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Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2024/08/martin-shkreli-pisses-off-nft-collective-that-bought-his-not-so-unique-wu-tang-album/

The members of PleasrDAO are, well, pretty displeased with Martin Shkreli.

The "digital autonomous organization" spent $4.75 million to buy the fabled Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, which had only been produced as a single copy. The album had once belonged to Shkreli, who purchased it directly from Wu-Tang Clan for $2 million in 2015. But after Shkreli became the "pharma bro" poster boy for price gouging in the drug sector, he ended up in severe legal trouble and served a seven-year prison sentence for securities fraud.

He also had to pay a $7.4 million penalty in that case, and the government seized and then sold Once Upon a Time in Shaolin to help pay the bill.
[...]
In a complicated transaction, PleasrDAO purchased the album from an unnamed intermediary, who had first purchased it from the government. As part of that deal, PleasrDAO created a non-fungible token (NFT—remember those?) to show ownership of the album. The New York Times has a good description
[...]
But after purchasing the album and sharing the collective ownership of its NFT, PleasrDAO discovered that its "one of a kind" object wasn't quite as exclusive as it had thought.

Shkreli had, in fact, made copies of the music. Lots of copies. On June 30, 2022, PleasrDAO said that Shkreli played music from the album on his YouTube channel and stated, "Of course I made MP3 copies, they're like hidden in safes all around the world... I'm not stupid. I don't buy something for two million dollars just so I can keep one copy."
[...]
Shkreli claimed on a 2024 podcast that he had "burned the album and sent it to like, 50 different chicks"—and that this had been extremely good for his sex life.

Shkreli even offered to send copies of the album to random Internet commenters if they would just send him their "email addy." He also told people to "look out for a torrent" and hosted listening parties for the album on his X account, which reached "potentially over 4,900 listeners."
[...]
Shkreli's response to all this is, in essence, "so what's the problem?"

An Anonymous Coward writes:

How I Got a Truly Anonymous Signal Account

https://theintercept.com/2024/07/16/signal-app-privacy-phone-number/

The messaging app Signal is described by security professionals as utilizing the gold standard of cryptography. Unlike many competitors, its default is end-to-end encryption — and on top of that, the app minimizes the amount of information it stores about users. This makes it a powerful communication tool for those seeking a private and secure means of chatting, whether it's journalists and their sources, activists and human rights defenders, or just ordinary people who want to evade the rampant data-mining of Big Tech platforms.

Signal continues to introduce privacy-enhancing features such as usernames that can be used in lieu of phone numbers to chat with others — preventing others from finding you by searching for your phone number. But the app still requires users to provide a working phone number to be able to sign up in the first place.

For privacy-conscious individuals, this can be a problem.

In response to subpoena requests, Signal can reveal phone numbers. Relying on phone numbers has also led to security and account takeover incidents. Not to mention that the phone number requirement costs Signal more than $6 million annually to implement.

Signal insists on its site that phone numbers are a requirement for contact discovery and to stymie spam. (Signal did not respond to a request for comment). Other encrypted messaging platforms such as Session and Wire do not require phone numbers.

There are some ways around Signal's phone number policy that involve obtaining a secondary number, such as using temporary SIM cards, virtual eSIMs, or virtual numbers. But these approaches involve jumping through hoops to set up anonymous payment measures to procure the secondary numbers. And sometimes they don't work at all (that was my experience when I tried using a Google Voice number to sign up for Signal).

I wanted a way to get a Signal account without leaving any sort of payment trail — a free and anonymous alternative. And thus began my long and tedious journey of registering Signal with a pay phone.

upstart writes:

A First Look at PyScript: Python in the Web Browser – Real Python:

PyScript is a brand-new framework that caused a lot of excitement when Peter Wang, the CEO and co-founder of Anaconda, Inc., revealed it during his keynote speech at PyCon US 2022. Although this project is just an experiment in an early phase of development, people on social media seem to have already fallen in love with it. This tutorial will get you up to speed with PyScript, while the official documentation is still in the making.

