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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

My friend recently wanted to bring an old laptop back to life. Her aging Intel MacBook was no longer supported by Apple, and instead of letting the machine wind up in a landfill somewhere, she decided to install Linux, an OS she'd never used before.

She started her quest with Linux Mint, which is always a good place to start. Unfortunately, the installation failed for her (mostly because of the doggedly slow nature of the machine), so she reached out.

Given her hardware, there was only one logical suggestion to make -- Linux Lite. This installation went well for her, except the keyboard layout was automatically selected incorrectly. Fortunately, that was an easy fix.

[...] As per usual with a lightweight Linux distribution, Linux Lite performed about as well as any desktop OS I've ever tried. It was fast. I gave the virtual machine I used 3GB of RAM and two CPU cores, and this distribution performed as if it had four times that power. Anyone with a machine that doesn't have the resources to power the latest version of Windows would do very well with this distribution, especially if speed is your thing.

[...] The one thing I did find missing from Linux Lite was a universal package manager, such as Snap or Flatpak. No problem. From within Synaptic, I was able to quickly search for, and install, both.

[...] If my friend, who'd never touched Linux in her life, was able to easily get Linux Lite installed and working, you probably can too. Like I tell everyone… if you can install a Windows app, you can install modern Linux. It really is that simple, and Linux Lite proves that hypothesis.

This lightweight Linux distribution is ideal for anyone new to the open-source operating system or who needs to bring an old machine back to life.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A federal judge could block the Federal Trade Commission’s impending ban on noncompete agreements from going into effect. Noncompete agreements are intended to make it difficult for employees to switch to similar positions at other companies or start businesses of their own, and they’ve been a contentious issue within tech companies in particular.

The ban had been set to go into force on September 4th, but on Wednesday, Judge Ada Brown issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought against the FTC. For those plaintiffs, the FTC’s ban will no longer go into effect on September 4th. Brown says she plans to rule on their entire challenge to the FCC “on or before August 30, 2024,” potentially stopping the FTC from blocking noncompetes nationwide.

Tax firm Ryan LLC filed the lawsuit against the FTC the same day the ban was announced in April, arguing that the ban is “an unauthorized, unconstitutional attempt to eliminate a long-established private economic arrangement.” The US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable are among those who have joined the suit since its filing.

[...] The FTC voted 3-2 in support of the ban. At the time, the FTC argued that the ban would allow for more than 8,500 new businesses to be made each year.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Hippos can get airborne when moving at high speeds over land, according to a new study:

This is the first time that the animals, which can weigh more than 2,000 kilograms (2.2 tons) and spend much of their time in water, have been found to lift all four limbs off the ground when moving quickly, according to a statement from the Royal Veterinary College (RVC) in the UK.

After analyzing videos showing 169 movement cycles from 32 hippos, researchers found that the fastest-moving animals spend around 15% of each stride off the ground.

John Hutchinson, study lead author and a professor of evolutionary biomechanics at the RVC, told CNN that very little was known about the way that hippos move on land.

"Hippos were a big missing part of the puzzle," he said. "They're really hard to study."

[...] The team also found that hippos almost exclusively trot – with two diagonal limbs moving in the same direction at the same time, and then the two other diagonal limbs – no matter what speed they are moving at, whereas other mammals such as horses switch from a walk to a trot to a gallop depending on their speed.

"Hippos are one of the very few four legged animals at all that just trot," said Hutchinson. "That was a pretty neat finding."

Journal Reference:
Hutchinson JR, Pringle EV. 2024. Footfall patterns and stride parameters of Common hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) on land. PeerJ 12:e17675 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.17675

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/court-ordered-penalties-for-15-teens-who-created-naked-ai-images-of-classmates/

A Spanish youth court has sentenced 15 minors to one year of probation after spreading AI-generated nude images of female classmates in two WhatsApp groups.

The minors were charged with 20 counts of creating child sex abuse images and 20 counts of offenses against their victims' moral integrity.

[...] Many of the victims were too ashamed to speak up when the inappropriate fake images began spreading last year. Prior to the sentencing, a mother of one of the victims told The Guardian that girls like her daughter "were completely terrified and had tremendous anxiety attacks because they were suffering this in silence."

[...]   Teens using AI to sexualize and harass classmates has become an alarming global trend. Police have probed disturbing cases in both high schools and middle schools in the US, and earlier this year, the European Union proposed expanding its definition of child sex abuse to more effectively "prosecute the production and dissemination of deepfakes and AI-generated material." Last year, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order urging lawmakers to pass more protections.

