SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Beijing has published its proposed regulations for satellite broadband, including a requirement that operators conduct censorship in real time.

In its latest draft rules, the Cyberspace Administration of China proposes any organization or individual using terminal equipment with direct connection to satellite services is not allowed to "produce, copy, publish, or disseminate content prohibited by laws and administrative regulations, such as content that incites subversion of state power, overthrows the socialist system, endangers national security and interests, damages the national image, incites secession of the country, undermines national unity and social stability, promotes terrorism, extremism, ethnic hatred, ethnic discrimination, violence, pornography, and false information."

It clarifies that terminal equipment includes civilian handheld, portable, and fixed terminals, as well as terminals installed on aircraft, ships, and vehicles – essentially any device that enables users to access satellite communication systems for voice calls, text messaging, and data exchange.

The document states that providers must align their operations with national security and network security requirements, and prevent illegal activities.

This includes complying with China's cyber security, data security, and personal information protection laws – plus potentially being responsible for users' activities.

"If a terminal equipment direct satellite service provider finds that a user has published or transmitted information prohibited by laws and regulations, it shall immediately stop the transmission, take measures such as elimination in accordance with the law, preserve relevant records, and report to the relevant competent authorities," stipulates the CAC.

The draft rules further include articles that would make tracking of providers and users easier. This includes requiring providers to:

• Obtain licenses and approvals, whether telco, radio frequency related or otherwise;
• Collect real identity information from those using its services, as China already requires of telcos;
• Integrate monitoring and supervision into their platforms to allow Beijing's oversight;
• Locate ground facilities – such as gateway stations and Earth stations – and user data on Chinese soil. Any data that does need to go overseas must be processed through a gateway approved by the telecommunications regulatory department of the State Council.

The rules even go so far as to require anyone who uses satellite broadband to publish news – or distribute video and audio content – to obtain a license.

YouTube Blocks Videos From Adele, Green Day, Bob Dylan, Others in Dispute With SESAC

upstart writes:

YouTube blocks videos from Adele, Green Day, Bob Dylan, others in dispute with SESAC:

A number of YouTube videos featuring music from artists such as Adele, Green Day, Bob Dylan, Nirvana, and R.E.M. have been unplayable in the United States since Saturday.

For example, if you try to play Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" (whether it's the classic album recording or a live performance), you are instead told: "This video contains content from SESAC. It is not available in your country." Sometimes, you even get to watch a pre-roll ad before you see the message.

However, not all videos featuring these artists are blocked; it's not clear whether the playable videos are exempt from the current dispute or if they've simply been overlooked.

In statements to the press and on social media, YouTube blamed the situation on failed negotiations with SESAC, a performing rights group that says it represents more than 35,000 music artists and publishers.

"Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, we were unable to reach an equitable agreement before its expiration," YouTube said. "We take copyright very seriously and as a result, content represented by SESAC is no longer available on YouTube in the US. We are in active conversations with SESAC and are hoping to reach a new deal as soon as possible."

The situation echoes a dispute between Universal Music Group and TikTok earlier this year, which saw UMG pull songs by artists including Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande from the short-form video platform while it was negotiating over royalties.

Unlike UMG, SESAC isn't a record label, but rather an organization that collects royalties for songwriters and publishers, similar to ASCAP and BMI. In addition to the artists mentioned above, it also represents Burna Boy, George Clinton, Kenny Rogers, Kings of Leon, and many others.

Youtube Blocks Nirvana, Green Day, Adele And More Amidst U.S. Licensing Dispute

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Music lovers are having a turbulent time online right now. Not only did Spotify suffer an outage on Sunday (though it was quickly fixed), YouTube has also suddenly stopped serving many popular tunes. Unfortunately, it seems as though this issue won't be rectified as easily.

YouTube users in the U.S. received an unwelcome surprise this weekend, with the video streaming platform suddenly blocking a significant swathe of music. Numerous videos are now unavailable, replaced by a black screen and dour notification where they had previously been readily accessible.

"This video contains content from SESAC," reads YouTube's notice. "It is not available in your country."

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The value of X (formerly Twitter) continues to circle the toilet at an impressive rate.