[...] One of the goals of PyScript is to make the Web a friendly place for anyone wanting to learn to code, including kids. The framework achieves that goal by not requiring any installation or configuration process beyond your existing text editor and a browser. A side effect is that PyScript simplifies sharing your work with others.

[...] In other words, PyScript allows you to use Python, with or without JavaScript, to build interactive websites that don't necessarily have to communicate with a server. The main benefit here is that you can leverage your existing knowledge of Python to enter the world of front-end development, lowering the entry barrier and making it more accessible. But there are many other benefits of using PyScript that you'll learn about later.

On a slightly more technical level, PyScript is a single-page application (SPA) written in TypeScript using the Svelte framework, styled with Tailwind CSS, and bundled with rollup.js. According to one of the comments in an early Git commit, the project was based on a template mentioned in a blog post by Sascha Aeppli, which combines those tools.

PyScript wouldn't be possible without building on top of a recent version of Pyodide—a CPython interpreter compiled with emscripten to WebAssembly, enabling Python to run in the browser. PyScript provides a thin abstraction layer over Pyodide by encapsulating the required boilerplate code, which you'd otherwise have to type yourself using JavaScript.

See also:
    •Pyscript.net
    •GitHub: pyscript/pyscript:
    •Try PyScript: https://pyscript.com
    •Examples: https://tinyurl.com/pyscript-examples
    •Community: https://discord.gg/HxvBtukrg2

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A study of 12 species of highly migratory fish predators—including sharks, tuna, and billfish such as marlin and swordfish—finds that most of them will encounter widespread losses of suitable habitat and redistribution from current habitats in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean (NWA) and the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) by 2100. These areas are among the fastest-warming ocean regions and are projected to increase between 1-6°C (+1-10°F) by the end of the century, a sign of climate-driven changes in marine ecosystems.

In some cases, these iconic, and economically and ecologically important species, could lose upwards of 70% of suitable habitat by the end of the century, and in most cases, the impacts of these climate-induced changes are already observable.

“The ongoing and projected effects of climate change highlight the urgent need to adaptively and proactively manage dynamic marine ecosystems,” according to the study, “Widespread habitat loss and redistribution of marine top predators in a changing ocean,” published in the journal Science Advances.

[...] Scientists used three decades of satellite, oceanographic model, and in situ biological data to develop dynamic species distribution models to assess how climate change has already and will continue to impact the fish species in the NWA and GOM.

“Our research demonstrates that climate-driven changes are happening now, not from projections of climate change, but based on observed empirical data from the last two decades. So while our findings do point to larger species shifts in the near term, it also clarifies the substantial changes in species distributions that have already occurred,” said study co-author Rebecca Lewison. She is professor of biology and a conservation ecologist at the Coastal and Marine Institute at San Diego State University. She added that the research results “highlight the importance of using NASA and other satellite data to understand how a changing ocean is impacting commercially important marine species like swordfish and tunas.”

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The number of bit barns currently under construction has exploded in the wake of the AI boom, surging nearly 70 percent in North America's top markets over the past year to a record high of 3.87 gigawatts, according to a newly published CBRE report.

The fastest-growing regions include Atlanta, where the number of datacenter developments increased 76 percent year-over-year to roughly 1.3 gigawatts of capacity. Meanwhile, in Austin and San Antonio, Texas, the report clocked 463 megawatts of new capacity under development, more than quadruple that of the previous year.

This rapid expansion of compute resources, however, is being hampered by a shortage of power and extended lead times for critical electrical infrastructure necessary to bring these facilities online, resulting in delays.

When these facilities do come online, only about 20 percent of it will actually be up for grabs for you and I. Nearly 80 percent of the 3.87 gigawatts of new capacity has already been spoken for by the major hyperscalers, cloud providers, and rent-a-GPU operations.

Despite this, CBRE reports that DC capacity in major markets was up 10 percent in the first half of 2024, with 1.1 gigawatts having come online in the past year.

[...] Going forward, CBRE predicts secondary markets in Northern Indiana, Idaho, Arkansas, and Kansas will become hotspots for hyperscale expansion thanks to their abundance of cheap land and power.

