Discord channel.

[...] Siobhan Ball of The Mary Sue found it ironic that a company like Midjourney, which built its AI image synthesis models using training data scraped off the Internet without seeking permission, would be sensitive about having its own material scraped. "It turns out that generative AI companies don't like it when you steal, sorry, scrape, images from them. Cue the world's smallest violin."

[...] Shortly after the news of the ban emerged, Stability AI CEO Emad Mostaque said that he was looking into it and claimed that whatever happened was not intentional. He also said it would be great if Midjourney reached out to him directly. In a reply on X, Midjourney CEO David Holz wrote, "sent you some information to help with your internal investigation."

[...] When asked about Stability's relationship with Midjourney these days, Mostaque played down the rivalry. "No real overlap, we get on fine though," he told Ars and emphasized a key link in their histories. "I funded Midjourney to get [them] off the ground with a cash grant to cover [Nvidia] A100s for the beta."

Midjourney stories on SoylentNews: https://soylentnews.org/search.pl?tid=&query=Midjourney&sort=2
Stable Diffusion (Stability AI) stories on SoylentNews: https://soylentnews.org/search.pl?tid=&query=Stable+Diffusion&sort=2

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Russian troops in Ukraine have allegedly been using SpaceX’s Starlink terminals to get internet access during the ongoing war that has seen hundreds of thousands of casualties on each side. And now, House Democrats are finally asking hard questions of SpaceX leadership about how this could be happening, according to an open letter published on Thursday.

The letter to SpaceX president and COO Gwynne Shotwell from some top Democrats in the House makes the case that Starlink’s high-speed satellite internet access is considered essential to Ukraine’s continued ability to fight against Russia’s invasion, which first started in February 2022.

The letter from the Democrats, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Rep. Robert Garcia of California, stresses that Russia’s use of Starlink tech would be “potentially in violation of U.S. sanctions and export controls.”

The Wall Street Journal was the first to report on February 15 that Russian troops have been using Starlink internet for “quite a long time,” according to Ukraine’s Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov.

Russia is believed to be acquiring the Starlink terminals from black market sellers, sometimes posing as German appliance manufacturers according to the Journal, but SpaceX leaders presumably have insight into who and how these terminals might be used by illicit Russian actors. For example, Musk shut off Starlink access for Ukrainian-controlled devices in Crimea early in the war, ostensibly to stop an “escalation” of the conflict.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

For more than 45 years, the Voyager 1 spacecraft has been cruising through the cosmos, crossing the boundary of our solar system to become the first human-made object to venture to interstellar space. Iconic in every regard, Voyager 1 has delivered groundbreaking data on Jupiter and Saturn, and captured the loneliest image of Earth. But perhaps nothing is lonelier than an aging spacecraft that has lost its ability to communicate while traveling billions of miles away from home.

NASA’s Voyager 1 has been glitching for months, sending nonsensical data to ground control. Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have been trying to resolve the issue, but given how far the spacecraft currently is, the process has been extremely slow. Things are looking pretty bleak for the aging mission, which might be nearing the end. Still, NASA isn’t ready to let go of its most distant spacecraft just yet.

“The team continues information gathering and are preparing some steps that they’re hopeful will get them on a path to either understand the root of the problem and/or solve it,” a JPL spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email.

The anomaly may have something to do with the spacecraft’s flight data system (FDS). FDS collects data from Voyager’s science instruments, as well as engineering data about the health of the spacecraft and combines them into a single package that’s transmitted to Earth through one of the probe’s subsystems, the telemetry modulation unit (TMU), in binary code.

FDS and TMU, however, may be having trouble communicating with one another. As a result, TMU has been sending data to mission control in a repeating pattern of ones and zeroes.

