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hubie writes:

Experts find fake sources in Canadian government report that took 18 months to complete:

On Friday, CBC News reported that a major education reform document [document no longer available --JE] prepared for the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador contains at least 15 fabricated citations that academics suspect were generated by an AI language model—despite the same report calling for "ethical" AI use in schools.

[...] One of the fake citations references a 2008 National Film Board movie called "Schoolyard Games" that does not exist, according to a board spokesperson. The exact citation reportedly appears in a University of Victoria style guide, a document that teaches students how to format references using fictional examples. The style guide warns on its first page that "Many citations in this guide are fictitious," meaning they are made-up examples used only to demonstrate proper formatting. Yet someone (or some AI chatbot) copied the fake example directly into the Education Accord report as if it were a real source.

Aaron Tucker, a Memorial assistant professor whose research focuses on AI history in Canada, told CBC he could not find numerous sources cited in the report despite searching the MUN Library, other academic databases, and Google. "The fabrication of sources at least begs the question: did this come from generative AI?" Tucker told CBC. "Whether that's AI, I don't know, but fabricating sources is a telltale sign of artificial intelligence."

[...] "Errors happen. Made-up citations are a totally different thing where you essentially demolish the trustworthiness of the material," Josh Lepawsky, the former president of the Memorial University Faculty Association who resigned from the report's advisory board in January, told CBC, citing a "deeply flawed process."

The presence of potentially AI-generated fake citations becomes especially awkward given that one of the report's 110 recommendations specifically states the provincial government should "provide learners and educators with essential AI knowledge, including ethics, data privacy, and responsible technology use."

[...] The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development acknowledged awareness of "a small number of potential errors in citations" in a statement to CBC from spokesperson Lynn Robinson. "We understand that these issues are being addressed, and that the online report will be updated in the coming days to rectify any errors."

Original Submission

hubie writes:

"When you turn off those spacecraft's radio receivers, there's no way to turn them back on."

Federal funding is about to run out for 19 active space missions studying Earth's climate, exploring the Solar System, and probing mysteries of the Universe.

This year's budget expires at the end of this month, and Congress must act before October 1 to avert a government shutdown. If Congress passes a budget before then, it will most likely be in the form of a continuing resolution, an extension of this year's funding levels into the first few weeks or months of fiscal year 2026.

The White House's budget request for fiscal year 2026 calls for a 25 percent cut to NASA's overall budget, and a nearly 50 percent reduction in funding for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. These cuts would cut off money for at least 41 missions, including 19 already in space and many more far along in development.

[...] Some of the mission names are recognizable to anyone with a passing interest in NASA's work. They include the agency's two Orbiting Carbon Observatory missions monitoring data signatures related to climate change, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which survived a budget scare last year, and two of NASA's three active satellites orbiting Mars.

And there's New Horizons, a spacecraft that made front-page headlines in 2015 when it beamed home the first up-close pictures of Pluto. Another mission on the chopping block is Juno, the world's only spacecraft currently at Jupiter.

Both spacecraft have more to offer, according to the scientists leading the missions.

upstart writes:

Nobody Wanted This: Samsung Fridges Are Getting Ads:

If your home is your temple—the last place where you can escape the blasted outside landscape of billboards, screen ads, bus ads, train ads, and TV ads—know that the Mongol horde of advertising is looking to break down your fortress walls. Samsung's new agenda for its smart home includes sticking ads into its ultra-expensive refrigerators with screens. Don't worry, you can dismiss some of those ads, but the only way to get rid of them completely is to disconnect your fridge from the internet.

Android Authority first spotted changes in the latest firmware update that is pushing ads to some users as part of a "pilot program." In a statement sent to Gizmodo, Samsung said that ads would appear on "certain Family Hub refrigerator cover screens" when the fridge is idle. Users will be able to dismiss the ads, and they won't appear again while the ad campaign is ongoing. The pilot program will start in September and last for several months, though "[f]uture plans will depend on the results of the pilot program."