Speaking of power, a shortage of transformers, switches, and generators is expected to continue to plague development timelines potentially by as much as four years. If that weren't enough, CBRE notes that if you need that capacity, customers should expect to prelease space between two and four years ahead of time.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

The National Security Agency (NSA) has digitized and published a 1982 lecture by Rear Admiral (then Captain) Grace Hopper entitled, "Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People. The lecture was recorded on a now obsolete medium for which the NSA did not have playback capabilities any more. It was necessary to reach out to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to be able to transfer the recording to a current medium so that the NSA could review the material and approve it for public release.

The lecture, "Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People," features Capt. Hopper discussing some of the potential future challenges of protecting information. She also provided valuable insight on leadership and her experiences breaking barriers in the fields of computer science and mathematics.

and

On August 26, 2024, the National Security Agency (NSA) released a digital copy of a videotaped lecture, "Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People" that Rear Adm. Grace Hopper gave to the NSA workforce on August 19, 1982. This lecture highlights technological foundational principles, valuable perspectives on leadership and shared experiences overcoming challenges in computer science and math. The legacy of Rear Adm. Grace Hopper continues to echo across the intelligence community to light the path for women in STEM.

The NSA has published via YouTube but has hopefully learned from the experience and has retained a local archival copy.

Previously:
(2023) Misconceptions Put Women Off STEM Subjects
(2018) A Female Engineer's Opinion On Why Fewer Women Go In To Tech
(2017) Women in STEM - Recruitment Efforts Counterproductive

Original Submission

Story: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=24/08/25/0733206

Pavel Durov will appear in a French court today where some sources expect him to be charged. A warrant has also been issued for the arrest of his brother, Nikolai. Both warrants were issued in March of this year.

Latest Comment: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=61880&page=1&cid=1370342#commentwrap

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Rich writes:

The Japanese semiconductor manufacturer Renesas has completed the acquisition of PCB Layout Software Maker Altium (https://www.powerelectronicsnews.com/renesas-acquires-altium-as-part-of-its-digitalization-strategy/). Renesas paid $5.9bn for Altium, which had a revenue of $263m in 2023. Along with the PCB software, Renesas now have control of component search website Octopart, which Altium acquired in 2017.

This acquisition is aimed at enhancing its capabilities in digital device design and supporting its digital transformation. This move propels Renesas to become a comprehensive solutions provider rather than just a chip vendor, strengthening its position in the competitive landscape.

The industry media fails to mention KiCad (http://www.kicad.org/), a free PCB software that has become an increasingly serious competition for Altium in recent years. What do Soylentils think about the reasons why Renesas spent such a premium over the core business size?

Original Submission

owl writes:

From the "everything is ruined by advertising" comes this gem: https://www.vodxs.com/

Now some fool's decided to mount advertising screens to the tops of washroom faucets, because, well, I guess you got nothing better to do while washing your hands than look at a stupid ad at the same time.

How long do you think these will last in the real world before the users break the screens so they no longer have to look at the stupid ads?

I cannot imagine these lasting long in many public places. Perhaps in an office building or somewhere similar but elsewhere I would imagine their life will be measured in days. They will have to be powered so now each faucet will have to be wired up - never a good idea where water is involved. So what is the financial incentive for the place where they will be installed. Will somebody else will be getting free advertising from something that the installer has had to pay for? Who pays for their running costs? Does the manufacturer pay for the installation and upkeep? If so, how do they see this making them money?

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

IBM joins a growing list of Western tech companies that have been pulling out or scaling back their presence in the Chinese market:

IBM is in the process of shutting down its research and development (R&D) departments in China, local media outlets say, becoming the latest American tech giant to scale back its presence in the increasingly restrictive China-based market.

The decision by the Armonk, New York-based tech service provider will affect its more than 1,000 employees across China, local staff told multiple Chinese media outlets, including Jiemian, a news site owned by a Shanghai municipal government.

[...] IBM was among the first significant Western companies to invest in the Chinese market in the 1980s, according to China's state media.

In January 2021, IBM quietly closed its China Research Laboratory, a Beijing-based R&D center that focused on quantum computing, big data analysis, and other cutting-edge technology.