Related:
    Humanity's Most Distant Space Probe Jeopardized by Computer Glitch
    Engineers Work to Fix Voyager 1 Computer

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/03/openai-ceo-sam-altmans-conduct-did-not-mandate-removal-says-independent-review/

On Friday afternoon Pacific Time, OpenAI announced the appointment of three new members to the company's board of directors and released the results of an independent review of the events surrounding CEO Sam Altman's surprise firing last November. The current board expressed its confidence in the leadership of Altman and President Greg Brockman, and Altman is rejoining the board.
[...]
The independent review, conducted by law firm WilmerHale, investigated the circumstances that led to Altman's abrupt removal from the board and his termination as CEO on November 17, 2023. Despite rumors to the contrary, the board did not fire Altman because they got a peek at scary new AI technology and flinched. "WilmerHale... found that the prior Board's decision did not arise out of concerns regarding product safety or security, the pace of development, OpenAI's finances, or its statements to investors, customers, or business partners."

Instead, the review determined that the prior board's actions stemmed from a breakdown in trust between the board and Altman.
[...]
Altman's surprise firing occurred after he attempted to remove Helen Toner from OpenAI's board due to disagreements over her criticism of OpenAI's approach to AI safety and hype. Some board members saw his actions as deceptive and manipulative. After Altman returned to OpenAI, Toner resigned from the OpenAI board on November 29.

In a statement posted on X, Altman wrote, "i learned a lot from this experience. one think [sic] i'll say now: when i believed a former board member was harming openai through some of their actions, i should have handled that situation with more grace and care. i apologize for this, and i wish i had done it differently."
[...]
After OpenAI's announcements on Friday, resigned OpenAI board members Toner and Tasha McCauley released a joint statement on X. "Accountability is important in any company, but it is paramount when building a technology as potentially world-changing as AGI," they wrote. "We hope the new board does its job in governing OpenAI and holding it accountable to the mission. As we told the investigators, deception, manipulation, and resistance to thorough oversight should be unacceptable."

Previously on SoylentNews:
Sam Altman Officially Back as OpenAI CEO: "We Didn't Lose a Single Employee" - 20231202
AI Breakthrough That Could Threaten Humanity Might Have Been Key To Sam Altman's Firing - 20231124
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Purged, President Brockman Quits, but Maybe They'll All Come Back After All - 20231119

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Modern voice preferences among wide cross-cultural sample clarifies evolutionary origins, with lower pitches seen as more attractive and formidable:

If you're looking for a long-term relationship or to boost your social status, lower your pitch, according to researchers studying the effects of voice pitch on social perceptions. They found that lower voice pitch makes women and men sound more attractive to potential long-term partners, and lower voice pitch in males makes the individual sound more formidable and prestigious among other men.

[...] "Vocal communication is one of the most important human characteristics, and pitch is the most perceptually noticeable aspect of voice," said David Puts, study co-author and professor of anthropology at Penn State. "Understanding how voice pitch influences social perceptions can help us understand social relationships more broadly, how we attain social status, how we evaluate others on social status and how we choose mates."

[...] The researchers found that women and men preferred lower-pitched voices when asked which voice they would prefer for a long-term relationship such as marriage. They also found that a lower male voice pitch made the individual sound more formidable, especially among younger men, and more prestigious, particularly among older men. Perceptions of formidability and prestige had a larger impact in societies with more relational mobility — where group members interact more often with strangers — and more violence.

[...] The fact that study participants across cultures perceived a lower male voice pitch as conferring formidability and high social status suggests that these characteristics were likely conferred to our ancestors as well, said Puts, who is co-funded by the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State. He likened the effect to that of Darth Vader's voice in the Star Wars franchise: no matter where the character goes in the galaxy, his low pitch is perceived as formidable because larger beings tend to produce lower frequencies.

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-hidden-star-sand-dune-mystery.html

Scientists have solved the mysterious absence of star-shaped dunes from Earth's geological history for the first time, dating one back thousands of years.

[...] Star dunes are massive sand dunes that owe their name to arms that spread from a central peak. These sand pyramids, which look like stars when viewed from above, are widespread in modern deserts including sand seas in Africa, Arabia, China, and North America.

The research reveals the oldest parts of the base of the Moroccan dune are 13,000 years old. However, the discovery that it formed rapidly in the last thousand years surprised scientists who had thought larger dunes were far older.

