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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Intel had a solution ready to add 64-bit features to the "classic" 32-bit x86 ISA, but the company chose to push forward with the Itanium operation instead. A new snippet of technology history has recently emerged from a year-old Quora discussion. Intel's former "chief x86 architect," Bob Colwell, provides a fascinating tidbit of previously unknown information.

AMD engineer Phil Park was researching the history behind the x86-64 transition, when he discovered the conversation. Colwell revealed that Intel had an inactive internal version of the x86-64 ISA embedded in Pentium 4 chips. The company's management forced the engineering team to "fuse off" the features.

The functionality was there, but users could not access it. Intel decided to focus on the 64-bit native architecture developed for Itanium instead of x86-64. The company felt that a 64-bit Pentium 4 would have damaged Itanium's chances to win the PC market. Management allegedly told Colwell "not once, but twice" to stop going on about 64-bits on x86 if he wanted to keep his job.

The engineer decided to compromise, leaving the logic gates related to x86-64 features "hidden" in the hardware design. Colwell bet that Intel would need to chase after AMD and quickly implement its version of the x86-64 ISA, and he was right. Itanium CPUs had no native backward compatibility with 16-bit and 32-bit x86 software, so the architecture was one of the worst commercial (and technology) failures in Intel's history.

[...] Bob Colwell made significant contributions to Intel's history, managing the development of popular PC CPUs such as Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III, and Pentium 4 before retiring in 2000. Meanwhile, today's x86 chips marketed by Intel and AMD still retain full backward hardware compatibility with nearly every program developed for the x86 architecture.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A new concept from Hyundai's parts division, Hyundai Mobis, developed in partnership with optics specialists Zeiss, aims to transform your entire windshield into one massive display. Dubbed the "Holographic Windshield Display," it takes the modest head-up displays we've seen for decades and dramatically expands their scope.

Rather than just projecting basic information like speed or turn-based directions onto a small part of the windshield, this system envisions menus, apps, videos, and even games spanning the full width of the glass in front of you.

In the concept render shown, there's no central touchscreen – everything is displayed on the windshield. This suggests that voice and gesture controls will likely be the primary input methods, since you can't exactly reach out and touch your windshield.

Mobis describes the technology as "navigation and driving information unfolding like a panorama across the wide, transparent windshield" in its press release. Meanwhile, passengers could watch movies or video call friends, who appear as holograms on the glass.

To prevent distractions, what's displayed to the driver would differ from what passengers see. For example, the driver may only see directions and essential info, while passengers could binge-watch their favorite shows.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Last week, the California Coastal Commission rejected a plan for SpaceX to launch up to 50 rockets this year at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County. The company responded yesterday with a lawsuit, alleging that the state agency's denial was overreaching its authority and discriminating against its CEO.

The Commission's goal is to protect California's coasts and beaches, as well as the animals living in them. The agency has control over private companies' requests to use the state coastline, but it can't deny activities by federal departments. The denied launch request was actually made by the US Space Force on behalf of SpaceX, asking that the company be allowed to launch 50 of its Falcon 9 rockets, up from 36.

While the commissioners did raise concerns about SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's political screed and the spotty safety records at his companies during their review of the launch request, the assessment focused on the relationship between SpaceX and Space Force. The Space Force case is that "because it is a customer of — and reliant on — SpaceX’s launches and satellite network, SpaceX launches are a federal agency activity," the Commission review stated. "However, this does not align with how federal agency activities are defined in the Coastal Zone Management Act’s regulations or the manner in the Commission has historically implemented those regulations." The California Coastal Commission claimed that at least 80 percent of the SpaceX rockets contain payloads for Musk's Starlink company rather than payloads for government clients.

The SpaceX suit filed with the Central District of California court is seeking an order to designate the launches as federal activity, which would cut the Commission's oversight out of its future launch plans.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As Intel struggles with a falling stock price and revenue failing to meet expectations, there were reports last month that Qualcomm had approached Chipzilla with an acquisition offer.

According to people familiar with the matter who spoke to Bloomberg, Qualcomm has decided to wait until after the election before deciding its next move. Such a massive deal would undoubtedly face intense scrutiny from regulators, both domestic and globally. The company wants to see how the next administration's policies affect factors that could impact the acquisition, such as antitrust rules and US-China relations.