[...] IBM joins a growing list of Western tech companies that have been pulling out or scaling back their presence in the Chinese market amid increasing regulatory pressures from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In response to the CCP's trade practices that have placed U.S. companies and workers at a competitive disadvantage, the Biden administration has significantly increased tariffs on imported electric vehicles, solar panels, and other imports hurting U.S. industries.

U.S. lawmakers are pushing the federal government to combat Beijing's other unfair trade practices, particularly the CCP's efforts to acquire American technological know-how. Through tactics including intellectual property theft and forced technology transfer, the CCP aims to leverage advanced technology to power its economy and advance its military.

Related:

• Yahoo Pulls Out of China Over "Challenging" Business Conditions
• Microsoft Will Shut Down LinkedIn in China

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Antarctica's unique ecosystems could be threatened by the arrival of non-native marine species and marine pollution from Southern Hemisphere landmasses, new oceanographic modeling shows.

In a study published today in Global Change Biology, scientists from UNSW Sydney, ANU, University of Otago and the University of South Florida suggest that floating objects can reach Antarctic waters from more sources than previously thought.

"An increasing abundance of plastics and other human made debris in the oceans means there are potentially more opportunities for biota to reach Antarctica," says lead author Dr. Hannah Dawson, who completed the study as part of her Ph.D. at UNSW, and is now based at the University of Tasmania.

Non-native species—including a range of small marine invertebrates—can reach Antarctica by catching a ride on floating objects like kelp, driftwood, pumice, and plastic. Previously, scientists thought these species only drifted from remote and unpopulated islands in the Southern Ocean. However, this new research suggests they can reach the Antarctic coastline from all southern continents.

"We knew that kelp could raft to Antarctica from sub-Antarctic islands, such as Macquarie and Kerguelen Islands, but our study suggests that floating objects can reach Antarctica from much further north, including South America, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa," says Dr. Dawson.

Co-author Professor Crid Fraser from the University of Otago says that kelp could deal a potential double whammy blow to Antarctica's marine ecosystem.

"Southern bull kelp and giant kelp are very big—often more than 10 m long—and create forest-like habitat for a lot of small animals, which they can carry with them on the long rafting trips to Antarctica," she says. "If they colonize Antarctica, marine ecosystems there could change dramatically."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The guide price is $40,000 - $60,000; you will need a large spare room.

A transformative transistorized milestone in the history of computing could be yours, as an IBM 7090 Mainframe computer system has gone up for auction at Christie’s. Before the arrival of the IBM 7090, commercially available computers relied on valves rather than transistors, and this machine is said to have delivered a remarkable speed, efficiency, and reliability boost compared to its predecessor due to embracing the newest solid-state technology.

This auction lot is an extensive collection of IBM tech gear, cutting edge in 1959, and you would need a sizeable spare room or garage to house it all. Christie’s says the hardware on auction is from the Paul G. Allen (Microsoft co-founder) Collection, and he acquired it in 2017 from a ‘Weapons Research Establishment’ in South Australia. The mainframe is currently in Seattle, and the guide price is $40,000 - $60,000, with 19 days left of the auction period. Purchasing an IBM 7070 new, back in the 1950s, was a much bigger investment, at $813,000.

Despite the move away from vacuum tube technology, the IBM 7070 was still a hulking beast. Capable of processing about 229,000 instructions per second, the machine used approximately 14,000 Standard Modular System cards. These cards housed about 30,000 alloy-junction germanium transistors and 22,000 germanium diodes. Due to this bulk, an IBM 7070 system weighs over 23,000 pounds (10,430kg).

The mainframe system being sold by Christie’s includes many functional equipment and peripherals for the IBM 7070 user. According to the listing, the lucky auction winner will also end up owning:

• 1x IBM 7151 console control unit with IBM 7155 switch control console attached to side
• 1x IBM 711 card reader
• 2x IBM 7617 Data Channel Consoles
• 1x IBM 7608 power converter
• 13x IBM 729 magnetic tape units
• 1x IBM 1401 mainframe computer
• 1x IBM 7302 core storage
• 1x IBM 7606 multiplexer
• 1x IBM 7108 instruction processing unit
• 1x IBM 7109 arithmetic sequence unit
• 1x IBM 7607 I data channel
• 1x IBM 7607 II data channel
• 1x IBM 7618 power control
• 1x IBM 1403 printer
• 1x IBM 1402 card read punch
• 1x IBM 716 printer

upstart writes:

According to the Dutch data watchdog, Uber has violated the GDPR:

The Dutch data protection authority (DPA) has hit Uber with a €290mn fine for transferring personal European driver data to the US.

