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looorg writes:

The Ministry of Justice is developing a system that aims to 'predict' who will commit murder, as part of a "data science" project using sensitive personal data on hundreds of thousands of people.

So an AI fueled minority report. Never one to shy from dystopian future. They are apparently want to try and re-create Minority Report with AI. Instead of the three mutants predicting the future they'll have a machine. Apparently there are indicators to murderers. Things to be predicted.

https://www.statewatch.org/news/2025/april/uk-ministry-of-justice-secretly-developing-murder-prediction-system/
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/08/uk-creating-prediction-tool-to-identify-people-most-likely-to-kill

Original Submission

oregonjohn writes:

Okay, I don't really know what I'm talking about here. Let's just get that up front and recognized. The president of the board for Soylent Phoenix is a pretty bad script kiddie and not a programmer at all.

But, we have a problem on SoylentNews with using Stripe for donating for membership. Paypal works on the site but some folks don't want to send them any business and Stripe is an acceptable alternative.

My brief reading of https://docs.stripe.com/js/including indicates there is such a thing as a Stripe.js module.

Would this help the site maintainers? Can they just drop a js module into the system? Like I said, I know nothing.

Do you know how to create a module? If you do maybe you could help the site to use one so that Stripe will work on SoylentNews without a lot of fiddling around, could you?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

GlobalFoundries is mulling a possible merger with Taiwanese semiconductor producer United Microelectronics Corp. to strengthen their shared role in making chips using mature and specialty process technologies, according to an assessment document reviewed by Tom's Hardware.

The document outlines plans for 'Project Ultron,' which is meant to create a powerhouse controlling a significant share of the global production of chips. However, the plan will likely face major financial, political, and regulatory challenges. Nikkei has also reported on the matter, citing that it has reviewed an assessment plan. UMC has denied involvement, saying it is not currently conducting a merger.

[...] Tim Breen, named GlobalFoundries's next chief executive in February, will take over in April and is considering acquiring UMC, one of GF's main rivals. Combining two major foundries would create a stronger competitor in the mature-node segment (e.g., 28nm and above), essential for automotive, industrial, and legacy applications.

The combined company is expected to control around 28% of the mainstream node foundry revenue, and a greater scale would enable better pricing power, operational efficiency, and stronger negotiating leverage with customers. The GF-UMC, if combined, will still be smaller than TSMC, which controls 44% of the mainstream node share.

There is a rationale for GlobalFoundries to buy its rival and for UMC to become a part of GF. The mature-node segment is increasingly threatened by low-cost Chinese fabs, and a combined GF-UMC entity could consolidate global capacity and better compete on cost, scale, and reliability. Also, UMC and GF have different but complementary customer sets, so a merger could enable cross-selling, better utilization of fabs, and more diversified revenue streams, reducing business risks.

Also, UMC is heavily concentrated in Taiwan, while GF operates fabs in the U.S., Germany, and Singapore, so a merger would spread geographic risk, reduce reliance on Taiwan, and appeal to customers and governments looking for supply chain resilience. Taiwan would still lead with 40% of capacity (UMC), followed by Singapore with 25% (shared by both), and smaller shares in China (11%), Germany (9%), the USA (9%), and Japan (6%). Growth is expected in the USA, Germany, and Singapore, while capacity in China and Taiwan is projected to decline.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

There’s a newfound mismatch between matter and antimatter. And that could bring physicists one step closer to understanding how everything in the universe came to be.

For the most part, particles and their oppositely charged antiparticles are like perfect mirror images of one another. But some particles disobey this symmetry, a phenomenon known as charge-parity, or CP, violation. Now, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva have spotted CP violation in a class of particles called baryons, where it’s never been confirmed before. 

Baryons are particles that contain three smaller particles called quarks. The most famous examples of baryons are protons and neutrons. Previously, scientists had seen CP violation only in mesons, which are particles containing one quark and one antiquark.

For the new study, researchers with the LHCb collaboration studied particles called lambda-b baryons. The scientists looked at a decay of a lambda-b baryon into a proton and three lesser-known particles: a kaon and two pions. The rate of this decay is slightly different than that of its antimatter counterpart, the team found. This difference indicates CP violation, the researchers report in a paper submitted March 21 to arXiv.org and in a March 25 talk at the Rencontres de Moriond meeting in La Thuile, Italy.