China is an important market for both Qualcomm and Intel. In the same month that it first approached Intel, Qualcomm met with antitrust regulators in China to gauge any potential response to the deal. The company hasn't received any feedback from Chinese authorities, who are apparently waiting to see if Qualcomm makes a formal offer for Intel.

In the US, where Intel is the key player in the government's plan to reignite the country's domestic chip manufacturing industry, White House support for the deal would be crucial.

Intel is set to become the biggest beneficiary of the Chips act, receiving $8.5 billion in grants as well as $11 billion in low-interest loans, provided it proceeds with its factory construction plans. It's been six months since the government announced the award and Intel is still waiting for the funding. Qualcomm has been in discussions with US regulators and believes that an all-American merger could alleviate any concerns, according to the report.

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fliptop writes:

Recent headlines have proclaimed that Chinese scientists have hacked "military-grade encryption" using quantum computers, sparking concern and speculation about the future of cybersecurity. The claims, largely stemming from a recent South China Morning Post article about a Chinese academic paper published in May, was picked up by many more serious publications.

However, a closer examination reveals that while Chinese researchers have made incremental advances in quantum computing, the news reports are a huge overstatement:

"Factoring a 50-bit number using a hybrid quantum-classical approach is a far cry from breaking 'military-grade encryption'," said Dr. Erik Garcell, Head of Technical Marketing at Classiq, a quantum algorithm design company.

While advancements have indeed been made, the progress represents incremental steps rather than a paradigm-shifting breakthrough that renders current cryptographic systems obsolete.

"This kind of overstatement does more harm than good," Dr. Garcell said. "Misrepresenting current capabilities as 'breaking military-grade encryption' is not just inaccurate—it's potentially damaging to the field's credibility."

Originally spotted on Schneier on Security. Dept. stolen from AC.

Previously: Chinese Researchers Claim Quantum Encryption Attack

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looorg writes:

https://www.mersenne.org/primes/?press=M136279841

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has discovered the largest known prime number, 2^136,279,841-1, having 41,024,320 decimal digits. Luke Durant, from San Jose, California, found the prime on October 12th.

The new prime number, also known as M136279841, is calculated by multiplying together 136,279,841 twos, and then subtracting 1. It is over 16 million digits larger than the previous record prime number, in a special class of extremely rare prime numbers known as Mersenne primes. It is only the 52nd known Mersenne prime ever discovered, each increasingly more difficult to find. Mersenne primes were named for the French monk Marin Mersenne, who studied these numbers more than 350 years ago. GIMPS, founded in 1996, has discovered the last 18 Mersenne primes. Volunteers download a free program to search for these primes, with a $3000 award offered to anyone lucky enough to find a new prime. Prof. Chris Caldwell founded an authoritative web site on the largest known primes which is now maintained by volunteers, and has an excellent history of Mersenne primes.

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hubie writes:

Researchers cut to the chase on the physics of paper cuts:

If you have ever been on the receiving end of a paper cut, you will know how painful they can be.

[...] To find out why paper is so successful at cutting skin, Jensen and fellow DTU colleagues carried out over 50 experiments with a range of paper thicknesses to make incisions into a piece of gelatine at various angles.

Through these experiments and modelling, they discovered that paper cuts are a competition between slicing and "buckling". Thin paper with a thickness of about 30 microns, or 0.03 mm, doesn't cut so well because it buckles – a mechanical instability that happens when a slender object like paper is compressed. Once this occurs, the paper can no longer transfer force to the tissue, so is unable to cut.

Thick paper, with a thickness greater than around 200 microns, is also ineffective at making an incision. This is because it distributes the load over a greater area, resulting in only small indentations.

The team found, however, a paper cut "sweet spot" at around 65 microns and when the incision was made at an angle of about 20 degrees from the surface. This paper thickness just happens to be close to that of the paper used in print magazines, which goes some way to explain why it annoyingly happens so often.

[...] ensen notes that the findings are interesting for two reasons. "First, it's a new case of soft-on-soft interactions where the deformation of two objects intertwines in a non-trivial way," he says. "Traditional metal knives are much stiffer than biological tissues, while paper is still stiffer than skin but around 100 times weaker than steel."