"Advertising will appear on certain Family Hub refrigerator Cover Screens," the company wrote in an email statement. "The Cover Screen appears when a Family Hub screen is idle. Ad design format may change depending on Family Hub personalization options for the Cover Screen, and advertising will not appear when Cover Screen displays Art Mode or picture albums."

[Editor's Comment: Over to you, what are your forecasts for the most annoying places for ads to be forced upon you in the future - the loo perhaps, or your bedroom ceiling?-JR]

Original Submission

upstart writes:

L.A. Man Sentenced to 14 Days in Prison for Accidentally Crashing Drone Into Firefighting Plane:

A 57-year-old man has been sentenced to 14 days in prison and 30 days of home detention for flying a hobby drone that collided with a firefighting aircraft during the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles back in January.

Peter Tripp Akemann of Culver City pleaded guilty in February to recklessly operating a drone that crashed into a Super Scooper firefighting plane. The aircraft, a Canadair CL-415 known as the Super Scooper Quebec 1, was damaged and grounded when it should've been fighting the fires that were raging just north of Los Angeles.

Akemann was charged with one count of unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, a misdemeanor, which potentially carried a term of up to one year in prison. U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald sentenced Akemann to serve 14 days in federal prison and a month of home detention, according to a report from the Orange County Register.

The Super Scooper had been repeatedly scooping up 1,600 gallons of ocean water to dump on the Palisades Fire. Temporary flight restrictions had just been put in place on Jan. 9 when the collision happened, causing a roughly 3-inch by 6-inch hole in the left wing.

Akemann drove to Santa Monica and launched his drone from a parking structure. He flew the drone about 1.5 miles toward the fire, according to prosecutors, and told the court he was flying near the fire out of concern for a friend's home. But he said he lost contact with his drone and didn't know it collided with a firefighting aircraft until it was reported in the media.

"It was not until I heard on the news that a drone had collided with a firefighting aircraft that I became concerned that it was possibly my drone that had been involved," Akemann wrote in a letter, according to the Orange County Register.

The Palisades fire burned over 23,000 acres, killed 12 people, and destroyed almost 7,000 structures.

In addition to the brief prison time and home detention, Akemann has been ordered to pay about $156,000 in restitution and fines, according to the Orange County Register. The cost to repair the plane was $65,169. Akemann will also serve 150 hours of community service to support wildfire relief efforts.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Feds Launch Investigation Into Faulty Tesla Doors:

U.S. regulators just launched an investigation into faulty door handles on certain Tesla cars, after receiving several reports of exterior handles glitching and leaving children trapped inside.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said Tuesday that it's opening a preliminary probe into Tesla's electrically powered door handles, focusing on 2021 Model Y vehicles. The review covers nearly 175,000 cars and will gauge how widespread and serious the problem is.

"At this time, NHTSA's investigation is focused on the operability of the electronic door locks from outside of the vehicle as that circumstance is the only one in which there is no manual way to open the door," the regulator said on its website. "The agency will continue to monitor any reports of entrapment involving opening doors from inside of the vehicle, and ODI [Office of Defects Investigation (ODI)] will take further action as needed."

The probe comes just days after an investigation from Bloomberg revealed multiple cases in which people were hurt or even died when Teslas lost power—typically after crashes—and their doors wouldn't open. Bloomberg reports that the NHTSA has received over 140 complaints since 2018 about Tesla doors sticking, not opening, or otherwise failing.

This is also the NHTSA's third active probe into Tesla vehicles. The agency is already investigating the safety of the company's Full Self-Driving and driver-assistance systems. The NHTSA said it opened this new investigation after receiving nine reports of people being unable to open the doors on 2021 Model Y cars from the outside.

The agency said the most common scenario involved parents stepping out of a car to put a child in or take a child out of the back seat. When they tried to get back in, the doors wouldn't open.

The agency noted that Tesla vehicles do have manual door releases inside, but a child might not be able to reach or know how to use them. In four of these reports, people resorted to breaking a window to get back into the car.

The agency called the defect especially concerning because it could trap people in an emergency, like young children left in a hot car.