[...] In an op-ed for The Guardian today, journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley advocated for laws restricting sites used to both generate and surface deepfake pornography, including regulating this harmful content when it appears on social media sites and search engines.

[...] An FAQ said that "WhatsApp has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation and abuse, and we ban users when we become aware they are sharing content that exploits or endangers children," but it does not mention AI.

Previously on SoylentNews:
A High School's Deepfake Porn Scandal is Pushing US Lawmakers Into Action - 20231203
Cheer Mom Used Deepfake Nudes and Threats to Harass Daughter's Teammates, Police Say - 20210314

upstart writes:

Scientists in China say they have discovered that a type of moss would survive on Mars:

Syntrichia caninervis is type of moss usually found in remote and harsh environments on Earth, such an Antarctica or the Mojave desert in the US.

But now, scientists have discovered that it can survive Mars-like-conditions including drought, high levels of radiation and extreme cold.

The researches tested the moss under Martian conditions.

Including an atmosphere that was made from 95% of carbon dioxide gas, a temperature as low as -196°C, high ultra violet(UV) radiation from the Sun and low atmospheric pressure.

Researchers in China said the desert moss not only survived but rapidly recovered from almost complete loss of water.

[...] Scientists think the experiment with the moss is an encouraging step towards humans eventually growing plants on the Martian surface.

It's hoped that in the future the moss can be brought to the Moon or Mars to test its growth away from Earth.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

When their pay suddenly dropped, delivery drivers audited their employer:

In early 2020, gig workers for the app-based delivery company Shipt noticed something strange about their paychecks. The company, which had been acquired by Target in 2017 for US $550 million, offered same-day delivery from local stores. Those deliveries were made by Shipt workers, who shopped for the items and drove them to customers' doorsteps. Business was booming at the start of the pandemic, as the COVID-19 lockdowns kept people in their homes, and yet workers found that their paychecks had become...unpredictable. They were doing the same work they'd always done, yet their paychecks were often less than they expected. And they didn't know why.

On Facebook and Reddit, workers compared notes. Previously, they'd known what to expect from their pay because Shipt had a formula: It gave workers a base pay of $5 per delivery plus 7.5 percent of the total amount of the customer's order through the app. That formula allowed workers to look at order amounts and choose jobs that were worth their time. But Shipt had changed the payment rules without alerting workers. When the company finally issued a press release about the change, it revealed only that the new pay algorithm paid workers based on "effort," which included factors like the order amount, the estimated amount of time required for shopping, and the mileage driven.

The company claimed this new approach was fairer to workers and that it better matched the pay to the labor required for an order. Many workers, however, just saw their paychecks dwindling. And since Shipt didn't release detailed information about the algorithm, it was essentially a black box that the workers couldn't see inside.

The workers could have quietly accepted their fate, or sought employment elsewhere. Instead, they banded together, gathering data and forming partnerships with researchers and organizations to help them make sense of their pay data. [...]

[...] Companies whose business models rely on gig workers have an interest in keeping their algorithms opaque. This "information asymmetry" helps companies better control their workforces—they set the terms without divulging details, and workers' only choice is whether or not to accept those terms. The companies can, for example, vary pay structures from week to week, experimenting to find out, essentially, how little they can pay and still have workers accept the jobs. There's no technical reason why these algorithms need to be black boxes; the real reason is to maintain the power structure.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The president of the Economic Strategy Institute calls the Pentagon "lazy" in its request for a waiver.

Since 2019, the U.S. Department of Defense has been asking for a waiver from legislation barring it from doing business with companies reliant on telecommunications equipment manufactured by Huawei. With increased tensions between the U.S. and China and an ongoing chip war, that waiver may be harder to obtain. Still, Pentagon officials insist it would be impossible to lock Huawei out of all of the department’s operations.

The prohibition was signed into law as part of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act. Under Section 889 of that act, government agencies are barred from entering into or renewing contracts with any country or company that uses Huawei telecommunications equipment.

The problem is that Huawei is the largest telecom provider in the world. According to Fortune, the Chinese company accounts for nearly one-third of all telecommunications equipment revenue globally. Many nations cannot shy away from the Chinese firm. Huawei’s products are often much less expensive than competing ones, and gutting an entire telecoms network to switch manufacturers would be a costly undertaking.

[...] Not everyone agrees the Pentagon should get a pass on avoiding working with Huawei customers. Some say the Defense Department needs to work more quickly and assertively to freeze Huawei out of its operations. Clyde Prestowitz, president of the Economic Strategy Institute, went so far as to call the Defense Department lazy. He says the Pentagon should leverage the fact that “for companies in those areas, to have big business with the U.S. Department of the Defense is important.”