The second is that it is a "great way" to teach students about forces given that the experiments are straightforward to do in the classroom. "Studying the physics of paper cuts has revealed a surprising potential use for paper in the digital age: not as a means of information dissemination and storage, but rather as a tool of destruction," the researchers write.

Journal Reference: Sif Fink Arnbjerg-Nielsen, Matthew D. Biviano, and Kaare H. Jensen, Competition between slicing and buckling underlies the erratic nature of paper cuts, Phys. Rev. E 110, 025003 – Published 23 August 2024 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.110.025003

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A report by Knowable Magazine provides a rather insightful glimpse into the rise of mass timber and its benefits. The technique basically uses massive engineered wood elements instead of concrete and steel to build higher than ever before. As of 2024, mass timber buildings have climbed to almost unbelievable heights, with the 25-story Ascent tower in Milwaukee leading the pack.

The building is far from the only one in the category. The report states that there were 84 completed or under-construction mass timber buildings of eight stories or higher worldwide by 2022, with another 55 proposed. Europe dominates with 70% of these, but North America is catching up with around 20%.

As for what's driving this wooden renaissance, there are multiple reasons. For starters, mass timber could be an answer for reducing concrete and steel's massive carbon footprint, which alone makes up a whopping 15% of global emissions.

[...] But what about issues like raw strength and fire resistance, which have historically held wooden buildings back? Well, mass timber uses elements like cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels that can match steel's strength pound-for-pound, thanks to layering and high-pressure gluing techniques.

Modern mass timber also passes rigorous fire testing. In the event of a fire, a protective char layer forms on the wood's surface, insulating the interior from flames long enough for evacuation and firefighter response.

Likely taking these perks into account, a 2021 update to the International Building Code gave mass timber a huge vote of confidence, allowing such constructions up to 18 stories in many places.

Of course, moisture poses risks that need careful management to prevent fungus and pests. But proponents are confident mass timber can be a sustainable solution if done right.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A Chinese industry group has accused Intel of backdooring its CPUs, in addition to other questionable security practices while calling for an investigation into the chipmaker, claiming its products pose "serious risks to national security."

The Cybersecurity Association of China (CSAC), in a lengthy post on its WeChat account on Wednesday described Intel's chips as being riddled with vulnerabilities, adding that the American company's "major defects in product quality and security management show its extremely irresponsible attitude towards customers."

The CSAC also accused Intel of embedding a backdoor "in almost all" of its CPUs since 2008 as part of a "next-generation security defense system" developed by the US National Security Agency. 

This allowed Uncle Sam to "build an ideal monitoring environment where only the NSA is protected and everyone else is 'naked,'" the post continued. "This poses a huge security threat to the critical information infrastructure of countries around the world, including China," the industry group claims.

The infosec org also recommends the Cyberspace Administration of China open an investigation into the security of Intel's products sold in the country "to effectively safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers."

[...] The calls for a government investigation into the American chipmaker follow a series of accusations from the White House accusing Chinese spies of burrowing into US networks and critical infrastructure systems, all of which China has denied, and a proposed ban on Chinese connected vehicle technology.

[...] Intel this year inked deals with several Chinese state-linked agencies for its Xeon processors to be used in AI workloads, according to Reuters. Considering a little over a quarter of Intel's revenue last year came from China, a security review of its products — and potential restrictions — could be a major blow to its ongoing recovery efforts.

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As exciting as genAI software might be, it also has side effects that we all need to be aware of. Since AI programs also offer human-like voice modes, it might be easy to have one of these AI models make calls for nefarious purposes.

One such scenario involves an AI impersonating a “very polite and professional” Google representative calling you from a spoofed number. The call is part of a hacker’s attempt to take over your Gmail account. The hack also involves creating fake Gmail recovery emails and fake support emails meant to further convince the victim they’re the target of an ongoing attack.

You might avoid falling prey to the attack if you’re tech-savvy enough. But unsuspecting Gmail users afraid that their account is in danger might end up giving the hacker their password by eventually “verifying” their Gmail account on a fraudulent site.

Sam Mitrovic was one of the targets of a Gmail account takeover hack. Luckily for him, he’s an experienced IT engineer who knew what to look for when prompted with the “evidence” that his account was in danger. He detailed his experience on his blog (via PCMag), explaining the simple steps you should take to reduce the risk of falling for the scam.

