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upstart writes:

States Are Banning Forever Chemicals. Industry Is Fighting Back:

Kenney and his husband were at a big box store buying a piece of furniture when the sales associate asked if they'd like to add fabric protectant. Kenney, the cabinet secretary of New Mexico's Environment Department, asked to see the product data sheet. Both he and his husband were shocked to see forever chemicals listed as ingredients in the protectant.

"I think about your normal, everyday New Mexican who is trying to get by, make their furniture last a little longer, and they think, 'Oh, it's safe, great!' It's not safe," he says. "It just so happens that they tried to sell it to the environment secretary."

Last week, the New Mexico legislature passed a pair of bills that Kenney hopes will help protect consumers in his state. If signed by the governor, the legislation would eventually ban consumer products that have added PFAS—per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, known colloquially as "forever chemicals" because of their persistence in the environment—from being sold in New Mexico.

As health and environmental concerns about forever chemicals mount nationally, New Mexico joins a small but growing number of states that are moving to limit—and, in some cases, ban—PFAS in consumer products. New Mexico is now the third state to pass a PFAS ban through the legislature. Ten other states have bans or limits on added PFAS in certain consumer products, including cookware, carpet, apparel, and cosmetics. This year, at least 29 states—a record number—have PFAS-related bills before state legislatures, according to an analysis of bills by Safer States, a network of state-based advocacy organizations working on issues around potentially unsafe chemicals.

The chemical and consumer products industries have taken notice of this new wave of regulations and are mounting a counterattack, lobbying state legislatures to advocate for the safety of their products—and, in one case, suing to prevent the laws from taking effect. Some of the key exemptions made in New Mexico highlight some of the big fights that industries are hoping they'll win in statehouses across the country: fights they are already taking to a newly industry-friendly US Environmental Protection Agency.

PFAS is not just one chemical but a class of thousands. The first PFAS were developed in the 1930s; thanks to their nonstick properties and unique durability, their popularity grew in industrial and consumer uses in the postwar era. The chemicals were soon omnipresent in American lives, coating cookware, preventing furniture and carpets from staining, and acting as a surfactant in firefighting foam.

In 1999, a man in West Virginia filed a lawsuit against US chemical giant DuPont alleging that pollution from its factory was killing his cattle. The lawsuit revealed that DuPont had concealed evidence of PFAS's negative health effects on workers from the government for decades. In the years since, the chemical industry has paid out billions in settlement fees around PFAS lawsuits: in 2024, the American multinational 3M agreed to pay between $10 billion and $12.5 billion to US public water systems that had detected PFAS in their water supplies to pay for remediation and future testing, though the company did not admit liability. (DuPont and its separate chemical company Chemours continue to deny any wrongdoing in lawsuits involving them, including the original West Virginia suit.)

As the moniker "forever chemicals" suggests, mounting research has shown that PFAS accumulate in the environment and in our bodies and can be responsible for a number of health problems, from high cholesterol to reproductive issues and cancer. EPA figures released earlier this year show that almost half of the US population is currently exposed to PFAS in their drinking water. Nearly all Americans, meanwhile, have at least one type of PFAS in their blood.

For a class of chemicals with such terrifying properties, there's been surprisingly little regulation of PFAS at the federal level. One of the most-studied PFAS chemicals, PFOA, began to be phased out in the US in the early 2000s, with major companies eliminating the chemical and related compounds under EPA guidance by 2015. The chemical industry and manufacturers say that the replacements they have found for the most dangerous chemicals are safe. But the federal government, as a whole, has lagged behind the science when it comes to regulations: The EPA only set official drinking water limits for six types of PFAS in 2024.

In lieu of federal guidance, states have started taking action. In 2021, Maine, which identified an epidemic of PFAS pollution on its farms in 2016, passed the first-ever law banning the sale of consumer products with PFAS. Minnesota followed suit in 2023.

AnonTechie writes:

An interesting article about the decline in friendships.

The so-called "Friendship Recession" is making its way into the vernacular—a profound shift in how Americans experience and sustain friendships. The data paints a stark picture. According to the American Perspectives Survey, the percentage of U.S. adults who report having no close friends has quadrupled to 12% since 1990, while the percentage of those with ten or more close friends has fallen by nearly threefold. The foundations of the crisis were laid long before lockdowns. For decades, Americans consistently spent about 6.5 hours a week with friends. Then, between 2014 and 2019, that number plummeted to just four hours per week.