The social media platform is now worth 79 percent less than what it was worth when Elon Musk purchased it, according to analysis by investor Fidelity.

The financial platform should know what it's talking about, too, because it helped Musk acquire X back in 2022 and owns a stake in the company. Fidelity's initial investment, per TechCrunch, was $19.66 million. Fidelity's latest financial report, meanwhile, lists the value of its X stake as $4,185,614.

That's a yikes-inducing decrease of around 79 percent.

In fairness, the writing has been on the wall for a while. In January 2024 Fidelity already valued its stake in X at 71.5 percent less, and recent documents made it clear just how much X's revenue has plummeted. Meanwhile, a new report has suggested that advertisers — who were already fleeing Musk's platform en masse — are planning to spend even less on X in 2025.

Elsewhere Brazil is battling the platform, and the number of X users in the U.S. and the UK is decreasing.

Not looking great, is it?

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Several sites, including OS Technix, are reporting that Arch will be collaborating with Valve. A heavily modified in-house Arch distro is used by Valve for SteamOS.

In an exciting development for the Linux community, Arch Linux has announced a new partnership with Valve, the company behind the Steam gaming platform and Steam Deck. This collaboration will see Valve financially support two major projects for Arch Linux: an improved build service infrastructure and a secure signing enclave.

[...] By providing freelance backing, Valve's support allows Arch Linux to work on these critical projects without being hindered by limitations in volunteer time. This will significantly accelerate progress and enable the Arch Linux team to tackle ambitious endeavours that would have otherwise taken much longer.

The collaboration will lead to the development of a robust build service infrastructure. This infrastructure will involve servers for building software, potentially similar to continuous integration systems. The system will likely manage compiling and distributing software, simplifying the process and reducing the need for custom setups for different devices.

The introduction of a secure signing enclave marks a significant advancement in security for Arch Linux. This enclave will leverage code signing to provide a higher level of assurance that packages downloaded from the official repositories haven't been tampered with. Users will be able to cryptographically verify the origin and integrity of software packages, making it much harder for malicious actors to distribute compromised software.

There is speculation that Valve might publicly release SteamOS in the future or that native support for games on GNU/Linux will improve greatly.

Previously:
(2021) Valve's Upcoming Steam Deck Will be Based on Arch Linux--Not Debian
(2015) Steam Now Has 1500 Linux-Compatible Game Titles
(2015) Valve's SteamOS Dreams Beginning to Look Like Reality

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Last week, the House approved a resolution to block the Biden administration's emissions rule that would require more than half of the automobiles sold in the new-car market to be electric by 2032. The 215 representatives who voted for the bill, including eight Democrats, are far more in tune with most of the country than the White House:

Nationwide, the inventory of unsold EVs had grown by nearly 350% over the first half of 2024, creating "a 92-day supply — roughly three months' worth of EVs, and nearly twice the industry average," says Axios, which is 54 days for gasoline-powered vehicles.

Ford, which lost nearly $73,000 on each EV it sold in the second quarter of 2023, continues to yield to reality, now ditching its plans to build a large electric SUV. This "course change," says Just the News, "comes amid lower-than-expected demand for electric vehicles."

[...] "Based on where the market is and where the customer is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions," said John Lawler, Ford's chief financial officer.

[...] "Of the U.S. consumers planning on purchasing a new vehicle in the next 24 months, only 34% intend to purchase an EV, down 14% from 48% in the 2023," says Ernst & Young's Mobility Consumer Index, "a global survey of almost 20,000 consumers from 28 countries."

The story is much the same in Britain. EVs "are losing value at an 'unsustainable' rate as a slowdown in consumer demand sends used car prices tumbling," the Telegraph reported last week. Meanwhile in France, "the EU's second largest market for battery electric vehicles behind Germany," deliveries have fallen by a third.

Germans are likewise losing interest, as the country has "suffered a 'spectacular' drop in electric car sales as the European Union faces growing calls to delay its net zero vehicle targets," the Telegraph said in a separate story.