The agency also said that the defect seems to happen when the electronic door locks don't get enough power from the car. Available repair invoices show that the car's low-voltage battery was replaced following the incidents; however, none of the reports mention drivers ever seeing a low-voltage battery warning beforehand.

Although the Tesla Owner's Manual explains a multi-step process to restore power to electronic door locks using an external 12-volt source, it may be difficult to use in an emergency.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Gizmodo.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Ban social media for under 15s, says French report warning of TikTok dangers:

French children under 15 should be banned from social media and there should be an overnight "digital curfew" for 15-18 year olds, a parliamentary commission has recommended.

The six-month inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok on minors has found that the short video-sharing platform "knowingly exposes our children, our young people to toxic, dangerous and addictive content".

"We must force TikTok to rethink its model," says the commission, which heard testimony from teenagers and the families of young victims.

TikTok responded saying it categorically rejected the commission's "misleading characterisation of our platform" which sought to "scapegoat our company on industry-wide and societal challenges".

"TikTok has an ongoing robust trust and safety programme with more than 70 features and settings designed specifically to support the safety and well-being of teens and families on our platform," a spokesperson said in a statement.

The company's measures have however failed to impress the French cross-party commission of inquiry, which describes TikTok as one of the worst social media platforms - "a production line of distress" for young people. It argues Tiktok it has failed to take sufficient action to reduce teenagers being exposed to "a spiral of harmful content".

The recommendations of the French parliamentary inquiry come hard on the heels of an Australian social media ban for children under the age of 16 which comes into force on 10 December. "Age‐restricted social media platforms" such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube will face steep fines if they fail to take "reasonable steps"to bar under-16s from holding accounts.

[...] Among the 43 recommendations of the French inquiry team aimed at getting French children "out of the TikTok trap" are:

• a ban on social media for under-15s

• no use of the apps overnight from 22:00-08:00 to prevent overnight scrolling

• a ban on mobile phones in school

• and, in the coming years, a crime of digital negligence for parents who fail to protect their children.

Lead inquiry author Laure Miller explained that the idea of an offence for parents of digital negligence was really just an extension of existing law.

"If a six-year-old child spends seven hours a day in front of TikTok, we can ask ourselves the question: 'are their safety and morality really protected by their parents?'," she told reporters.

France is among several EU countries pushing to limit children's use of social media. Denmark is also considering a social media ban for under-15s and Spain's government has sent to parliament a draft law for under-16s to require their legal guardians to authorise access.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

It's a bit hacky, but with some tweaking, older GPUs get a nice new upscaling option:

The latest version of AMD's FidelityFX, typically known as FSR 4, delivers a markedly superior result to FSR 3, making it a big win for those who can run it. But that privileged group is limited to folks with AMD Radeon RX 9000 series GPUs based on the company's RDNA 4 architecture. Or is it? As it turns out, you can actually run FSR 4 on nearly any GPU, thanks to AMD itself leaking the source code last month.

Strictly speaking, this isn't exactly 'new' news. As far back as June of this year, people were hacking FSR4 onto last-generation Radeon RX 7000 GPUs, but that trick was fragile and required Linux. Today's method is quite easy and should, in theory, work on virtually any modern GPU in the vast majority of DirectX 12, DirectX 11, and Vulkan games. We'll get to the specifics in a moment, but we should explain exactly what's going on here.

When AMD open-sourced the FSR SDK, including FSR 4, it mistakenly published the full source of FSR 4, not just the SDK portion of it. That meant that anyone could take the FSR 4 code and do whatever they wanted with it, because the source was published under a highly permissive MIT license. Notably, alongside the FP8 version of FSR 4 — that is, the standard version that the Radeon RX 9000 cards normally use — there was also a version built to use the INT8 datatype. INT8 is supported on virtually all modern GPUs, so it is much more compatible.