To be sure, systemic forces underlie this shift. Suburban sprawl has physically distanced us from one another. The government slowed down its investment in and construction of third spaces—such as community centers, parks, and coffee shops—which has left fewer places for organic social interactions. The rise of the gig economy and economic pressures have made free time a luxury. These factors have made friendship more difficult, and policymakers, urban planners, and venture capitalists are searching for solutions.

However, these structural forces alone can't fully account for the larger shift. If inaccessibility were the primary driver, we wouldn't see relatively stable connection rates among older adults over the last several decades. If wealthier individuals have more access to communal spaces, why has solo dining increased by 29% in the past two years? If this were purely circumstantial, why would Stanford now offer Design for Healthy Friendships—a class dedicated to helping students structure their social lives with intention?

[...] While these prescriptions might sound easy, the reality is that culture change is hard, and its effects aren't seen overnight. It would be easier to scapegoat external forces, build yet another friend-finding app, and call it a day. While broader policy changes and social infrastructure certainly are needed and will help, we also must recognize that change starts with us. The small, daily choices we make—to reach out, to show up, to invest in relationships—add up to and actively shape the culture we live in. Imagine what could happen if we're better, together.

[Source]: Harvard Kennedy School

What has been your experience in this regard ?

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://marylandmatters.org/2025/04/14/end-of-an-era-the-last-radioshack-in-maryland-is-closing-its-doors/

Before the 2000s, RadioShack was the place to go if you needed a cable or help with anything tech related. Now, the last brick-and-mortar store in Maryland is closing its doors.

"I'm not one to sit at home, so I'm going to find something to do," said Cindy Henning, the store's manager and sole employee.

After more than 40 years, the RadioShack in Prince Frederick is shutting down.

Henning told WTOP she's going to miss it dearly. She's worked there for three decades.

"We would have a lot of fun. That was half of our day was to have fun with people and show them how electronics work," Henning said.

It was owned and operated by longtime local resident Michael King, who passed away at the end of January at the age of 79. His son Edward has taken over as owner. It's the end of an era," he said.

King said his grandfather owned a TV repair shop in the '50s and then his dad worked with him. They started carrying RadioShack products and grew to franchise three stores in Maryland. The RadioShack franchise first declared bankruptcy in 2015. King said they used the RadioShack name, but they don't have a warehouse in the U.S., so they were buying product from other wholesalers and selling it. "It was fun while it lasted, but it's not the same anymore," King said. "I know my dad realized that." The store's last day is Saturday, April 26.

[There are no hardware shops near to where I live now. I have to do all of my shopping online. I do use Amazon but where I can I prefer to use the original supplier, particular if one can build a good relationship with them. I have received small but welcome discounts on some of the items that I have purchased. What do you do now for hardware and components?--JR]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Oxygen discovered in most distant known galaxy:

Two different teams of astronomers have detected oxygen in the most distant known galaxy, JADES-GS-z14-0. The discovery, reported in two separate studies, was made possible thanks to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner. This record-breaking detection is making astronomers rethink how quickly galaxies formed in the early Universe.

Discovered last year, JADES-GS-z14-0 is the most distant confirmed galaxy ever found: it is so far away, its light took 13.4 billion years to reach us, meaning we see it as it was when the Universe was less than 300 million years old, about 2% of its present age. The new oxygen detection with ALMA, a telescope array in Chile's Atacama Desert, suggests the galaxy is much more chemically mature than expected.

"It is like finding an adolescent where you would only expect babies," says Sander Schouws, a PhD candidate at Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands, and first author of the Dutch-led study, now accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. "The results show the galaxy has formed very rapidly and is also maturing rapidly, adding to a growing body of evidence that the formation of galaxies happens much faster than was expected."

Galaxies usually start their lives full of young stars, which are made mostly of light elements like hydrogen and helium. As stars evolve, they create heavier elements like oxygen, which get dispersed through their host galaxy after they die. Researchers had thought that, at 300 million years old, the Universe was still too young to have galaxies ripe with heavy elements. However, the two ALMA studies indicate JADES-GS-z14-0 has about 10 times more heavy elements than expected.

"I was astonished by the unexpected results because they opened a new view on the first phases of galaxy evolution," says Stefano Carniani, of the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy, and lead author on the paper now accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics. "The evidence that a galaxy is already mature in the infant Universe raises questions about when and how galaxies formed."