Related:

• Stellantis Lays Off Thousands of Workers after Pocketing Hundreds of Millions in EV Subsidies
• VW Turns on Germany as China Targets Europe's EV Blunders
• South Korean EV Battery Makers Reporting Big Losses as EV Demand Slows
• Tesla Lays Off 'More Than 10%' of its Global Workforce
• Why are All the EVs so Expensive?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

There are few bigger names in the world of motorcycles than Harley-Davidson. The brand has been churning out two-wheeled classics left and right for over a century, cultivating a fanbase like no other. Along the way, Harley-Davidson has seen some incredibly important moments in its company history arise, in addition to plenty that have fallen by the wayside. Seeing as it's rarely talked about in the modern era, it's no stretch to say that one of these overlooked points on the Harley timeline is the brand's brief foray into lawn mower technology.

Yes, as it was making its name as one of the United States' foremost motorcycle manufacturers, Harley-Davidson took a detour into landscaping territory. Way back in 1929, the company began providing single cylinder side-valve engines for the Worthington Mower Company's Overgreen lawn mowers. These massive mowers were used commercially to cut large swaths of grass like golf courses. Harley's engines powered them throughout the Great Depression, though the motorcycle giant didn't stick with lawn mowers for the long haul. Thus, it was never destined to sit alongside the best and worst major lawn mower brands.

It has been nearly 100 years since Harley-Davidson's Worthington collaboration came and went, yet some folks are still keen on trying to power their mowers with the bike favorite's technology.

With modern perceptions of Harley-Davidson as strictly a motorcycle brand, the idea of it contributing to the Worthington Mower Company's Overgreen lawn mowers sounds absurd. After all, throughout its century-long history, it has only branched out to create non-motorcycle products a few times. For instance, it created the LR-64 drone rocket engine for the U.S. military, and took a dip in the marine technology pool with its purchase of the Tomahawk Boating Company in 1961. Still, this hasn't prevented some folks from trying to bring its modern tech to back to the realm of landscaping.

Over on YouTube, Specialised Motorcycle Transport showcased what a modern lawn mower could look like with a Harley engine inside. It looks like a conventional riding mower with some unique aesthetic touches, but sounds just like motorcycle and is designed to get the speed of one too. This contraption was constructed for racing purposes rather than lawn maintenance. MrOildale on YouTube featured a similar piece on their channel. This orange riding mower — dubbed the "mower cycle" — came equipped with a 1,500cc Harley engine, certainly making it better suited for the racetrack than for cutting grass. It more than likely can't outrun the fastest Harley-Davidson motorcycles ever built, but it'll leave most average riding mowers out there in the dust.

Odds are Harley-Davidson's efforts in terms of lawn mowing are long over, but so long as mechanics can make its engines compatible with the latest riding mowers, chances are its legacy in the space will endure well into the future.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In an earlier article, I discussed a few of the flaws in Europe’s flagship data privacy law, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Building on that critique, I would now like to go further, proposing specifications for developing a robust privacy protection regime in the US.

Writers must overcome several hurdles to have a chance at persuading readers about possible flaws in the GDPR. First, some readers are skeptical of any piece criticizing the GDPR because they believe the law is still too young to evaluate. Second, some are suspicious of any piece criticizing the GDPR because they suspect that the authors might be covert supporters of Big Tech’s anti-GDPR agenda. (I can assure readers that I am not, nor have I ever, worked to support any agenda of Big Tech companies.)

In this piece, I will highlight the price of ignoring the GDPR. Then, I will present several conceptual flaws of the GDPR that have been acknowledged by one of the lead architects of the law. Next, I will propose certain characteristics and design requirements that countries like the United States should consider when developing a privacy protection law. Lastly, I provide a few reasons why everyone should care about this project.

People sometimes assume that the GDPR is mostly a “bureaucratic headache”—but this perspective is no longer valid. Consider the following actions by administrators of the GDPR in different countries.

In other words, the GDPR is not merely a bureaucratic matter; it can trigger hefty, unexpected fines. The notion that the GDPR can be ignored is a fatal error.

Axel Voss is one of the lead architects of the GDPR. He is a member of the European Parliament and authored the 2011 initiative report titled “Comprehensive Approach to Personal Data Protection in the EU” when he was the European Parliament's rapporteur. His call for action resulted in the development of the GDPR legislation. After observing the unfulfilled promises of the GDPR, Voss wrote a position paper highlighting the law's weaknesses. I want to mention nine of the flaws that Voss described.