Pentagon officials insist that granting the waiver authority is essential. They say it would enable important resupply missions in various parts of the world and maintain national security. U.S. military personnel often depend on Huawei networks, whether they are special operators on missions in the Indo-Pacific region or senior officers representing the U.S. at international air shows.

Congress is currently debating the next iteration of the National Defense Authorization Act, scheduled to take effect in 2025. Some lawmakers acknowledge that the Pentagon’s waiver authority is needed but won’t say when or if it will be added to the act. As of this writing, no waiver has been included in the draft of the act. If not resolved, defense officials say national security could be jeopardized, not assured.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/30-years-later-freedos-is-still-keeping-the-dream-of-the-command-prompt-alive/

Two big things happened in the world of text-based disk operating systems in June 1994.

The first is that Microsoft released MS-DOS version 6.22, the last version of its long-running operating system that would be sold to consumers as a standalone product. MS-DOS would continue to evolve for a few years after this, but only as an increasingly invisible loading mechanism for Windows.

The second was that a developer named Jim Hall wrote a post announcing something called "PD-DOS."

PD-DOS would soon be renamed FreeDOS, and 30 years and many contributions later, it stands as the last MS-DOS-compatible operating system still under active development.

[...] To mark FreeDOS' 20th anniversary in 2014, we talked with Hall and other FreeDOS maintainers about its continued relevance, the legacy of DOS, and the developers' since-abandoned plans to add ambitious modern features like multitasking and built-in networking support (we also tried, earnestly but with mixed success, to do a modern day's work using only FreeDOS).

[...] For the 30th anniversary, we've checked in with Hall again about how the last decade or so has treated the FreeDOS project, why it's still important, and how it continues to draw new users into the fold. We also talked, strange as it might seem, about what the future might hold for this inherently backward-looking operating system.

[...] "Compared to about 10 years ago, I'd say the interest level in FreeDOS is about the same," Hall told Ars in an email interview. "Our developer community has remained about the same over that time, I think. And judging by the emails that people send me to ask questions, or the new folks I see asking questions on our freedos-user or freedos-devel email lists, or the people talking about FreeDOS on the Facebook group and other forums, I'd say there are still about the same number of people who are participating in the FreeDOS community in some way."

[...] Though it's still being downloaded and used, shifts in PC hardware are making it more difficult to install and run FreeDOS directly on a new PC.

[...] One issue is the UEFI firmware used to boot modern PCs. UEFI began replacing the traditional PC BIOS at the tail end of the 2000s, and today, it's the default mechanism used for booting Windows, macOS, and Linux, though Windows and Linux both technically can still boot on non-UEFI systems.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/congress-apparently-feels-a-need-for-reaffirmation-of-sls-rocket/

There is a curious section in the new congressional reauthorization bill for NASA that concerns the agency's large Space Launch System rocket.

The section is titled "Reaffirmation of the Space Launch System," and in it Congress asserts its commitment to a flight rate of twice per year for the rocket. The reauthorization legislation, which cleared a House committee on Wednesday, also said NASA should identify other customers for the rocket.

[...] Congress created the SLS rocket 14 years ago with the NASA Authorization Act of 2010. The large rocket kept a river of contracts flowing to large aerospace companies, including Boeing and Northrop Grumman, who had been operating the Space Shuttle. Congress then lavished tens of billions of dollars on the contractors over the years for development, often authorizing more money than NASA said it needed. Congressional support was unwavering, at least in part because the SLS program boasts that it has jobs in every state.

[...] With this legislation, then, Congress is asking NASA to find other customers for the rocket, be they from the private sector, US Department of Defense, or elsewhere. This is a bit like selling sand to a Bedouin, and NASA has already fought this losing fight in the past. The Department of Defense has said thanks but no thanks.

NASA also sought another "customer" in its Science Directorate, offering the SLS to launch the $4 billion Europa Clipper spacecraft on the SLS rocket. However, in 2021, the agency said it would use a Falcon Heavy provided by SpaceX. The agency's cost for this was $178 million, compared to the more than $2 billion it would have cost to use the SLS rocket for such a mission. Additionally, mission scientists had serious concerns about a "shaking" issue with the SLS rocket. This large vehicle is powered off the pad by two very large solid rocket boosters that produce significant vibrations.