That was a source release, so it took some hero to come along and compile the source into a binary form that gamers could actually use. That hero turns out to be /u/AthleteDependent926 on Reddit, who provided the compiled DLL file that users can simply drop into games with FSR 3 support to enable FSR 4.

upstart writes:

Has the Apple iPhone Air killed off the Sim card?:

With smartphones, where Apple leads others often follow - so it launching an iPhone this week without a traditional Sim card is raising questions over the future of a very familiar piece of phone tech.

All phone users will be used to the small plastic cards they need to delicately insert into their devices to make them operate.

But for buyers of the iPhone Air, that will be a thing of the past.

It will only operate with an eSim - which allows users to switch networks or plans without resorting to a fiddly fork to open a tiny Sim card tray.

Analyst Kester Mann, from CCS Insight, told BBC News that Apple's announcement "marks the beginning of the end of the physical Sim card".

But how long will it be before we have all discarded our little chip-carrying pieces of plastic - and what difference will it make to how we use our phones?

Sim stands for Subscriber Identity Module. The chip is a key part of your phone - allowing you to connect to your mobile network provider, handle calls and texts, and use your data.

In recent years, the eSim has emerged as an alternative and in newer phones users have the option to use both a traditional Sim or the eSim.

On Tuesday, in its product announcement for the new iPhone Air - the newest, and thinnest, addition to the Apple family - the tech giant said it would feature an eSim-only design.

[...] Other major manufacturers, such as Samsung, external and Google, while embracing eSims as an option are also still maintaining physical Sim in most places.

However, experts say there is no doubt about the direction of travel.

upstart writes:

New Bill Aims to Block Both Online Adult Content and VPNs:

If you live in Michigan, you might not be able to legally use a VPN soon if a new bill is passed into law. On Sept. 11, Michigan Republican representatives proposed far-reaching legislation banning adult internet content.

The bill, called the Anticorruption of Public Morals Act and advanced by six Republican representatives, would ban a wide variety of adult content online, ranging from ASMR and adult manga to AI content and any depiction of transgender people. It also seeks to ban all use of VPNs, foreign or US-produced.

[...] But Michigan's bill would charge internet service providers with detecting and blocking VPN use, as well as banning the sale of VPNs in the state. Associated fines would be up to $500,000.

Unlike some laws banning access to adult content, this Michigan bill is comprehensive. It applies to all residents of Michigan, adults or children, targets an extensive range of content and includes language that could ban not only VPNs but any method of bypassing internet filters or restrictions.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The oldest known mummies have been found:

Southeast Asians created the oldest known human mummies roughly 7,000 years before Egyptian mummies debuted, researchers say.

From around 12,000 to 4,000 years ago, hunter-gatherers across southern China, Southeast Asia and islands to the south and east bound the dead in crouched postures. They then slowly dried the bodies over smoky, low-temperature fires for several months, say archaeologist Hsiao-chun Hung of Australian National University in Canberra and colleagues.

[...] Smoke-dried mummification may have developed from ancient beliefs that focused on preserving the bodies of revered ancestors. These poorly understood beliefs moved across southern Asia and possibly into Northeast Asia after human groups migrated out of Africa starting around 60,000 years ago, Hung suspects.

[...] Irregular bone charring and the careful positioning of largely intact skeletons indicated that people had heated dead bodies slowly over smoky fires, the researchers say. Continuous smoke exposure dried out and mummified corpses' skins, helping to keep skeletons from falling apart.

Journal Reference:
(DOI: https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2515103122)

Original Submission

upstart writes:

GNOME 49 arrives this week, and it's packed with features and polish you'll love:

GNOME is a Linux desktop environment that you either love or hate. I've used GNOME and GNOME-based desktops for years and have always fallen on the side of "love. " With each new release, I always find a feature or two (or a bit of extra polish) that makes me smile.

The release of GNOME 49 is no different. Although there might not be any game-changing features for this release (I'm guessing the developers are holding out until the big 5-0), there's just enough to make it a worthy upgrade from 48.

GNOME 49 will officially be released on Sept. 17 and will hopefully make it to your distribution of choice soon after.

If you're curious as to what's coming, read on.