First, while the GDPR was excellent in theory and pointed a path toward the improvement of standards for data protection, it is an overly bureaucratic law created largely using a top-down approach by EU bureaucrats.

Second, the law is based on the premise that data protection should be a fundamental right of EU persons. Hence, the stipulations are absolute and one-sided or laser-focused only on protecting the "fundamental rights and freedoms" of natural persons. In making this change, the GDPR architects have transferred the relationship between the state and the citizen and applied it to the relationship between citizens and companies and the relationship between companies and their peers. This construction is one reason why the obligations imposed on data controllers and processors are rigid.

Third, the GDPR law aims to empower the data subjects by giving them rights and enshrining these rights into law. Specifically, the law enshrines nine data subject rights into law. They are: the right to be informed, the right to access, the right to rectification, the right to be forgotten/or to erasure, the right to data portability, the right to restrict processing, the right to object to the processing of personal data, the right to object to automated processing and the right to withdraw consent. As with any list, there is always a concern that some rights may be missing. If critical rights are omitted from the GDPR, it would hinder the effectiveness of the law in protecting privacy and data protection. Specifically, in the case of the GDPR, the protected data subject rights are not exhaustive.

Fourth, the GDPR is grounded on a prohibition and limitation approach to data protection. For example, the principle of purpose limitation excludes chance discoveries in science. This ignores the reality that current technologies, e.g., machine learning and artificial Intelligence applications, function differently. Hence, these old data protection mindsets, such as data minimization and storage limitation, are not workable anymore.

SpaceX Launches Mission to Bring Boeing Starliner Crew Home

upstart writes:

SpaceX launched its mission tasked with bringing back two Boeing Starliner astronauts from the International Space Station:

SpaceX Dragon spacecraft lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1:17 p.m., according to NASA. It will take the Crew-9 mission 28.5 hours to dock at the ISS.

SpaceX's Crew Dragon left Earth with two empty seats for astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been docked at the ISS since June. The pair was the first to perform Boeing's first crewed mission to space.

[...] NASA said the Crew-9 mission has safely reached orbit and the nosecone has opened.

SpaceX Launches Rescue Mission for NASA Astronauts Stuck in Space Until Next Year

upstart writes:

SpaceX launches rescue mission for NASA astronauts stuck in space until next year:

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX launched a rescue mission for the two stuck astronauts at the International Space Station on Saturday, sending up a downsized crew to bring them home but not until next year.

[...] Since NASA rotates space station crews approximately every six months, this newly launched flight with two empty seats reserved for Wilmore and Williams won't return until late February. Officials said there wasn't a way to bring them back earlier on SpaceX without interrupting other scheduled missions.

By the time they return, the pair will have logged more than eight months in space. They expected to be gone just a week when they signed up for Boeing's first astronaut flight that launched in June.

[...] Williams has since been promoted to commander of the space station, which will soon be back to its normal population of seven. Once Hague and Gorbunov arrive this weekend, four astronauts living there since March can leave in their own SpaceX capsule. Their homecoming was delayed a month by Starliner's turmoil.

Hague noted before the flight that change is the one constant in human spaceflight.

"There's always something that is changing. Maybe this time it's been a little more visible to the public," he said.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As expected, Winamp's source code has been publicly released on GitHub. The Winamp for Windows project, as it's officially called by Llama Group, will receive a few updates per year, adding new features and ensuring proper security practices. Just don't get your hopes up about creating alternative projects from this "freely" available code.

Llama Group is looking to the GitHub community for help in developing new capabilities and maintaining (or even modernizing) a codebase that dates back several decades. Originally introduced in 1997, Winamp has long been praised for its flexibility and broad compatibility with various audio formats.

[...] Winamp's source code is now freely available, but the license it was released under has sparked controversy. The Winamp Collaborative License imposes significant restrictions on what people can do with the code, including a ban on releasing modified third-party modified versions. The license explicitly states that no public forks are permitted, and only the maintainers of the official repository are allowed to release the software or any new (approved) modifications.