[...] There can be little question that the SLS program and its contractors are feeling the heat as these commercial rockets come to the fore. New Glenn is likely to make its debut this year or early next and is pushing for first-stage reusability to lower costs. SpaceX has launched its experimental Starship vehicle four times since the debut of the SLS rocket and will probably launch it at least half a dozen more times before the next SLS launch. Whereas NASA's 'stretch' goal for SLS is to launch the rocket twice a year, SpaceX is working toward launching multiple Starships a day.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Boeing accepts guilty plea deal over 737 Max crashes:

Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge related to a pair of crashes of its 737 Max planes, as part of a plea deal with the US Department of Justice. Lawyers for the victims' families plan to object to the deal, which was forged on Sunday just before a midnight deadline and must still be approved by a federal judge.

The two crashes, which happened in 2018 and 2019, killed more than 300 people. The planes malfunctioned because of software that was intended to correct for a design flaw — and that software, called MCAS, relied on just a single external sensor for its data. However, when Boeing launched the 737 Max, it didn't tell the Federal Aviation Administration, airlines, or pilots about MCAS in order to skirt time-consuming safety regulations. When the two flights went down, the pilots were actively fighting against MCAS — and likely did not even know the software existed.

The agreement allows Boeing to avoid a trial after the Justice Department found the company had violated a former settlement that previously shielded it from prosecution. In 2021, Boeing entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ over the crashes and was fined $2.5 billion. Under the new deal, Boeing now faces up to $487.2 million in additional penalties, and has agreed to install an independent oversight monitor and spend at least $455 million to improve its compliance and safety programs. The company is also subject to court-supervised probation over the next three years, according to the court filing.

Boeing's board of directors has also agreed to a meeting with families of the crash victims as part of the agreement, which the families have criticized as a "sweetheart deal." Paul Cassell, a lawyer for victims' family members, is planning to object to the deal on their behalf, saying to The Washington Post that "through crafty lawyering between Boeing and DOJ, the deadly consequences of Boeing's crime are being hidden." Boeing previously agreed to pay the families $500 million.

"We are extremely disappointed that DOJ is moving forward with this wholly inadequate plea deal despite the families' strong opposition to its terms," said Erin Applebaum, who is also representing families of the crash victims, in a statement to Bloomberg. "While we're encouraged that Boeing will not be able to choose its own monitor, the deal is still nothing more than a slap on the wrist and will do nothing to effectuate meaningful change within the company."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Brazil’s data protection authority (ANPD) has banned Meta from training its artificial intelligence models on Brazilian personal data, citing the “risks of serious damage and difficulty to users.” The decision follows an update to Meta’s privacy policy in May in which the social media giant granted itself permission to use public Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram data from Brazil — including posts, images, and captions — for AI training.

The decision follows a report published by Human Rights Watch last month which found that LAION-5B — one of the largest image-caption datasets used to train AI models — contains personal, identifiable photos of Brazilian children, placing them at risk of deepfakes and other exploitation.

[...] Meta said in a statement to the AP that its updated policy “complies with privacy laws and regulations in Brazil,” and that the ruling is “a step backwards for innovation, competition in AI development and further delays bringing the benefits of AI to people in Brazil.” While Meta says users can opt out of having their data used to train AI, ANPD says there are “excessive and unjustified obstacles” in place that make it difficult to do so.

Meta received similar pushback from regulators in the EU causing the company to pause plans to train its AI models on European Facebook and Instagram posts. Meta’s updated data collection policies are already in effect in the US, however, which lacks comparable user privacy protections.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/07/middle-schoolers-lash-out-at-20-teachers-with-disturbing-fake-tiktok-accounts/

A bunch of eighth graders in a "wealthy Philadelphia suburb" recently targeted teachers with an extreme online harassment campaign that The New York Times reported was "the first known group TikTok attack of its kind by middle schoolers on their teachers in the United States."

According to The Times, the Great Valley Middle School students created at least 22 fake accounts impersonating about 20 teachers in offensive ways. The fake accounts portrayed long-time, dedicated teachers sharing "pedophilia innuendo, racist memes," and homophobic posts, as well as posts fabricating "sexual hookups among teachers."

[...] Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association—which is the largest US teachers' union—told The Times that teachers have never dealt with such harassment on this scale. Typically, The Times reported, students would target a single educator at a time. Pringle said teachers risk online harassment being increasingly normalized. That "could push educators to question" leaving the profession, Pringle said, at a time when the US Department of Education is already combating a teacher shortage.

[...] TikTok's community guidelines ban impersonation, except for "parody or fan-based" accounts. The platform provides paths within the app and on its website to report impersonation, requiring teachers to show ID to request a takedown.

TikTok's enforcement so far seems uneven. Some teachers told The Times that they reported fake accounts and never heard back from TikTok. Others said they were not comfortable sharing an ID with TikTok for privacy reasons and therefore never reported the fake accounts.