With the release of GNOME 49, the X11 session has been officially disabled. That doesn't mean your distribution will leave it disabled, as the GNOME team has made it possible for distro maintainers to enable X11 support.

Enjoy X11 while you can, because the team plans on stripping all X11 code from the desktop for the 50th release.

GNOME Shell is now a Wayland-only desktop environment. For those who use applications that have yet to add Wayland support, fret not, as Xwayland will continue to work, so those apps will still run.

upstart writes:

China Bans Nvidia's AI Chips:

Nvidia just can't seem to catch a break.

After beating a ban on China sales imposed by the Trump administration, the tech giant is now facing a ban on its products by Chinese regulators.

Chinese internet regulator Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) ordered top Chinese tech companies like Bytedance and Alibaba to end their testing and orders of Nvidia's RTX Pro 6000D chips, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday citing people with knowledge of the matter.

Nvidia unveiled the RTX Pro 6000D chip, a lower tech chip designed just to be sold in China under compliance with American export control rules, earlier this year. The chips were initially designed to fill the void left by the then-banned H20 chips, another lower tech China-only chip. The H20s were recently reapproved for sale by the U.S. but orders have not yet begun shipping out. China is also advocating for the U.S. government to approve the sale of higher tech Blackwell chips to China.

The move comes as the latest breaking point of a fraying relationship between China and Nvidia.

Last month, Chinese authorities started questioning and cautioning industry titans like Tencent over their purchases of Nvidia's H20 chips, according to Reuters.

"We can only be in service of a market if a country wants us to be," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said at a press conference on Wednesday in response to a question about the China CAC. "I'm disappointed with what I see but they have larger agendas to work out between China and the United States. And I'm patient about it. We'll continue to be supportive of the Chinese government and Chinese companies as they wish."Nvidia has been caught up in the middle of a trade storm between the two countries.

The Biden administration was first to enforce export restrictions on Nvidia chips sold to China, in an effort to curb the entry of high-tech chips into China off of national security and competitive fears. The restrictions expanded for a while before they were relaxed again under Trump after Beijing landed a big blow to domestic AI confidence earlier this year with Deepseek's R1, an AI model that rivaled the best of American companies offerings using lower cost chips, inadvertently showing Americans that Chinese innovation did not require the top Nvidia chips.

The trade dispute has since gone beyond just chips to include discussions over TikTok and rare earth metals, of which China controls roughly 90% of the world's supply.

China's AI industry was largely dependent on American chipmaker Nvidia's chips but that might all be changing soon. After Trump's blanket ban earlier this year choked off the Chinese industry from access to Nvidia chips, Chinese chip development has ramped up. China chip stocks have experienced a major boom so big that the Beijing-based company Cambricon had to warn investors recently.

"The message is now loud and clear," an unnamed Chinese tech executive told the FT. "Earlier, people had hopes of renewed Nvidia supply if the geopolitical situation improves. Now it's all hands on deck to build the domestic system."

Although no chip, Chinese-made or otherwise, has been considered up to par with Nvidia's offerings, the Financial Times article paints a different picture.

After talking to top Chinese tech companies Huawei, Cambricon, Alibaba, and Baidu about their chip development, Beijing has concluded that Chinese AI processors are now comparable or even better than the downgraded Nvidia products that are allowed into China, according to the FT, citing a person with knowledge of the matter.

"The top-level consensus now is there's going to be enough domestic supply to meet demand without having to buy Nvidia chips," an industry insider told the FT.

The Chinese chip industry is having a good day. Alibaba shares rose after the company secured a prominent Chinese customer, state-owned telecommunications operator China Unicom, for its new AI chips. Baidu's shares in Hong Kong jumped by the most they have in more than three years after analysts voiced confidence in the search engine operator's chip venture.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Modular nuclear reactors sound great, but won't be ready any time soon:

The UK government has announced plans to build more than a dozen small nuclear reactors across the country, ushering in what it calls a new "golden age" for nuclear power. One of the ultimate goals is to help the country to finally divest from Russian energy within three years – but do tiny nuclear reactors make engineering and commercial sense, and can they even be built?