Llama Group appears eager to benefit from community contributions to Winamp, but the software itself cannot be repurposed to create something new. Despite the legal threat, developers are undeterred, with hundreds of "unofficial" forks of Winamp's source code already surfacing online. As time goes on, this trend is only expected to grow.

Legal concerns aside, it seems clear that Llama Group no longer wants the full responsibility of maintaining the still-popular PC media player. The company has shifted its focus to different business ventures, including cloud-based products that leverage the "Winamp" brand to capitalize on music creators and streaming services.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A six-year investigation into the vast Thwaites glacier in Antarctica has concluded with a grim outlook on its future.

Often dubbed the “doomsday glacier”, this huge mass of ice is comparable in size to Britain or Florida and its collapse alone would raise sea levels by 65 centimetres. Worse still, this is expected to trigger a more widespread loss of the ice sheet covering West Antarctica, causing a calamitous sea level rise of 3.3 metres and threatening cities like New York, Kolkata and Shanghai.

It is an extremely remote and difficult area to get to, but the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), a joint UK-US research programme, has managed to deploy 100 scientists there over the past six years, using planes, ships and underwater robots to study the dynamics of this ice in detail.  “It was a tremendous challenge, and yet we really learned a lot,” says Ted Scambos at University of Colorado Boulder.

These discoveries include the fact that Thwaites glacier is particularly vulnerable, as it rests on a bed of rock that is well below sea level and is being melted from the underside by warmer seawater. What’s more, the bedrock slopes downwards towards the interior of the ice sheet, so, as the glacier retreats, even more ice is exposed to warm seawater, threatening to accelerate the collapse.

[...] “It’s not going to instantaneously lead to a catastrophic retreat in the next year or the year after, but, at the same time, we are very sure that Thwaites is going to continue to retreat, and ultimately the retreat is going to accelerate,” says Rob Larter at the British Antarctic Survey, another member of the team. “We can’t put an exact time frame on that.”

Ultimately, however, the ITCG researchers think that, by the end of the 23^rd century, Thwaites glacier and much of the West Antarctic ice sheet might be lost.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/ai-superintelligence-looms-in-sam-altmans-new-essay-on-the-intelligence-age/

On Monday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman outlined his vision for an AI-driven future of tech progress and global prosperity in a new personal blog post titled "The Intelligence Age." The essay paints a picture of human advancement accelerated by AI, with Altman suggesting that superintelligent AI could emerge within the next decade.

"It is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I'm confident we'll get there," he wrote.

OpenAI's current goal is to create AGI (artificial general intelligence), which is a term for hypothetical technology that could match human intelligence in performing many tasks without the need for specific training. By contrast, superintelligence surpasses AGI, and it could be seen as a hypothetical level of machine intelligence that can dramatically outperform humans at any intellectual task, perhaps even to an unfathomable degree.
[...]
Despite the criticism, it's notable when the CEO of what is probably the defining AI company of the moment makes a broad prediction about future capabilities—even if that means he's perpetually trying to raise money. Building infrastructure to power AI services is foremost on many tech CEOs' minds these days.

"If we want to put AI into the hands of as many people as possible," Altman writes in his essay, "we need to drive down the cost of compute and make it abundant (which requires lots of energy and chips). If we don't build enough infrastructure, AI will be a very limited resource that wars get fought over and that becomes mostly a tool for rich people."
[...]
While enthusiastic about AI's potential, Altman urges caution, too, but vaguely. He writes, "We need to act wisely but with conviction. The dawn of the Intelligence Age is a momentous development with very complex and extremely high-stakes challenges. It will not be an entirely positive story, but the upside is so tremendous that we owe it to ourselves, and the future, to figure out how to navigate the risks in front of us."
[...]
"Many of the jobs we do today would have looked like trifling wastes of time to people a few hundred years ago, but nobody is looking back at the past, wishing they were a lamplighter," he wrote. "If a lamplighter could see the world today, he would think the prosperity all around him was unimaginable. And if we could fast-forward a hundred years from today, the prosperity all around us would feel just as unimaginable."