The oxygen detection has also allowed astronomers to make their distance measurements to JADES-GS-z14-0 much more accurate. "The ALMA detection offers an extraordinarily precise measurement of the galaxy's distance down to an uncertainty of just 0.005 percent. This level of precision — analogous to being accurate within 5 cm over a distance of 1 km — helps refine our understanding of distant galaxy properties," adds Eleonora Parlanti, a PhD student at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and author on the Astronomy & Astrophysicsstudy [1].

"While the galaxy was originally discovered with the James Webb Space Telescope, it took ALMA to confirm and precisely determine its enormous distance," [2] says Associate Professor Rychard Bouwens, a member of the team at Leiden Observatory. "This shows the amazing synergy between ALMA and JWST to reveal the formation and evolution of the first galaxies."

Gergö Popping, an ESO astronomer at the European ALMA Regional Centre who did not take part in the studies, says: "I was really surprised by this clear detection of oxygen in JADES-GS-z14-0. It suggests galaxies can form more rapidly after the Big Bang than had previously been thought. This result showcases the important role ALMA plays in unraveling the conditions under which the first galaxies in our Universe formed."

---

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Phase two of military AI has arrived:

As I also write in my story, this push raises alarms from some AI safety experts about whether large language models are fit to analyze subtle pieces of intelligence in situations with high geopolitical stakes. It also accelerates the US toward a world where AI is not just analyzing military data but suggesting actions—for example, generating lists of targets. Proponents say this promises greater accuracy and fewer civilian deaths, but many human rights groups argue the opposite.

With that in mind, here are three open questions to keep your eye on as the US military, and others around the world, bring generative AI to more parts of the so-called "kill chain."

What are the limits of "human in the loop"?

Talk to as many defense-tech companies as I have and you'll hear one phrase repeated quite often: "human in the loop." It means that the AI is responsible for particular tasks, and humans are there to check its work. It's meant to be a safeguard against the most dismal scenarios—AI wrongfully ordering a deadly strike, for example—but also against more trivial mishaps. Implicit in this idea is an admission that AI will make mistakes, and a promise that humans will catch them.

But the complexity of AI systems, which pull from thousands of pieces of data, make that a herculean task for humans, says Heidy Khlaaf, who is chief AI scientist at the AI Now Institute, a research organization, and previously led safety audits for AI-powered systems.

"'Human in the loop' is not always a meaningful mitigation," she says. When an AI model relies on thousands of data points to draw conclusions, "it wouldn't really be possible for a human to sift through that amount of information to determine if the AI output was erroneous." As AI systems rely on more and more data, this problem scales up.

Is AI making it easier or harder to know what should be classified?

In the Cold War era of US military intelligence, information was captured through covert means, written up into reports by experts in Washington, and then stamped "Top Secret," with access restricted to those with proper clearances. The age of big data, and now the advent of generative AI to analyze that data, is upending the old paradigm in lots of ways.

One specific problem is called classification by compilation. Imagine that hundreds of unclassified documents all contain separate details of a military system. Someone who managed to piece those together could reveal important information that on its own would be classified. For years, it was reasonable to assume that no human could connect the dots, but this is exactly the sort of thing that large language models excel at.

With the mountain of data growing each day, and then AI constantly creating new analyses, "I don't think anyone's come up with great answers for what the appropriate classification of all these products should be," says Chris Mouton, a senior engineer for RAND, who recently tested how well suited generative AI is for intelligence and analysis. Underclassifying is a US security concern, but lawmakers have also criticized the Pentagon for overclassifying information.

How high up the decision chain should AI go?

Zooming out for a moment, it's worth noting that the US military's adoption of AI has in many ways followed consumer patterns. Back in 2017, when apps on our phones were getting good at recognizing our friends in photos, the Pentagon launched its own computer vision effort, called Project Maven, to analyze drone footage and identify targets.

Now, as large language models enter our work and personal lives through interfaces such as ChatGPT, the Pentagon is tapping some of these models to analyze surveillance.

So what's next? For consumers, it's agentic AI, or models that can not just converse with you and analyze information but go out onto the internet and perform actions on your behalf. It's also personalized AI, or models that learn from your private data to be more helpful.