Building on previous hints of CP violation in baryons, the study is the first to cross the statistical threshold for a discovery, known as five sigma.

A better understanding of CP violation could help explain how matter came to dominate over antimatter. In the Big Bang, matter and antimatter were made in equal measure. CP violation is thought to have given matter the upper hand. But known processes don’t violate CP enough to account for the matter-antimatter imbalance. The new study doesn’t solve that quandary, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Original Submission

Some may remember the initial press on the Aptera streamlined solar-assisted BEV...that was 2005. For some reason, looking at the aircraft-like shape again reminded me of the Buffalo Springfield / Neil Young song, "If flying on the ground is wrong..."

After one bankruptcy, resurrection and continued development, the company is still going. Here's a recent release including video of a road trip, which claimed about 20 miles of solar charging during the part-cloudy day, https://www.automotivetestingtechnologyinternational.com/news/prototypes/apteras-test-vehicle-completes-solar-supported-road-trip.html
No obvious drama in driving it, but it was all highway and rural 2 lane. No city traffic.

It's exactly the sort of thing I'd like, but the company history is pretty sketchy. I'm typically not an early adopter and looking from here I doubt that the company will ever be well enough established to risk buying one.

Overview of the company here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_Motors

Original Submission

liar writes:

Framework Halts Sales of Select Laptops in the US Amid Tariff Changes https://www.techpowerup.com/335198/framework-halts-sales-of-select-laptops-in-the-us-amid-tariff-changes (reported by by AleksandarK)

"Framework, the maker of modular laptops, has temporarily halted sales of specific models in the US due to newly imposed tariffs. The move affects the Laptop 13 configurations. The company shared its decision through the official X account: "Due to the new tariffs that came into effect on April 5th, we're temporarily pausing US sales on a few base Framework Laptop 13 systems (Ultra 5 125H and Ryzen 5 7640U). For now, these models will be removed from our US site. We will continue to provide updates as we have them." The tariff adjustment, which raises import duties on goods from Taiwan to 10 percent, directly impacts Framework's cost structure. Originally priced assuming a zero percent tariff rate, the affected devices would now incur losses if sold at current pricing due to the zero-tariff situation in the past. In a detailed follow-up, Framework noted that other consumer electronics firms have undertaken similar recalculations, though few have publicly acknowledged their course of action.

Currently, the Ultra 5 125H model has already been removed from Framework's online store. Other models, such as the Ultra 7 155H and Ultra 7 165H, are for now discounted by up to eight percent, suggesting a temporary price adjustment strategy rather than a complete market withdrawal. Higher end AMD Ryzen 7 7840U SKUs are discounted by 10% and 12%, which is interesting. Framework's situation is just a part of the shift happening across industries triggered by the US administration's recent tariff changes. While Framework's statement leaves the possibility of resumed US sales open, no timeline has been provided. The consequences of the tariff shift are still unfolding across global supply chains."

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Wendell Berry's list from 1987 is more relevant than ever before:

What do you want from new technology?

[...] Wendell Berry provided a list of nine reasonable requirements for new tech back in 1987, and they're still appropriate today.

Berry's list is actually more relevant than ever before. And the failure of tech companies to meet his modest demands is now painfully evident to everybody.

It wasn't always this bad.

[...]

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

[...] The curious fact is that the most up-to-date and forward-looking thing is this whole article is Berry's list from 1987. Nothing on it is obsolescent or inappropriate or dysfunctional or harmful.

TFA discusses each rule and provides examples how the opposite is what's actually happening today.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In 2013, dozens of dolphins living in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon mysteriously began to die. Their remains washed up, showing the animals had been emaciated. Now, over a decade later, ecologists believe they’ve figured out the cause of the bizarre die-off.

While the deaths have long been linked to gigantic algae blooms in the water, it took until now to determine exactly how the two events were connected, and it turns out, it’s mostly humanity’s fault. This might be hard to believe, but apparently dumping massive amounts of human waste and fertilizer into waterways can be bad.

As the ecologists note in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, the long-lasting phytoplankton blooms began in 2011. The spread of the tiny plant-like organisms led to a widespread change in the Indian River Lagoon’s ecology. Their presence caused the amount of seagrass in the water to decrease by over 50%, and a 75% loss of macroalgae (better known as seaweed).