Related Stories on Soylent News:
Plan Would Power New Microsoft AI Data Center From Pa.'s Three Mile Island 'Unit 1' Nuclear Reactor - 20240921
Artificial Intelligence 'Godfather' on AI Possibly Wiping Out Humanity: 'It's Not Inconceivable' - 20230329
Microsoft Research Paper Claims Sparks of Artificial Intelligence in GPT-4 - 20230327
John Carmack's 'Different Path' to Artificial General Intelligence - 20230213

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Just in time for spooky season:

If you're thinking of going down the unconventional route for this year's Halloween costume, we've got just the inspiration for you: a brand-new species of chimaera, better known as a ghost shark or spookfish.

Scientists discovered the new species, which goes by the scientific name Harriotta avia – avia meaning "grandmother" in Latin, in honor of study author Dr Brit Finucci's grandmother – and the common name Australasian Narrow-nosed Spookfish, off the coast of New Zealand and Australia.

This region is no stranger to ghost sharks – the study describing the new species dubs it "a global diversity [hotspot] for chimaeroids" – but it was previously thought that this particular species wasn't actually its own species at all. Instead, it was believed to be a variant of another species, Harriotta raleighana, which is found across the globe.

But with the help of genetics and a closer inspection of its morphology, the researchers were able to identify H. avia as a species in its own right.

"Harriotta avia is unique due to its elongated, narrow and depressed snout; long, slender trunk; large eyes; and very long, broad pectoral fins," said Finucci in a statement. "It is a lovely chocolate brown colour."

[...] "Ghost sharks like this one are largely confined to the ocean floor, living in depths of up to 2,600 [meters] [8530 feet]," said Finucci. The level of pressure to be found at such depths isn't exactly human-friendly.

"Their habitat makes them hard to study and monitor, meaning we don't know a lot about their biology or threat status, but it makes discoveries like this even more exciting," Finucci explained.

What we do know is that, despite the nickname, ghost sharks aren't actually sharks at all. Whilst the two groups are still related to each other, it's thought that they diverged from one another other nearly 400 million years ago. Both remained cartilaginous, but ghost sharks have wound up with several physical differences from their relatives.

Journal Reference:
Finucci, Brittany, Didier, Dominique, Ebert, David A., et al. Harriotta avia sp. nov. – a new rhinochimaerid (Chimaeriformes: Rhinochimaeridae) described from the Southwest Pacific, Environmental Biology of Fishes (DOI: 10.1007/s10641-024-01577-4)

Original Submission

Motor Trend is running a piece on the systems in the recently released Mercedes-Benz "Drive Pilot 95", https://www.motortrend.com/reviews/mercedes-benz-drive-pilot-95-first-drive-review

Here are a few of the details I found interesting:

By the end of this year, pending final certification from the authorities, German customers will be able to order an upgraded version called Drive Pilot 95, which, under certain operating conditions, will allow their S-Class and EQS models to self-drive for an indefinite period in the right lane of autobahns at speeds of up to 95 km/h (59 mph).[The earlier version from 2022 only worked in congested traffic up to 65 kph (40mph)]
[...]
Why has it taken so long to implement a software tweak? Well, both the German legislators and Mercedes-Benz, which assumes legal responsibility for the functioning of its vehicles while they are operating in Level 3 autonomous drive mode, are cautious. The Silicon Valley 'move fast and break things' approach doesn't work for them.
[...]
In addition to the parking sensors in the front and rear bumpers and the 360 degree cameras in the rear view mirrors that are fitted to many Mercedes-Benz models, Drive Pilot equipped cars have multi-mode radars at each corner, a front-facing long-range radar and a lidar unit behind the grille, a stereo camera at the top of the windshield, a regular camera facing rearward through the backlight, and a moisture sensor in the front wheel well.
The rear-facing camera is used to detect the flashing lights of emergency vehicles approaching from behind, though the 'Hey Mercedes' voice activation microphone in the cabin will pick up the sound of the sirens even if the vehicle cannot be seen. The moisture detector, which measures the sound level of the spray from the tire on wet roads, is used to determine whether rain and spray could interfere with the camera, radar and the lidar systems.
[...]
In simple terms, the key difference between the original Drive Pilot system and Drive Pilot 95 is the latter will now operate autonomously at Level 3 for an indefinite period if the Mercedes-Benz is in the right lane of the autobahn and is following traffic traveling at no more than 95km/h. Without that traffic, which can be up to 1000 feet ahead, the system will not activate.

owl writes:

http://www.righto.com/2024/09/ramtron-ferroelectric-fram-die.html

Ferroelectric memory (FRAM) is an interesting storage technique that stores bits in a special "ferroelectric" material. Ferroelectric memory is nonvolatile like flash memory, able to hold its data for decades. But, unlike flash, ferroelectric memory can write data rapidly. Moreover, FRAM is much more durable than flash and can be be written trillions of times. With these advantages, you might wonder why FRAM isn't more popular. The problem is that FRAM is much more expensive than flash, so it is only used in niche applications.