Ahead of a 16 September London visit by US President Trump, the US and UK announced a partnership between British firm Centrica and US start-up X-Energy to build 12 small modular nuclear reactors to power data centres, plus a "micro modular nuclear power plant" at DP World's London Gateway port built by US start-up Last Energy.

However, no dates were given for the beginning of any of the projects, and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero did not respond to New Scientist's request for more detail.

The announcement fits a trend of smaller nuclear reactors. Bruno Merk at the University of Liverpool in the UK says Rosatom, Russia's state nuclear energy organisation, recently finished building a batch of small reactors for a highly specific use in nuclear-powered icebreaker ships. Crucially, they then continued building more, showing either that there is demand from somewhere, or that Rosatom is taking a risk and building them as a commercial demonstration in the hope of selling more despite a raft of energy sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine.

China, too, has built a Linglong One small nuclear reactor, but it is not clear whether it will yet be a commercially viable product. And giant technology firms like Amazon, Google and Microsoft are investing in these sorts of nuclear technologies, too.

David Dye at Imperial College London says tiny reactors make sense for remote military installations or Arctic sites, but is sceptical about using tiny nuclear reactors to power these tech giants' needs. He says it is far easier to build data centres near a ready supply of energy instead.

"If you're a tech visionary multibillionaire and you want to believe...and you've made your billion, what is it to chuck $50 million at this cool technology?" says Dye.
"This is very rich men, or clubs of very rich men, giving a few crumbs off the table to this technology they've always loved the idea of, without really looking too carefully."

One motivation could be oversight, says Michael Bluck at Imperial College London. "If you're a data centre, you need to be on 99.995 per cent of the time," says Bluck. "That means you really want to be in control of that electricity. You get first dibs on that electricity."

Bluck says there is no engineering or scientific reason we can't build tiny nuclear reactors, and build them fast. He points out the first experimental reactors were small, and many devices of a similar size operate in universities and military submarines around the world still.

"Size is not the issue. It's the modularity, it's the building it on a production line, it's the standardisation of components. It's really practical. It's standard engineering," says Bluck.

upstart writes:

'Beyond EUV' chipmaking tech pushes Soft X-Ray lithography closer to challenging Hyper-NA EUV:

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have unveiled a new approach to chipmaking that uses lasers with a 6.5nm ~ 6.7nm wavelength — also known as Soft X-rays — that could increase the resolution of lithography tools to 5nm and below, reports Cosmos, citing a paper published in Nature.

The scientists call their method 'beyond-EUV' — suggesting that their technology could replace industry-standard EUV lithography — but the researchers admit they are currently years away from building even an experimental B-EUV tool.

Soft X-Rays can challenge Hyper-NA. On paper

The most advanced chips nowadays are made using EUV lithography, which operates at a wavelength of 13.5 nm and can produce features as small as 13nm (Low-NA EUV of 0.33 numerical aperture), 8nm (High-NA EUV of 0.55 NA), or even 4nm ~ 5nm (Hyper-NA EUV on 0.7 – 0.75 NA) at the cost of extreme complexity of the lithography systems that have very advanced optics that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

By using a shorter wavelength, researchers from Johns Hopkins University can get an intrinsic resolution boost even with lenses with moderate NA. However, they face many challenges with B-EUV.

Firstly, B‑EUV light sources are not yet ready. Various researchers have tried multiple methods of generating 6.7 nm wavelength radiation (e.g., gadolinium laser-produced plasma), but there is no industry-standard approach. Secondly, these shorter wavelengths — due to their high photon energy — interact poorly with traditional photoresist materials used in chipmaking. Thirdly, because 6.5nm ~ 6.7nm wavelength light is absorbed rather than reflected by pretty much everything, multilayer-coated mirrors for this type of radiation haven't been produced before.

Finally, these lithography tools must be designed from scratch, and currently, there is no ecosystem to support the designs with components and consumables. To sum up, building a B-EUV machine (or Soft X-ray machine?) requires breakthroughs in light sources, projection mirrors, resists, and even consumables like pellicles or photomasks.