[...] The only accounts that seemed to be promptly removed were four fake accounts flagged by a reporter that TikTok confirmed were deleted. TikTok found that the majority of other accounts flagged were unavailable.

[...] Reporting the behavior to TikTok could result in the most serious consequences for fans of TikTok: a ban that could trigger bans on all their other TikTok accounts. But that only happens in "the case of severe violations of our rules or engagement in circumvention behavior," TikTok's community guidelines said. That suggests that the middle schoolers would have to continually create new accounts to evade bans before TikTok may cut off their access to the platform.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Samsung launches Galaxy smart ring to track sleep and periods:

Samsung becomes first tech giant to launch a smart ring.

Samsung is hoping to lure fitness and health-tracking technology lovers with its newest wearable device - the Galaxy Ring.

It launched the device at its Galaxy Unpacked event on Wednesday as the latest addition to its ecosystem of devices it says it is "supercharging" with artificial intelligence (AI).

Smart rings, which use tiny sensors to monitor various health metrics, have up to now been a niche product - though their recent use by the England men's football team made headlines.

It seems Samsung is attempting to change that, becoming the largest tech company yet to enter the smart ring market.

Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight, says the product choice is an "interesting bet" for Samsung, with his company estimating that there will be a total global market of around four million smart rings in 2025.

"That is a rounding error when compared with 250 million smartwatches that are also expected to be sold," he told the BBC.

But others suggest Samsung may help make smart rings more mainstream.

"For most consumers, the smart ring from Samsung will be the first contact they will have in the smart ring, and that top of mind awareness makes a huge difference in the long-term," says Francisco Jeronimo, analyst for market research firm IDC.

Arthur T Knackerbracket wrote the following story:

By University of Illinois Chicago July 9, 2024

Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago have debunked four myths about intermittent fasting: it does not lead to a poor diet, cause eating disorders, result in excessive loss of lean muscle mass, or affect sex hormones. These conclusions, based on clinical studies, confirm the safety of both alternate-day eating and time-restricted eating methods.

In a recent article, researchers from the University of Illinois Chicago have debunked four common misconceptions regarding the safety of intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting has become an increasingly popular way to lose weight without counting calories. And a large body of research has shown it’s safe. Still, several myths about fasting have gained traction among clinicians, journalists and the general public: that fasting can lead to a poor diet or loss of lean muscle mass, cause eating disorders, or decrease sex hormones.

In a new commentary in Nature Reviews Endocrinology, UIC researchers debunk each of these. They base their conclusions on clinical studies, some of which they conducted and some done by others.

“I’ve been studying intermittent fasting for 20 years, and I’m constantly asked if the diets are safe,” said lead author Krista Varady, professor of kinesiology and nutrition at UIC. “There is a lot of misinformation out there. However, those ideas are not based on science; they’re just based on personal opinion.”

quietus writes:

On August 8, Elon Musk is going to present his fully-autonomous, all-electric car. But on the other side of the Atlantic, somebody has pipped him to it.

That somebody is a real tech wunderkind, a 36-year old Bosnian/Croatian by the name of Mate Rimac.

During his high-school years, Mr. Rimac won local, national and international competitions for electronics and innovation. Then he got interested into racing, and, at the age of 18, bought the cheapest racing car he could find, a 1984 BMW E30 323i. After that car's gasoline engine exploded during a race, he decided to turn the car into an electric one.

That was 2006. He was laughed at and ridiculed for the idea alone, but by 2009 his car started winning races, while beating a couple of world FIA and Guinness records. That success encouraged him to try and start a company which built electrical cars, insisting that the company should be based in Croatia, which did not have a car industry to talk about. Fast forward some more episodes of ridicule, tethering on the edge of bankruptcy and so on, and that fledgling company has turned into the main provider for battery software and electrical powertrain systems to about half the car industry, world-wide: Porsche, Hyundai, Kia, Renault, Jaguar, Aston Martin, SEAT, Koenigsegg and Automobili Pininfarina are some of its customers.

Rimac didn't stop building cars though: supercar enthusiasts know him, and his partner in crime, designer Adriano Mudri, as the men behind the Rimac Nevera (which can be yours for a cool (estimated) $2.2 million), and the guys who, three years ago, took over Bugatti from Volkswagen, with the participation of Porsche.

And now Rimac Automobili has come out with the Rimac Verne (yes, yes, that Verne), a fully autonomous robotaxi. Rollout towards world domination starts in 2026 in Zagreb, Croatia, where you'll be able to order its taxis through an app, complete with the interior lighting and scent you want. What you will need, though, is a bit of trust: there will be no steering wheel or brakes present, which might turn into an advantage in case you want to get rid of your elderly mother-in-law for a while.