Initially, the engineer received a notification to approve a Gmail account recovery attempt that he ignored. Some 40 minutes later, he had a missed call with a “Google Sydney” caller ID.

Exactly a week later, the same thing happened. This was when he decided to pick up the call without realizing he might be talking to an AI made to sound like a human:

It’s an American voice, very polite and professional. The number is Australian.

He introduces himself and says that there is suspicious activity on my account.

He asks if I’m travelling, when I said no, he asks if I logged in from Germany to which I reply no.

He says that someone has had access to my account for a week and that they have downloaded the account data (I then get a flashback of the recovery notification a week before).

looorg writes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/11/the-elite-college-students-who-cant-read-books/679945/

Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they're assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames's students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester.

It's not that they don't want to do the reading. It's that they don't know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.

Twenty years ago, Dames's classes had no problem engaging in sophisticated discussions of Pride and Prejudice one week and Crime and Punishment the next. Now his students tell him up front that the reading load feels impossible. It's not just the frenetic pace; they struggle to attend to small details while keeping track of the overall plot.

Failing to complete a 14-line poem without succumbing to distraction suggests one familiar explanation for the decline in reading aptitude: smartphones.

Students at elite collages(sic) such as Columbia can't read books anymore. It's not that they can't read but they can apparently only read short texts in short bursts of time. Their attention span have been ruined by smartphones, modern technology and a few decades of modern teaching methods that prioritize small texts.

What makes it extra bad is that these are apparently students that are taking courses in literature. These should be the avid readers. I guess we'll see more college books with large text, more pictures and being "for dummies" (it used to be a joke, not anymore I guess).

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looorg writes:

https://mashable.com/article/penguin-random-house-ai-protections-copyright-page
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/18/24273895/penguin-random-house-books-copyright-ai

PRH's changing of its copyright wording to combat AI training makes it the first of the Big Five publishers to take such an action against AI, at least publicly.

The clause also notes that Penguin Random House "expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception" in line with the European Union's laws.

In August, Penguin Random House published a statement saying that the publisher will "vigorously defend the intellectual property that belongs to our authors and artists."

Penguin Random House will amend their copyright notice with "no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.".

Will it work? Have they just created more job for themselves trying to litigate to all the LLM trainers? How much is to much or enough for it to be distinct from their books or just not words other people have expressed to?

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The experiment involved participants utilizing specialized equipment including sensors and earbuds. On September 24, one participant sleeping at home induced lucid dreaming, a state in which you are aware that you are dreaming. It is apparently a trainable skill, although I have only ever personally experienced it a handful of times throughout my life.

On the night of the 24th when the REMspace participant entered this state, the connected hardware they were wearing pinged a remote server that generated a random Remmyo word (Remmyo is a type of dream language that is detectable using sensors). The word was sent to the earbuds the person was wearing, and they repeated it in their dream.

The dreamer's response – the Remmyo word – was then captured and stored on the server. Eight minutes later, another participant entered a lucid dream and received the stored message from the first user. When she woke, she confirmed the word – successfully demonstrating the first-ever "chat" exchange between two dreaming participants.

REMspace said two other participants were also able to communicate with its server while dreaming.

The startup's founder and CEO, Michael Raduga, said communicating in dreams seemed like science fiction yesterday. "Tomorrow, it will be so common we won't be able to imagine our lives without this technology," the executive added.

Raduga said the capability opens the door to countless commercial applications, but stopped short of giving any specific examples. "We believe that REM sleep and related phenomena, like lucid dreams, will become the next big industry after AI," he noted.

While no doubt fascinating, it is also a bit frightening. The idea of commercializing dreams sounds ripe for misuse and if we're being force-fed content even while we are sleeping, when will we ever be able to truly unplug and get any actual rest?

Original Submission

It is a long time since we issued a Meta regarding the situation of the site. Much has been happening, but nowhere near as quickly as we had imagined or had hoped. But we are now almost there.

The handover of assets is taking place. The new Board has been instrumental in this and, when the transfer is finally complete, I know that NCommander wishes to write his own Meta to you, the community. Details of who is in which seat will happen once the handover is complete because, until that point, the current site is the one that has existed since 2014, and it is still headed by NCommander.