[...] The history of ferroelectric memory dates back to the early 1950s.3 Many companies worked on FRAM from the 1950s to the 1970s, including Bell Labs, IBM, RCA, and Ford. The 1955 photo below shows a 256-bit ferroelectric memory built by Bell Labs. Unfortunately, ferroelectric memory had many problems,4 limiting it to specialized applications, and development was mostly abandoned by the 1970s.

Ferroelectric memory had a second chance, though. A major proponent of ferroelectric memory was George Rohrer, who started working on ferroelectric memory in 1968. He formed a memory company, Technovation, which was unsuccessful, and then cofounded Ramtron in 1984.5 Ramtron produced a tiny 256-bit memory chip in 1988, followed by much larger memories in the 1990s.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Lasso peptides are natural products made by bacteria. Their unusual lasso shape endows them with remarkable stability, protecting them from extreme conditions. In a new study, published in Nature Chemical Biology, researchers have constructed and tested models for how these peptides are made and demonstrated how this information might be used to advance lasso peptide-based drugs into the clinic.

"Lasso peptides are interesting because they are basically linear molecules that have been tied into a slip knot-like shape," said Susanna Barrett, a graduate student in the Mitchell lab (MMG). "Due to their incredible stability and engineerability, they have a lot of potential as therapeutics. They have also been shown to have antibacterial, antiviral, and anti-cancer properties."lasso peptides

Lasso peptides are ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified molecules. The peptide chains are formed from joining amino acids together in the form of a string, which is done by the ribosome. Two enzymes, a peptidase and a cyclase, then collaborate to convert a linear precursor peptide into the distinctive knotted lasso structure. Since their discovery over three decades ago, scientists have been trying to understand how the cyclase folds the lasso peptide.

"One of the major challenges of solving this problem has been that the enzymes are difficult to work with. They are generally insoluble or inactive when you attempt to purify them," Barrett said.

One rare counterexample is fusilassin cyclase, or FusC, which the Mitchell lab characterized in 2019. Former group members were able to purify the enzyme, and since then, it has served as a model to understand the lasso knot-tying process. Yet, the structure of FusC remained unknown, making it impossible to understand how the cyclase interacts with the peptide to fold the knot.

In the current study, the group used the artificial intelligence program AlphaFold to predict the FusC protein structure. They used the structure and other artificial intelligence-based tools, like RODEO, to pinpoint which cyclase active site residues were important for interacting with the lasso peptide substrate.

"FusC is made up of approximately 600 amino acids and the active site contains 120. These programs were instrumental to our project because they allowed us to do 'structural studies' and whittle down which amino acids are important in the active site of the enzyme," Barrett said.

They also used molecular dynamics simulations to computationally understand how the lasso is folded by the cyclase. "Thanks to the computing power of Folding@home, we were able to collect extensive simulation data to visualize the interactions at the atomic level," said Song Yin, a graduate student in the Shukla lab. "Before this study, there were no MD simulations of the interactions between lasso peptides and cyclases, and we think this approach will be applicable to many other peptide engineering studies."

From their computational efforts, the researchers found that among different cyclases, the backwall region of the active site seemed to be especially important for folding. In FusC, this corresponded to the helix 11 region. The researchers then carried out cell-free biosynthesis where they added all the cell components that are necessary for the synthesis of the lasso peptides to a test tube with enzyme variants that had different amino acids in the helix 11 region. Ultimately, they identified a version of FusC with a mutation on helix 11 that could fold lasso peptides which cannot be made by the original cyclase. This data confirms the model for lasso peptide folding that the researchers developed with their computational approaches.