That alone wouldn’t have killed off the dolphins, but when the ecologists examined isotopic ratios in teeth samples taken from the carcasses, and compared them to teeth taken from 44 dolphins that hadn’t been part of the die-off, they realized their diets had been drastically altered. The dolphins had eaten 14% to 20% fewer ladyfish, a key dolphin prey animal, but had eaten up to 25% more sea bream, a less nutritious fish. In essence, the presence of such large amounts of phytoplankton had reduced the amount of food available for the dolphins’ usual prey. As the prey numbers dwindled, the dolphins had to catch more prey to consume the same amount of energy. The effects weren’t felt just by those dolphins that died, but by the area’s dolphin population as a whole. At the time, 64% of observed dolphins were underweight, while 5% were classified as emaciated.

“In combination, the shift in diets and the widespread presence of malnourishment suggest that dolphins were struggling to catch enough prey of any type,” said Wendy Noke Durden, a research scientist at the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute, who worked on the research, in a statement. “The loss of key structural habitats may have reduced overall foraging success by causing changes in the abundance and distribution of prey.”

The historic record bears this out. According to records kept of the recorded causes of death for stranded dolphins, starvation was the cause of death in 17% of recorded dolphin deaths in the area between 2000 and 2020. That number spiked to 61% in 2013.

“Blooms of phytoplankton are part of productive ecological systems,” said Charles Jacoby, strategic program director at the University of South Florida, who also worked on the study. “Detrimental effects arise when the quantities of nutrients entering a system fuel unusually intense, widespread, or long-lasting blooms. In most cases, people’s activities drive these excess loads. Managing our activities to keep nutrients at a safe level is key to preventing blooms that disrupt ecological systems.”

There is a small silver lining to this grisly finding. As the researchers noted, waste and other crap dumped into Indian River Lagoon is being gradually reduced and is expected to hit safe levels in 2035.

Journal Reference: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2025.1531742

Original Submission

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2025-04-bird-stay-unravel-entanglement-stiff.html

The concept of constructing a self-supporting structure made of rods—without the use of nails, ropes, or glue—dates back to Leonardo da Vinci. In the Codex Atlanticus, da Vinci illustrated a design for a self-supporting bridge across a river, which can be easily demonstrated using toothpicks, matches, or chopsticks. However, this design is fragile—pulling one of the rods or pushing the bridge from below can cause it to collapse.

In contrast, bird nests—which are also self-supporting structures consisting of rigid sticks and twigs—are remarkably stable despite continuous disturbances such as wind, ground vibrations, and the landing or takeoff of birds. What makes bird nests so sturdy?

This was the question at the center of a recent paper from L. Mahadevan and his team at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mahadevan is the Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, and of Physics at SEAS and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard. The paper was co-authored by Thomas Plumb-Reyes and Hao-Yu Greg Lin.

While entanglement in small, flexible systems, such as polymers, is well understood, less is known about how stiff, macroscale components entangle, especially when they are densely packed.

"When we think about entanglement, we typically think about flexible, individual constituents wrapping around each other, as exemplified in tangled headphone cords or entangling vines," said Mahadevan. "Contrary to this common intuition, stiff and straight rods can also entangle themselves—if they are long or thin enough."

To understand how, the researchers used X-ray tomography—a technique that creates a detailed cross-section of an object—as well as computer simulation and experimentation to peer inside and reconstruct the complex structure of bird nests.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Melting occurs despite Corsair's first-party 600W 12VHPWR cable being used.

Another Blackwell GPU bites the dust, as the meltdown reaper has reportedly struck a Redditor's MSI GeForce RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC, with the impact tragically extending to the power supply as well. Ironically, the user avoided third-party cables and specifically used the original power connector, the one that was supplied with the PSU, yet both sides of the connector melted anyway.

Nvidia's GeForce RTX 50 series GPUs face an inherent design flaw where all six 12V pins are internally tied together. The GPU has no way of knowing if all cables are seated properly, preventing it from balancing the power load. In the worst-case scenario, five of the six pins may lose contact, resulting in almost 500W (41A) being drawn from a single pin. Given that PCI-SIG originally rated these pins for a maximum of 9.5A, this is a textbook fire/meltdown risk.

The GPU we're looking at today is the MSI RTX 5090 Gaming Trio OC, which, on purchase, set the Redditor back a hefty $2,900. That's still a lot better than the average price of an RTX 5090 from sites like eBay, currently sitting around $4,000. Despite using Corsair's first-party 600W 12VHPWR cable, the user was left with a melted GPU-side connector, a fate which extended to the PSU.