All signs point to the prospect that military AI models will follow this trajectory as well. A report published in March from Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology found a surge in military adoption of AI to assist in decision-making. "Military commanders are interested in AI's potential to improve decision-making, especially at the operational level of war," the authors wrote.

In October, the Biden administration released its national security memorandum on AI, which provided some safeguards for these scenarios. This memo hasn't been formally repealed by the Trump administration, but President Trump has indicated that the race for competitive AI in the US needs more innovation and less oversight. Regardless, it's clear that AI is quickly moving up the chain not just to handle administrative grunt work, but to assist in the most high-stakes, time-sensitive decisions.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Disasters spur investment in flood and fire risk tech:

When Storm Babet hit the town of Trowell in Nottingham in 2023, Claire Sneddon felt confident her home would not be affected.

After all, when she bought the property in 2021, she was told by the estate agent that a previous flood the year before, which had reached but not effected the property, was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and that flooding measures to protect the properties on the cul-de-sac would be put in place.

However, when Storm Babet tore through the UK two years later, Ms Sneddon's home flooded after several days of rain.

"We knew there would be water on the cul-de-sac but no one expected it to flood internally again. However, water entered the property for five hours," she says. "It reached to the top of the skirting boards. We had to have all the flooring, woodwork and lower kitchen replaced, which took nearly 12 months." Their final insurance bill was around £45,000. She says they were fortunate to have qualified for a government scheme providing affordable insurance for homeowners in areas of high-flood risk.

While it might be too late for Ms Sneddon and other homeowners, new tools are being developed to help people and companies assess climate risk.

[...] Last December, the UK Environment Agency updated its National Flood Risk Assessment (NaFRA), showing current and future flood risk from rivers, the sea and surface water for England. It used its own data alongside that of local authorities and climate data from the Met Office. It also brought up to date the National Coastal Erosion Risk Map (NCERM). They were both last updated in 2018 and 2017 respectively.

The new NaFRA data shows as many as 6.3 million properties in England are in areas at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water, and with climate change this could increase to around eight million by 2050.

"We have spent the last few years transforming our understanding of flood and coastal erosion risk in England, drawing on the best available data... as well as improved modelling and technological advances," says Julie Foley, director of flood risk strategy at the Environment Agency.

"When we account for the latest climate projections, one in four properties could be in areas at risk of flooding by the middle of the century."

The Environment Agency plans to launch a portal, external where users can check their long-term flood risk. Similar resources exist for Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales through the ABI.

fliptop writes:

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.O), said on Tuesday its key processor chips would soon be made at TSMC's (2330.TW), opens new tab new production site in Arizona, marking the first time that its products will be manufactured in the United States:

Though AMD's plans predate U.S. President Donald Trump's return to office, tech companies' efforts to diversify their supply chains have taken on added significance given Trump's escalating tariff war.

His administration is currently investigating whether imports of semiconductors threaten national security, which could be a precursor to slapping tariffs on those products.

"Our new fifth-generation EPYC is doing very well, so we're ready to start production," AMD Chief Executive Lisa Su told reporters in Taipei, referring to the company's central processing unit (CPU) for data centres.

Until now, the U.S. company's products have been made at contract chip manufacturer TSMC's facilities in Taiwan.

Also at ZeroHedge.

Related:

• Producing Wafers at TSMC Arizona is Only 10% More Expensive Than in Taiwan
• Trump to Introduce 25% and 'Higher' Tariff on Imported Semiconductors but the Timing is Unclear
• US To Squeeze Firms For Investment To Get Chips Act Cash
• TSMC's Arizona Fab 21 is Already Making 4nm Chips - Yield and Quality Reportedly on Par With Taiwan

Original Submission

drussell writes:

The OpenWrt community is proud to announce the newest stable release of the OpenWrt 24.10 stable series.

The OpenWrt Project is a Linux operating system targeting embedded devices. It is a complete replacement for the vendor-supplied firmware of a wide range of wireless routers and non-network devices.

Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management. This frees you from the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to customize the device through the use of packages to suit any application. For developers, OpenWrt is the framework to build an application without having to build a complete firmware around it; for users this means the ability for full customization, to use the device in ways never envisioned.

If you're not familiar with OpenWrt, it really is quite a nifty OS ecosystem and many commercially available routers even run OpenWrt under the hood behind a manufacturer-specific user-facing web interface.