New hardware is being set up which will allow us to drastically reduce the running costs of the site. Two people, fliptop and kolie, have donated the use of servers and internet connections free of charge to SoylentNews. This is an extremely generous donation on their part and one for which the new Board is extremely grateful. Contracts, where requested, are being actioned as I write this Meta. There will still be annual costs for domains etc.

The new hardware will have a new software structure installed on it, based on Docker containers. These will provide a significantly easier system to manage and, hopefully, will also take care automatically with many of the disruptive issues that we have seen in recent months. I do not claim that there will not be any initial hiccups but the site will still be running on Rehash and will look and behave exactly as it does today. There will be issues regarding updates to software for which new procedures will have to be produced and documented, but that is a task for the future and it need not delay the transfer.

Regarding changes to software, there is an incident that took place last weekend. A community member informed us that the moderation system, under certain usages, could compromise the identity of both the moderator and the moderatee. I passed the information to NCommander and kolie who, despite it being a weekend, identified and confirmed the problem, and subsequently identified a potential fix. The software change was made by kolie first thing on (his) Monday morning, which means that a serious problem was identified and the fix implemented in a fraction over 24 hours. I don't think anyone could have done it any faster bearing in mind that this is an all-volunteer site and considering that it occurred at a time when most people would rather be having some private time with their families. The team we have at the moment is much smaller than we have ever had before but it is still capable of managing the site and keeping the stories flowing. It is only right that I acknowledge on your behalf the contribution made by, and offer my thanks to, the community member who reported the issue (who may identify themself if they wish), NCommander and in particular kolie, who is very much involved in the new site just as he has been for the last 18 months or so.

However, not all problems are under our control. The current issues with IRC have resulted in a ticket being raised by NCommander for support action to be taken by Akamai/Linode. The problem occurred immediately after some routine maintenance, and it appears to be related to DNS and IPv6 as a result of changes that have been introduced by that maintenance. I do not have all the details to hand but it is being actioned.

For this site to remain active and interesting we rely on community support. Whether that be by making submissions (you should know the sort of topics that we are looking for, and we can always put some things under the 'random' topic), or by offering to assist with one of the teams, or just by commenting as many of you are doing now. I realise that this is an important time in the run-up to an election but please discuss TFA and not bring politics into every discussion. You can discuss politics as much as you wish in your journals. In fact, there is no 'politics' topic, nor has there ever been one.

I have been asked numerous times when will ACs be allowed back onto the front pages? There is only one person stopping that from happening now, and it is not me. There will always be occasional spamming and that can be managed quite effectively by community moderation. When the excessive spamming and abuse stops for good then ACs can return to full discussions. But spamming will not result in closing down this site.

🍆

Frosty Piss writes:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/us/philip-zimbardo-stanford-death/index.html

Philip G. Zimbardo, the psychologist behind the controversial "Stanford Prison Experiment" that was intended to examine the psychological experiences of imprisonment, has died. In the 1971 prison study funded by the US Office of Naval Research, Zimbardo and a team of graduate students recruited male college students to spend two weeks in a mock prison in the basement of a building on the Stanford campus. The United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps wanted to understand anti-social behavior and investigate conflict between military guards and prisoners. After psychologist Christina Maslach (later to become his wife) visited to evaluate the conditions, she was troubled to see how study participants were behaving and she confronted Zimbardo. He ended the experiment on the sixth day.

Selected student participants were assigned randomly to be "prisoners" or "guards" in a mock prison located in the basement of the psychology building at Stanford. Prisoners were confined to a 6 by 9 feet cell with black steel-barred doors. The only furniture in each cell was a cot. Solitary confinement was a small unlit closet. In his book Humankind - a hopeful history (2020) historian Rutger Bregman discusses charges that the whole experiment was faked and fraudulent; Bregman argued this experiment is often used as an example to show that people succumb easily to evil behavior, but Zimbardo was less than candid about the fact that he told the guards to act the way they did.

Zimbardo's primary reason for conducting the experiment was to focus on the power of roles, rules, symbols, group identity and situational validation of behavior that generally would repulse ordinary individuals. "I had been conducting research for some years on deindividuation, vandalism and dehumanization that illustrated the ease with which ordinary people could be led to engage in anti-social acts by putting them in situations where they felt anonymous, or they could perceive of others in ways that made them less than human, as enemies or objects," said Zimbardo.

Original Submission