The damage, in the form of a charred contact point, is quite visible and clearly looks as if excess current was drawn from one specific pin, corresponding to the same design flaw mentioned above. The user is weighing an RMA for their GPU and PSU, but a GPU replacement is quite unpredictable due to persistent RTX 50 series shortages. Sadly, these incidents are still rampant despite Nvidia's assurances before launch.

With the onset of enablement drivers (R570) for Blackwell, both RTX 50 and RTX 40 series GPUs began suffering from instability and crashes. Despite multiple patches from Nvidia, RTX 40 series owners haven't seen a resolution and are still reliant on reverting to older 560-series drivers. Moreover, Nvidia's decision to discontinue 32-bit OpenCL and PhysX support with RTX 50 series GPUs has left the fate of many legacy applications and games in limbo.

As of now, the only foolproof method to secure your RTX 50 series GPU is to ensure optimal current draw through each pin. You might want to consider Asus' ROG Astral GPUs as they can provide per-pin current readings, a feature that's absent in reference RTX 5090 models. Alternatively, if feeling adventurous, maybe develop your own power connector with built-in safety measures and per-pin sensing capabilities?

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

The dire wolf has been extinct for over 10,000 years. These two wolves were brought back from extinction:

The dire wolf, an animal that has been extinct for over 10,000 years has nearly come back after scientists at Colossal Biosciences were able to edit the DNA of a more modern wolf to appear and have the features of the dire wolf, a type of wolf that was made famous by "Game of Thrones."

Colossal Biosciences posted to X with a video clip of two small wolf cubs barking, "You're hearing the first howl of a dire wolf in over 10,000 years. Meet Romulus and Remus—the world's first de-extinct animals, born on October 1, 2024."

[...] The Dallas-based company, which has put on challenges to bring back the dodo bird as well as the woolly mammoth, was able to obtain DNA from fossils of dire wolves in 2021 and then edit the DNA of grey wolves in order to weave the key features of the dire wolf in with the grey wolf cubs. The embryos were edited and placed into a surrogate wolf-mother. Three wolves were born as a result, two male and one female, the New York Times reported.

From the AP News report:

Colossal scientists learned about specific traits that dire wolves possessed by examining ancient DNA from fossils. The researchers studied a 13,000 year-old dire wolf tooth unearthed in Ohio and a 72,000 year-old skull fragment found in Idaho, both part of natural history museum collections.

Then the scientists took blood cells from a living gray wolf and used CRISPR to genetically modify them in 20 different sites, said Colossal's chief scientist Beth Shapiro. They transferred that genetic material to an egg cell from a domestic dog. When ready, embryos were transferred to surrogates, also domestic dogs, and 62 days later the genetically engineered pups were born.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/fire-up-your-compaq-deskpro-freedos-1-4-is-the-first-stable-update-since-2022/

We're used to updating Windows, macOS, and Linux systems at least once a month (and usually more), but people with ancient DOS-based PCs still get to join in the fun every once in a while. Over the weekend, the team that maintains FreeDOS officially released version 1.4 of the operating system, containing a list of fixes and updates that have been in the works since the last time a stable update was released in 2022.
[...]
The release has "a focus on stability" and includes an updated installer, new versions of common tools like fdisk, and format and the edlin text editor.
[...]
Hall talked with Ars about several of these changes when we interviewed him about FreeDOS in 2024. The team issued the first release candidate for FreeDOS 1.4 back in January.
[...]
The standard install image includes all the files and utilities you need for a working FreeDOS install, and a separate "BonusCD" download is also available for those who want development tools, the OpenGEM graphical interface, and other tools.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

People think the em dash is a dead giveaway you used AI – are they right?

ChatGPT is rapidly changing how we write, how we work – and maybe even how we think. So it makes sense that it stirs up strong emotions and triggers an instinct to figure out what's real and what's not.

But on LinkedIn, the hunt for AI-generated content has gone full Voight-Kampff. According to some, there's now a surefire way to spot ChatGPT use: the em dash.

Yes, the punctuation mark officially defined by the width of one "em." A favorite of James Joyce, Stephen King, and Emily Dickinson. A piece of punctuation that's been around since at least the 1830s. So why is it suddenly suspicious? Is it really an AI tell or punctuation paranoia?