According to the DPA, the transfers constituted a "serious violation" of the EU's GDPR, as they failed to provide the necessary safeguards for data storage outside the block.

Following an investigation, the DPA found that, between August 2021 and November 2023, Uber was transferring and storing sensitive data to US servers without the additional protection tools required by the GDPR.

The data included taxi licences, account and payment details, IDs, photos, and even criminal or medical records.

[...] The investigation was prompted by a complaint from over 170 French drivers to local human rights organisation Ligue des droits de l'Homme (LDH). LDH then filed a complaint to France's data protection watchdog CNIL.

According to the GDPR, companies processing data across the EU must answer to a single privacy authority, located in the country where a business has its European headquarters. As Uber's base is in the Netherlands, the DPA led the probe.

The DPA said that Uber has now stopped the practice. It's also going to appeal the decision.

This is the third fine the Dutch watchdog imposes on Uber. In 2018, the DPA hit the company with €600,000 for failing to notify the agency on time over a data breach in 2016. And as of January this year, Uber is also facing a €10mn fine (again) for violating privacy rules, which it has appealed.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy revealed in a LinkedIn post on August 22 that the company was able to integrate Amazon Q, its generative AI assistant, into its internal systems to update its foundational software.

The result has been a "game changer," Jassy said.

"The average time to upgrade an application to Java 17 plummeted from what's typically 50 developer-days to just a few hours," he wrote. "We estimate this has saved us the equivalent of 4500 developer-years of work (yes, that number is crazy but, real)."

The AI is not only fast but seems pretty accurate, too, according to his post. Amazon developers shipped 79% of the AI-generated code reviews without any additional changes, Jassy wrote.

Business Insider India

[Also Covered By]: MSN Money

What do you make of this story ? Do you believe that this has more substance than hype ??

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Using bacteria to take a bite out of plastic pollution is not new. But can the same microbes be used as a food source?

In 2019, an agency within the U.S. Department of Defense released a call for research projects to help the military deal with the copious amount of plastic waste generated when troops are sent to work in remote locations or disaster zones. The agency wanted a system that could convert food wrappers and water bottles, among other things, into usable products, such as fuel and rations. The system needed to be small enough to fit in a Humvee and capable of running on little energy. It also needed to harness the power of plastic-eating microbes.

“When we started this project four years ago, the ideas were there. And in theory, it made sense,” said Stephen Techtmann, a microbiologist at Michigan Technological University, who leads one of the three research groups receiving funding. Nevertheless, he said, in the beginning, the effort “felt a lot more science-fiction than really something that would work.”

That uncertainty was key. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, supports high-risk, high-reward projects. This means there’s a good chance that any individual effort will end in failure. But when a project does succeed, it has the potential to be a true scientific breakthrough. “Our goal is to go from disbelief, like, ‘You're kidding me. You want to do what?’ to ‘You know, that might be actually feasible,’” said Leonard Tender, a program manager at DARPA who is overseeing the plastic waste projects.

[...] For years, scientists have also been experimenting with various species of plastic-eating bacteria. But DARPA is taking a slightly different approach in seeking a compact and mobile solution that uses plastic to create something else entirely: food for humans.

The goal, Techtmann hastens to add, is not to feed people plastic. Rather, the hope is that the plastic-devouring microbes in his system will themselves prove fit for human consumption. While Techtmann believes most of the project will be ready in a year or two, it’s this food step that could take longer. His team is currently doing toxicity testing, and then they will submit their results to the Food and Drug Administration for review. Even if all that goes smoothly, an additional challenge awaits. There’s an ick factor, said Techtmann, “that I think would have to be overcome.”