While installing OpenWrt on a device will not magically transform older, less capable hardware into faster Wi-Fi for your home or something, many devices are effectively crippled from the factory as to the hardware capabilities you can utilize, the options, packages and software capabilities you can use by their stock firmware.

Newer devices gain all possible functionality through a fully capable software suite and extensible packages. Devices with bugs, security issues or simply abandoned by their manufacturer but still capable of good performance from the hardware can be brought up to date and used successfully with the updated OS. Older devices no longer suited to their original, intended purpose (like a slow Wi-Fi chip) can be re-purposed into something useful, for example using an old router with a USB port as a NAS server for your LAN by simply connecting storage.

This latest 24.10.1 release addresses some of the various issues and regressions caused by some of the underlying fundamental changes from the previous 23.5.x series to the initial 24.10.0 release.

Personally, I've come to use it quite extensively across a wide range of devices. Note though that as of this moment, many of the firmware download links, etc. have yet to be updated to specifically point to 24.10.1 as the release roll-out proceeds.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/a-history-of-the-internet-part-1-an-arpa-dream-takes-form/

In a very real sense, the Internet, this marvelous worldwide digital communications network that you're using right now, was created because one man was annoyed at having too many computer terminals in his office.

The year was 1966. Robert Taylor was the director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency's Information Processing Techniques Office. The agency was created in 1958 by President Eisenhower in response to the launch of Sputnik.
[...]
He had three massive terminals crammed into a room next to his office. Each one was connected to a different mainframe computer. They all worked slightly differently, and it was frustrating to remember multiple procedures to log in and retrieve information.
[...]
Taylor's predecessor, Joseph "J.C.R." Licklider, had released a memo in 1963 that whimsically described an "Intergalactic Computer Network" that would allow users of different computers to collaborate and share information. The idea was mostly aspirational, and Licklider wasn't able to turn it into a real project. But Taylor knew that he could.
[...]
Taylor marched into the office of his boss, Charles Herzfeld. He described how a network could save ARPA time and money by allowing different institutions to share resources. He suggested starting with a small network of four computers as a proof of concept.

"Is it going to be hard to do?" Herzfeld asked.

"Oh no. We already know how to do it," Taylor replied.

"Great idea," Herzfeld said. "Get it going. You've got a million dollars more in your budget right now. Go."

Taylor wasn't lying—at least, not completely.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Dolphins in seas around the UK are dying from a combination of increased water temperatures and toxic chemicals that the UK banned in the 1980s.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a long-lasting type of persistent chemical pollutant, once widely used in industrial manufacturing. They interfere with animals’ reproduction and immune response and cause cancer in humans.

In a new study, researchers showed that higher levels of PCBs in the body and increased sea surface temperatures are linked to a greater mortality risk from infectious diseases for short-beaked common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), a first for marine mammals.

The ocean is facing “a triple planetary crisis” – climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss – but we often look at threats in isolation, says Rosie Williams at Zoological Society of London.

Williams and her colleagues analysed post-mortem data from 836 common dolphins stranded in the UK between 1990 and 2020 to assess the impact of these interlinked threats.

They found a rise of 1 milligram of PCBs per kilogram of blubber was linked with a 1.6 per cent increase in the chance of infectious diseases – such as gastritis, enteritis, bacterial infection, encephalitis and pneumonia – becoming fatal. Every 1°C rise in sea surface temperature corresponded to a 14 per cent increase in mortality risk.

According to the study, the threshold where PCB blubber concentrations have a significant effect on a dolphin’s risk of disease is 22 mg/kg, but the average concentration in samples was higher, at 32.15 mg/kg.

Because dolphins are long-lived, widely distributed around the UK and high in the food chain, they are a good indicator species to show how threats might also affect other animals.

[...] Despite being banned in the UK in 1981 and internationally in 2001, PCBs are still washing into the ocean. “They are still probably entering the environment through stockpiles and are often a side product or a byproduct of other manufacturing processes,” says Williams.

Cleaning up PCBs is very difficult. “Because they’re so persistent, they’re a nightmare to get rid of,” she says. “There is definitely not an easy fix.”

Some researchers are exploring dredging as a cleanup technique, while others are focused on improving water treatment plants’ effectiveness in removing persistent chemicals.

These findings indicate what might happen if action isn’t taken to ban perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), another widespread group of so-called forever chemicals.