Rebecca Harper, Head of Content Marketing at auditing compliance platform ISMS.online, doesn't think so: "I find the idea that it's some kind of AI tell ridiculous. If we start policing good grammar out of fear of AI, we're only making human writing worse!"

She's right. The em dash isn't some fringe punctuation mark. Sure, it's used less often than its siblings – the en dash and the humble hyphen – and it's more common in the US than the UK. But that doesn't make it automatically suspicious.

Robert Andrews, a Senior Editor, explains that this is a difference in style rather than a smoking gun: "It's not just a marker of AI, but of US English and AP Style. It's quite alien to UK journalism training and style, at least my own, albeit long ago. But increasingly encountered in AP Style environments - (or –, or —) unsurprising that this would flow into LLMs."

[...] Still, because it's slightly less common in some circles, people have latched onto it as a tell. Chris McNabb, Chief Technology Officer at eGroup Communications, makes this case: "I think it's a strong indicator, especially when you see it being used often by one person. Typically most people aren't going to long press the dash key to even use the en dash BUT AI such as ChatGPT uses it by default in a lot of cases. So yes when you do see an em dash particularly more than one in a message it's a pretty safe bet for a majority of posts."

canopic jug writes:

Author and developer Scott Chacon has reflected that twenty years, as of April 7^th, Linus Torvalds made the first commit to Git, the free and open source distributed version control system which he was building at the time. Linus has long since passed the baton onward. As a developer tool, Git is known for its quirks and idiosyncrasies as much as its ability to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Over these last 20 years, Git went from a small, simple, personal project to the most massively dominant version control system ever built.

I have personally had a hell of a ride on this particular software roller coaster.

I started using Git for something you might not imagine it was intended for, only a few months after it's first commit. I then went on to found GitHub, write arguably the most widely read book on Git, build the official website of the project, start the annual developer conference, etc - this little project has changed the world of software development, but more personally, it has massively changed the course of my life.

I thought it would be fun today, as the Git project rolls into it's third decade, to remember the earliest days of Git and explain a bit why I find this project so endlessly fascinating.

Although Git is often used as part of a set of services like those provided by Codeberg, Gitlab, and others more or less infamous it is perfectly easy to run it in-house. Either way it has become virtually synonymous with version control. Over the years, Git has gradually pushed aside its predecessors and even many (if not all) of its contemporary competitors.

Previously:
(2024) Beyond Git: How Version Control Systems Are Evolving For Devops
(2022) Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come!
(2017) Git 2.13 Released

Original Submission

JoeMerchant writes:

The following are top facial recognition companies packaging technology to simplify identity verification for businesses, consumers and government: Cognitec, Sensory, iProov, HyperVerge, Clarifai, Amazon Rekognition, there are many others. They use one or a combination of traditional algorithms, deep learning, optical and infrared sensors, 3D scans, other technology and of course hybrids of the many approaches.

Mother Jones is known for long political stories, this one is based on a successful facial recognition company, Clearview, and how they got their technology widely deployed (and highly remunerated) in a short time, and the underlying political ideology that drove the developers in their mission:

an interesting idea...The United States of America was founded on the idea that all men are created equal. And Curtis simply asked a question, as I remember it: 'What if they're not? What do you do?...How do you govern that?'...That's what we talked about all the time."

Clearview is riding a wave of demand in the sea of identity tracking technology, and they don't look likely to wipe out anytime soon:

Since Clearview's existence first came to light in 2020, the secretive company has attracted outsize controversy for its dystopian privacy implications. Corporations like Macy's allegedly used Clearview on shoppers, according to legal records; law enforcement has deployed it against activists and protesters; and multiple government investigations have found federal agencies' use of the product failed to comply with privacy requirements. Many local and state law enforcement agencies now rely on Clearview as a tool in everyday policing, with almost no transparency about how they use the tech. "What Clearview does is mass surveillance, and it is illegal," the privacy commissioner of Canada said in 2021. In 2022, the ACLU settled a lawsuit with Clearview for allegedly violating an Illinois state law that prohibits unauthorized biometric harvesting. Data protection authorities in France, Greece, Italy, and the Netherlands have also ruled that the company's data collection practices are illegal. To date, they have fined Clearview around $100 million.

It's amazing what impact a small group of technology oriented people can have in today's society.

Original Submission