SoylentNews

upstart writes:

Expletives fly as admins deal with recommendation to move to Power Automate workflows:

Microsoft has thrown some enterprises into a spin after confirming that, with only a few months' notice, Office 365 connectors within Teams will be cut.

The connectors and webhooks are used to plumb workflows into a Teams channel. For example, users might use them to post an update into a chat stream. This means you can read content and service updates directly in a Teams channel that originated from something like a ticketing platform or a notification from a CI/CD system.

This is the sort of glue that enterprises depend on to make different systems communicate. Or at least it was. From August 15, 2024, Microsoft will block all Connector creation within all clouds. From October 1, 2024, all connectors within all clouds will stop working.

Microsoft has been a little vague on exactly why it is doing this. Its recommendation is for users to switch to Power Automate workflows to "ensure that your integrations are built on an architecture that can grow with your business needs and provide maximum security of your information."

[...] Users have been less than impressed by the news. Comments to the company's post have passed the 100 mark and are generally negative, with some describing the plans as "a greedy cash grab" and others reacting with bewilderment at Microsoft's decision:

[...] Register readers have also been in touch to share the impact the change is having on them. One, who uses RSS feeds and webhooks to send CI/CD notifications to channels, agreed with comments that the change was a "PITA with no benefit to the customer" and noted that the precious few months of notice given wasn't very long.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Aggressive scratching is a stress response; small children are a common source of stress:

Ah, cats. We love our furry feline overlords despite the occasional hairball and their propensity to scratch the furniture to sharpen their claws. The latter is perfectly natural kitty behavior, but overly aggressive scratching is usually perceived as a behavioral problem. Veterinarians frown on taking extreme measures like declawing or even euthanizing such "problematic" cats. But there are alternative science-backed strategies for reducing or redirecting the scratching behavior, according to the authors of a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

This latest study builds on the group's prior research investigating the effects of synthetic feline facial pheromones on undesirable scratching in cats, according to co-author Yasemin Salgirli Demirbas, a veterinary researcher at Ankara University in Turkey. "From the beginning, our research team agreed that it was essential to explore broader factors that might exacerbate this issue, such as those influencing stress and, consequently, scratching behavior in cats," she told Ars. "What's new in this study is our focus on the individual, environmental, and social dynamics affecting the level of scratching behavior. This perspective aims to enhance our understanding of how human and animal welfare are interconnected in different scenarios."

[...] The team concluded that there are several factors that influence the scratching behavior of cats, including environmental factors, high levels of certain kinds of play, and increased nocturnal activity. But stress seems to be the leading driver. "Cats might scratch more as a way to relieve stress or mark their territory, especially if they feel threatened or insecure," said Demirbas. And the top source of such stress, the study found, is the presence of small children in the home.

"The presence of children can definitely influence a cat's stress levels, but it is a complex situation," said Demirbas. "Children, especially when young, tend to move quickly and unpredictably, which can be challenging for cats. Their loud noises and sudden movements can be distressing for cats. Additionally, children might not always understand how to approach cats properly. Rough handling, in particular, can make cats feel threatened and stressed. Another factor is that children can invade the cat's safe spaces, playing or resting in areas the cat considers its own core territories."

Japan Deploys Humanoid Robot for Railway Maintenance

upstart writes:

Japan deploys humanoid robot for railway maintenance:

It resembles a malevolent robot from 1980s sci-fi but West Japan Railway's new humanoid employee was designed with nothing more sinister than a spot of painting and gardening in mind.

Starting this month, the machine with a crude head and coke-bottle eyes mounted on a truck -- which can drive on rails -- will be put to use for maintenance work on the firm's network.

Its operator sits in a cockpit on the truck, "seeing" through the robot's eyes via cameras and operating its powerful limbs and hands remotely. With a vertical reach of 12 metres (40 feet), the machine can use various attachments for its arms to carry objects as heavy as 40 kilograms (88 pounds), hold a brush to paint or use a chainsaw.

[...] The technology will help fill worker shortages in ageing Japan as well as reduce accidents such as workers falling from high places or suffering electric shocks, the company says. "In the future, we hope to use machines for all kinds of maintenance operations of our infrastructure," and this should provide a case study for how to deal with the labour shortage, company president Kazuaki Hasegawa told a recent press conference.