“While we cannot reverse the contamination that has already occurred, it is critical to prevent further chemical inputs into the environment,” says Taylor.

Journal Reference: Williams, R.S., Curnick, D.J., Baillie, A. et al. Sea temperature and pollution are associated with infectious disease mortality in short-beaked common dolphins. Commun Biol 8, 557 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-07858-7

Original Submission

NotSanguine writes:

From Brian Krebs on Infosec.Exchange:

I boosted several posts about this already, but since people keep asking if I've seen it....

MITRE has announced that its funding for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program and related programs, including the Common Weakness Enumeration Program, will expire on April 16. The CVE database is critical for anyone doing vulnerability management or security research, and for a whole lot of other uses. There isn't really anyone else left who does this, and it's typically been work that is paid for and supported by the US government, which is a major consumer of this information, btw.

I reached out to MITRE, and they confirmed it is for real. Here is the contract, which is through the Department of Homeland Security, and has been renewed annually on the 16th or 17th of April.

usaspending.gov/award/CONT_AWD_70RCSJ23FR0000015_7001_70RSAT20D00000001_7001

MITRE's CVE database is likely going offline tomorrow. They have told me that for now, historical CVE records will be available at GitHub, https://github.com/CVEProject

Yosry Barsoum, vice president and director at MITRE's Center for Securing the Homeland, said:

"On Wednesday, April 16, 2025, funding for MITRE to develop, operate, and modernize the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE®) Program and related programs, such as the Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE™) Program, will expire. The government continues to make considerable efforts to support MITRE's role in the program and MITRE remains committed to CVE as a global resource."

Once again, Cui Bono? It certainly ain't us.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Rooftop solar PV could supply two-thirds of world's energy needs, and lower global temperatures:

Covering rooftops across the planet with solar panels could deliver 65 per cent of current global power consumption and almost completely replace fossil fuel-based electricity, and it could also lower global temperatures by 0.13 degrees.

These are the findings from a new study from researchers at the University of Sussex that found rooftop solar PV could generate 19,500 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity per year. (Australia consumes around 250 TWh of electricity a year).

By using nine advanced Earth system models, geospatial data mining, and artificial intelligence techniques, the researchers were able to estimate the global rooftop area at a resolution of 1 kilometres to evaluate the technological potential of rooftop solar PV.

The researchers outlined their full methodology in an article published in the journal Nature, involving a lot of artificial intelligence machine learning that helped to determine that rooftops currently cover 286,393 kilometres-squared (km2) of the globe.

Of this 286,393km2, 30 per cent is unsurprisingly located in East Asia and 12 per cent by North America. China and the United States similarly comprised the largest collection of rooftops, with 74,426km2 and 30,928km2 respectively.

They were then able to extrapolate the generation potential of rooftop solar PV if every suitable rooftop was used, which resulted in annual electricity generation potential of 19,483TWh.

[...] The researchers were also able to use their findings to calculate the impact a global coverage of rooftop solar would have on global warming. While figures differed depending on the models and scenarios used, complete rooftop solar coverage based on current building stocks could mitigate global warming by 0.13–0.05 °C.

Importantly, the researchers also warned that solar power offers taxpayers better value for money than nuclear and urged policymakers around the globe to prioritise rooftop solar.

See also:

• Worldwide rooftop photovoltaic electricity generation may mitigate global warming

Original Submission

upstart writes:

'We don't want to build an ecosystem that shuts the door':

For smartphone manufacturers, competing with Apple must feel like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Every. Single. Quarter.

The best iPhones aren't necessarily the best phones outright (read: they're not), but the Cupertino giant has undoubtedly managed to cordon off a large swath of smartphone-owning consumers (perhaps indefinitely so) through its decades-long focus on building a watertight product ecosystem. Heck, even Samsung, Apple's biggest competitor, has seen its own home country fall victim to iPhone fever, and Apple remains a force to be reckoned with in China, too.

What, then, are Apple's rivals to do? According to OnePlus' Senior Product Marketing Manager Rudolf Xu, there's only one thing for it: push for greater compatibility with iOS.

"I think the key thing is to build a bridge with iOS," Xu told TechRadar during a recent visit to OnePlus HQ in Guangdong, China. "That's why, for example, on OxygenOS 15, we have a feature called Share with iPhone, and people love it – we are getting very positive feedback, because it makes file transfer [between Android and iOS] a lot easier. That's something that Android devices have always struggled with.