Believed to be the tallest dunes on Earth—with one in the Badain Jaran Desert in China reaching 300 meters high—star dunes are also found elsewhere in the solar system, on Mars and on Saturn's moon Titan.

Despite being common today, star dunes have almost never been found in the geological record. Their absence has bemused scientists as past deserts are a common part of the history of Earth, preserved in rocks deep underground.

Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the new study dated the foundations of a star dune in the southeast of Morocco known as Lala Lallia, meaning "highest sacred point" in the Berber language, to about 13,000 years old.

The dune sits in the Erg Chebbi area of the Sahara Desert close to the border with Algeria, an area featured in TV series like SAS Rogue Heroes and blockbuster films such as The Mummy and Sahara.

The research shows that the sand pyramid reached its current 100-meter height and 700-meter width due to rapid growth in the past thousand years as it shifted slowly to the west.

More information: C. S. Bristow et al, Structure and chronology of a star dune at Erg Chebbi, Morocco, reveals why star dunes are rarely recognised in the rock record, Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-53485-3

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Attackers have transformed hundreds of hacked sites running WordPress software into command-and-control servers that force visitors’ browsers to perform password-cracking attacks.

A web search for the JavaScript that performs the attack showed it was hosted on 708 sites at the time this post went live on Ars, up from 500 two days ago. Denis Sinegubko, the researcher who spotted the campaign, said at the time that he had seen thousands of visitor computers running the script, which caused them to reach out to thousands of domains in an attempt to guess the passwords of usernames with accounts on them.

“This is how thousands of visitors across hundreds of infected websites unknowingly and simultaneously try to bruteforce thousands of other third-party WordPress sites,” Sinegubko wrote. “And since the requests come from the browsers of real visitors, you can imagine this is a challenge to filter and block such requests.”

Like the hacked websites hosting the malicious JavaScript, all the targeted domains are running the WordPress content management system. The script—just 3 kilobits in size—reaches out to an attacker-controlled getTaskURL, which in turn provides the name of a specific user on a specific WordPress site, along with 100 common passwords. When this data is fed into the browser visiting the hacked site, it attempts to log into the targeted user account using the candidate passwords. The JavaScript operates in a loop, requesting tasks from the getTaskURL reporting the results to the completeTaskURL, and then performing the steps again and again.

[...] With 418 password batches as of Tuesday, Sinegubko has concluded the attackers are trying 41,800 passwords against each targeted site.

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-03-birds-smart.html

Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum explain how it is possible for the small brains of pigeons, parrots and corvids to perform equally well as those of mammals, despite their significant differences.

Since the late 19th century, it has been a common belief among researchers that high intelligence requires the high computing capacity of large brains. They also discovered that the cerebral cortex as typical of mammals is necessary to analyze and link information in great detail.

Avian brains, by contrast, are very small and lack any structure resembling a cortex. Nevertheless, scientists showed that parrots and corvids are capable of planning for the future, forging social strategies, recognizing themselves in mirrors and building tools. These and similar aptitudes put them on a par with chimpanzees.
...
The authors of the study show that birds have developed four similar innovations for intelligence during their evolution, independently of mammals.

First, birds have many more nerve cells in their small brains than previously believed. Corvids in particular place this extra portion of computing capacity in those areas of the brain that are most important for cognition.

The second reason is that birds have a specialized brain structure that is similar to the prefrontal cortex in mammals and is crucial for abstraction and planning. This brain region is moreover exceptionally large in intelligent birds and mammals.

Third, birds and mammals alike have a system that uses the neurotransmitter dopamine to constantly feedback the quality of their decisions to the prefrontal system. As a result, the prefrontal computational processes continuously adapt to changing situations and the success or failure of the decisions of the individual.

Finally, birds have independently developed a very similar working memory to temporarily hold things in short-term memory. Like jugglers who constantly keep many balls spinning in the air, birds and mammals use a flexible activity pattern of their nerve cells to keep a lot of information active at the same time

More information: Onur Güntürkün et al, Why birds are smart, Trends in Cognitive Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2023.11.002

Original Submission