JR West to Introduce Humanoid Robot for Railroad Maintenance; Looking to Expand its Use in Japan

upstart writes:

JR West to Introduce Humanoid Robot for Railroad Maintenance; Looking to Expand its Use in Japan:

West Japan Railway Co. (JR West) will introduce a humanoid robot to handle maintenance work, such as painting emplacements along railroad tracks and cutting down fallen trees.

JR West said Thursday that it plans to put the robot into operation in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area in July.

The railroad expects to make improvements in labor and safety by using the robot to perform dangerous and laborious work at elevated positions.

Mounted on a construction vehicle, the robot will be able to work at heights of up to 12 meters with its two arms.

[...] The weight and feel of objects gripped by the robot are transmitted to the control lever, "allowing operators to move the robot as if they were doing the work themselves," JR West President Kazuaki Hasegawa said.

With the introduction of the robot, the manpower required for the work will be reduced by around 30%, according to the firm. JR West will consider expanding the number of units in use and marketing them to other companies while verifying the effectiveness of the robot.

Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

upstart writes:

Trojanized jQuery Packages Found on npm, GitHub, and jsDelivr Code Repositories:

Unknown threat actors have been found propagating trojanized versions of jQuery on npm, GitHub, and jsDelivr in what appears to be an instance of a "complex and persistent" supply chain attack.

"This attack stands out due to the high variability across packages," Phylum said in an analysis published last week.

"The attacker has cleverly hidden the malware in the seldom-used 'end' function of jQuery, which is internally called by the more popular 'fadeTo' function from its animation utilities."

[...] The malicious changes, per Phylum, have been introduced in a function named "end," allowing the threat actor to exfiltrate website form data to a remote URL.

Further investigation has found the trojanized jQuery file to be hosted on a GitHub repository associated with an account called "indexsc." Also present in the same repository are JavaScript files containing a script pointing to the modified version of the library.

"It's worth noting that jsDelivr constructs these GitHub URLs automatically without needing to upload anything to the CDN explicitly," Phylum said.

"This is likely an attempt by the attacker to make the source look more legitimate or to sneak through firewalls by using jsDelivr instead of loading the code directly from GitHub itself."

The development comes as Datadog identified a series of packages on the Python Package Index (PyPI) repository with capabilities to download a second-stage binary from an attacker-controlled server depending on the CPU architecture.

See also:

• How npm install scripts can be weaponized: A real-world example of a harmful npm package
• Why NPM and Yarn f*cking suck | HackerNoon

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/07/immensely-disappointing-nike-killing-app-for-350-self-tying-sneakers/

In 2019, Nike got closer than ever to its dreams of popularizing self-tying sneakers by releasing the Adapt BB. Using Bluetooth, the sneakers paired to the Adapt app that let users do things like tighten or loosen the shoes' laces and control its LED lights. However, Nike has announced that it's "retiring" the app on August 6, when it will no longer be downloadable from Apple's App Store or the Google Play Store; nor will it be updated.

In an announcement recently spotted by The Verge, Nike's brief explanation for discontinuing the app is that Nike "is no longer creating new versions of Adapt shoes." The company started informing owners about the app's retirement about four months ago.
[...]
Adapt BB owners have shared disappointment after learning the news. One Reddit user who claimed to own multiple pairs of the shoes called the news "hyper bullshit," while another described it as "immensely disappointing."

Some hope that Nike will open-source the app so that customers can maintain their shoes' original and full functionality. But Nike hasn't shared any plans to do so. Ars Technica asked the company about this but didn't hear back ahead of press time.
[...]
Some may be unsurprised that Nike's attempt at commercializing the shoes from Back to the Future Part II has run into a wall. Nike, for instance, also discontinued NikeConnect, its app for $200 NBA jerseys announced in 2017 that turned wearers into marketing gold.

Casual sneaker wearers would overlook the Adapt BB's flashy features, but the shoe had inherent flaws that could frustrate sneaker fanatics, too. It didn't take long, for example, for a recommended software update to break the shoes, including making them unwearable to anyone who wanted to tighten the laces (at the time, Nike said the problem affected a small number of owners).

Original Submission

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