"Another thing is the sharing of live photos," Xu continued. "If you capture a live photo with the OnePlus 13, you can actually still see the live photo effect on an iPhone [if you transfer it]. That's because we're using the latest format to package live photos.

"These are all the efforts we're putting in to build a bridge between OnePlus products and the iOS ecosystem. We don't want to build an ecosystem that shuts the door for other customers. We want to make [our ecosystem] as open as possible, so that we can attract more users."

In person, Xu's comment about "an ecosystem that shuts the door for other customers" wasn't made in reference to Apple directly, but it does rather nicely highlight the crux of the issue at hand. Apple won't willingly open up its operating system to rival software developers (and why would it?), so there's only so much that brands like OnePlus can do to improve compatibility between Android- and iOS-based devices.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Microsoft has begun the rollout of an AI-powered tool which takes snapshots of users' screens every few seconds.

The Copilot+ Recall feature is available in preview mode to some people with Microsoft's AI PCs and laptops.

It is the relaunch of a feature which was dubbed a "privacy nightmare" when it was first announced last year.

Microsoft paused the rollout in 2024, and after trialling the tech with a small number of users, it has begun expanding access to those signed up to its Windows Insider software testing programme.

The BBC has approached Microsoft for comment.

Microsoft says Recall will be rolled out worldwide, but those based in the EU will have to wait until later in 2025.

Users will opt in to the feature and Microsoft says they can "can pause saving snapshots at any time".

The purpose of Recall is to allow PC users to easily search through their past activity including files, photos, emails and browsing history.

For example, Microsoft says a person who saw a dress online a few days ago would be able to use the feature to easily locate where they saw it.

Privacy campaigner Dr Kris Shrishak - who previously called Recall a "privacy nightmare" - said the opt-in mechanism is "an improvement", but felt it could still be misused.

"Information about other people, who cannot consent, will be captured and processed through Recall," he said.

The feature is able to save images of your emails and messaging apps such as WhatsApp - meaning pictures and messages from others will be saved.

This is no different to a user taking a screenshot themselves when they receive a message.

"Think of disappearing messages on Signal that is stored on Recall forever," he said.

And he said he was concerned that malicious actors could exploit the images saved by Recall if they gained login access to a device.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As heat dissipation has become a major challenge for modern data centers, various cooling methods have been tried and deployed in recent years. For years, the industry has relied on air cooling; then, big companies began to experiment with liquid cooling, tried both warm water cooling and chilled water cooling, tested immersion cooling, and even planned to deploy it in the coming years. There is one thing that has not been used for cooling yet: lasers. Yet, lasers can be used to take away heat from processors. But there is a catch.

A startup called Maxwell Labs, with support from Sandia National Laboratories, is working on a new way to cool high-performance computing hardware, reports The Register. The technique uses special cold plates made of ultrapure gallium arsenide (GaAs) that cool down when they receive focused beams of coherent laser light of a certain wavelength. Rather than heating, which is common in most interactions involving intense light beams, this carefully engineered setup allows the semiconductor to shed heat at precise locations thanks to the high electron mobility of GaAs. The method promises to assist traditional cooling systems rather than replace them.

To implement this in practical applications, the GaAs semiconductors are structured into thin components placed directly on high-heat regions of processors. Microscopic patterns within the semiconductor guide the coherent beams precisely to these hot spots, resulting in highly localized cooling, which ensures efficiency by directly managing heat exactly where it becomes problematic instead of attempting to use GaAs and lasers to cool down an entire system. This technique has roots in earlier studies: back in 2012, at the University of Copenhagen, they cooled a tiny membrane to -269°C using a similar method, according to the report.

Additionally, this technique offers a unique capability: it can recapture the energy removed as heat, according to Maxwell. Rather than dissipating into the environment, the thermal energy extracted from chips can be emitted as usable photons, which are convertible back into electrical power. While this certainly increases the overall energy efficiency of computing systems, the efficiency of the process remains to be seen.

While the approach to use GaAs semiconductors for cooling is certainly an innovation, it is associated with extreme challenges both from the cost and manufacturability points of view.

[...] Currently, the concept remains in the experimental and modeling stage. According to Maxwell Labs chief executive Jacob Balma, simulations suggest the method is promising, but it has never been confirmed in physical trials as testing so far has been limited to separate components rather than a full setup.

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