The team discovered that metals like zinc are able to absorb B-EUV light and emit electrons, which then trigger chemical reactions in organic compounds called imidazoles. These reactions make it possible to etch very fine patterns onto semiconductor wafers.

Interestingly, while zinc performs poorly with traditional 13.5nm EUV light, it becomes highly effective at shorter wavelengths, highlighting how important it is to match the material with the right wavelength.

To apply these metal–organic compounds to silicon wafers, the researchers developed a technique called chemical liquid deposition (CLD). This method creates thin, mirror-like layers of a material called aZIF (amorphous zeolitic imidazolate frameworks), growing at a rate of 1nm per second. CLD also allows for fast testing of different metal–imidazole combinations, making it easier to discover the best pairings for different lithography wavelengths. While zinc is well suited for B-EUV, the team noted that other metals might perform better at different wavelengths, offering flexibility for future chipmaking technologies.

This approach gives manufacturers a toolbox of at least 10 metal elements and hundreds of organic ligands to create custom resists tailored to specific lithography platforms, the researchers disclosed.

Although the researchers did not solve the full stack of B-EUV challenges (e.g., source power, masks), they advanced one of the most critical bottlenecks: finding resist materials that can work with 6nm wavelength light. They created the CLD process to apply thin, uniform films of amorphous zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (aZIFs) onto silicon wafers. They experimentally showed that certain metals (like zinc) can absorb Soft X-ray light and emit electrons that trigger chemical reactions in imidazole-based resists.

There are plenty of challenges to be solved with B-EUV, and the technology doesn't have a clear path to the mass market. However, the CLD process can be used pretty widely, both in semiconductor and non-semiconductor applications.

Journal: Spin-on deposition of amorphous zeolitic imidazolate framework films for lithography applications by Yurun Miao, Shunyi Zheng, Kayley E. Waltz, Mueed Ahmad, Xinpei Zhou, Yegui Zhou, Heting Wang, et al.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

"We're excited that Northrop is ready to deliver this incredibly beneficial increase in capacity" :

What happens when you use a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to launch Northrop Grumman's Cygnus supply ship? A record-setting resupply mission to the International Space Station.

The first flight of Northrop's upgraded Cygnus spacecraft, called Cygnus XL, is on its way to the international research lab after launching Sunday evening from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This mission, known as NG-23, is set to arrive at the ISS early Wednesday with 10,827 pounds (4,911 kilograms) of cargo to sustain the lab and its seven-person crew.

By a sizable margin, this is the heaviest cargo load transported to the ISS by a commercial resupply mission. NASA astronaut Jonny Kim will use the space station's Canadian-built robotic arm to capture the cargo ship on Wednesday, then place it on an attachment port for crew members to open hatches and start unpacking the goodies inside.

The Cygnus XL spacecraft looks a lot like Northrop's previous missions to the station. It has a service module manufactured at the company's factory in Northern Virginia. This segment of the spacecraft provides power, propulsion, and other necessities to keep Cygnus operating in orbit.

The most prominent features of the Cygnus cargo freighter are its circular, fan-like solar arrays and an aluminum cylinder called the pressurized cargo module that bears some resemblance to a keg of beer. This is the element that distinguishes the Cygnus XL from earlier versions of the Cygnus supply ship.

The cargo module is 5.2 feet (1.6 meters) longer on the Cygnus XL. The full spacecraft is roughly the size of two Apollo command modules, according to Ryan Tintner, vice president of civil space systems at Northrop Grumman. Put another way, the volume of the cargo section is equivalent to two-and-a-half minivans.

"The most notable thing on this mission is we are debuting the Cygnus XL configuration of the spacecraft," Tintner said. "It's got 33 percent more capacity than the prior Cygnus spacecraft had. Obviously, more may sound like better, but it's really critical because we can deliver significantly more science, as well as we're able to deliver a lot more cargo per launch, really trying to drive down the cost per kilogram to NASA."