SoylentNews

Rich writes:

Qualcomm on Tuesday said it has acquired Arduino, an Italian not-for-profit firm that makes hardware and software for developing prototypes of robots and other electronic gadgets, Reuters reports at https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/qualcomm-buys-open-source-electronics-firm-arduino-2025-10-07/.

Arduino's own announcement can be found at https://blog.arduino.cc/2025/10/07/a-new-chapter-for-arduino-with-qualcomm-uno-q-and-you/.

Along with the news that might confuse those that could not imagine "Arduino" itself as a tangible sales item, Arduino introduced a new model in the Uno form factor that comprises a Qualcomm Dragonwing QRB2210 to run Linux, an STM32U585 microcontroller for hardware interfacing, and some new high density connector on the bottom side. It is priced at $44 in the Arduino store.

Reception of the news seems to be mixed in various channels, many doubt Qualcomm with its history would be a good steward for an ecosystem like Arduino.

The new Arduino Q moves squarely into Raspberry Pi territory, where the Pi 5 currently sells for around $55 with mostly comparable features, at least if the RP2040-like features in the RP1 I/O controller are counted in.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Turning dissolved carbon dioxide from seawater to biodegradable plastic is an especially powerful way to clean up the ocean:

Not-so-fun fact: our oceans hold 150 times more carbon dioxide than the Earth's atmosphere. Adding to that causes ocean acidification, which can disrupt marine food chains and reduce biodiversity.

Addressing this could not only help restore balance to underwater ecosystems, but also take advantage of an opportunity to sustainably use this stored CO2 for a variety of purposes – including producing the industrial chemicals needed to make plastic.

The first towards this is called Direct Ocean Capture – which refers to removing dissolved carbon directly from seawater – happens through electrochemical processes. While there are a bunch of companies working on this, it hasn't extensively been applied at scale yet, and the cost benefit doesn't look great at the moment (it's estimated that removing 1 ton of CO2 from the ocean could cost at least US$373, according to Climate Interventions).

Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China – both in Shenzhen, China – have devised a DOC method which involves converting the captured CO2 into biodegradable plastic precursors. This approach is also described as operating at 70% efficiency, while consuming a relatively small amount of energy (3 kWh per kg of CO2), and working out to an impressive $230 per ton of CO2.

What's also worth noting is the use of modified marine bacteria for the last step. Here's a breakdown of the process, described in a paper appearing in Nature Catalysis:

First, electricity is used in a special reactor to acidify natural seawater. This converts the invisible, dissolved carbon into pure gas, which is collected. The system then restores the water's natural chemistry before returning it to the ocean.

Next, the captured CO2 gas is fed into a second reactor containing a bismuth-based catalyst to yield a concentrated, pure liquid called formic acid. Formic acid is a critical intermediate because it is an energy-rich food source for microbes.

Engineered marine microbes, specifically Vibrio natriegens, are fed the pure formic acid as their sole source of carbon. The microbes metabolize the formic acid and efficiently produce succinic acid, which is then used directly as the essential precursor to synthesize biodegradable plastics, such as polybutylene succinate (PBS).

That's a pretty good start. The researchers note there's room for optimization to boost yields and integrate this system into industrial processes. It could also be altered to produce chemicals for use in fuels, drugs, and foods.

It also remains to be seen how quickly the team can commercialize this DOC method, because it may have formidable competition. For example, Netherlands-based Brineworks says it will get to under $200/ton by 2030 with its electrolysis-based solution. The next couple of years will be worth watching in this fascinating niche of decarbonization.

Journal Reference: Li, C., Guo, M., Yang, B. et al. Efficient and scalable upcycling of oceanic carbon sources into bioplastic monomers. Nat Catal (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-025-01416-4

Original Submission

upstart writes:

The transistor was patented 75 years ago today:

75 years ago, the three Bell Labs scientists behind the invention of the transistor would, at last, have the U.S. Patent in their hands. This insignificant-looking semiconductor device with three electrodes sparked the third industrial revolution. Moreover, it ushered in the age of silicon and software, which still dominates business and human society to this day.

The first working transistor was demonstrated in 1947, but it wasn't until October 3, 1950, that the patent was secured by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley. The patent was issued for a "three-electrode circuit element utilizing semiconductor materials." It would take several more years before the significant impacts transistors would have on business and society were realized.

Transistors replaced the bulky, fragile and power-hungry valves, that stubbornly remain present in some guitar amplifiers, audiophile sound systems, studio gear, where their 'organic' sound profile is sometime preferred. We also still see valves in some military, scientific, and microwave/RF applications, where transistors might be susceptible to radiation or other interference. There are other niche use cases.

Beyond miniaturization, transistors would deliver dramatic boosts in - computational speed, energy efficiency, and reliability. Moreover, they became the foundation for integrated circuits and processors, where billions of transistors could operate reliably in a much smaller footprint than taken up by a single valve. Processors featuring a trillion transistors are now on the horizon.

For PC enthusiasts, probably the best known piece of transistor lore comes from Intel co-founder Gordon Moore. Of course, we are talking about Moore's Law, which was an observation by the pioneering American engineer. Moore's most famous prediction was that "the number of transistors on an integrated circuit will double every two years with minimal rise in cost." (Law was revised from one to two years in 1975).

Obviously, prior to 1965, when Moore's Law was set out, the startling advance in transistor technology indicated that such an extrapolation would be reasonable. Even, now, certain semiconductor companies, engineers, and commentators reckon that Moore's Law is still alive and well. You can see Intel's position in the slides, above.

Whatever the case, it can't be denied that since the patenting of the transistor, we have seen incredible miniaturization and advances in computing and software, expanding the possibilities of minds and machines. The current tech universe is actually buzzing with firms that reckon they can make machines with minds - artificial intelligence.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize

Somewhat better then the IG Nobel is the actual Nobel prizes. Winners started to be announced this week. So far Medicine and Physics, others to be revealed in the following days as I write this.

Physics. "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit"
Medicine. "for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance"

Chemistry.
Literature.

Peace.
Economic Science.

https://www.nobelprize.org/all-nobel-prizes-2025/

Original Submission

hubie writes:

StatCounter reports that Windows 7 has gained almost 10% market share in the last month, just as Windows 10 support is coming to an end. It's clear people aren't ready to switch to Windows 11.

Someone must be wishing really hard, as according to StatCounter, Windows 7 is gaining market share in the year 2025, five years after support for it officially ended. As of this week, Windows 7 is now in use on 9.61% of Windows PCs within StatCounters pool of data, and that's up from the 3.59% it had just a month ago.

For years, Windows 7 has hovered around 2% market share on StatCounter. After mainstream support ended, the last few holdouts very quickly made the move to Windows 10, but with support for Windows 10 ending now just two weeks away, it looks like many are giving Microsoft's best version of Windows another try.

Of course, StatCounter isn't an entirely accurate measure when it comes to actual usage numbers, but it can give us a rough idea about how the market is trending, and it seems people are not happy with the idea of upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10. Windows 7's sudden marketshare gain is likely a blip, but interesting nonetheless.

Taking a closer look at StatCounter, it appears Windows 11 market share stalled in the last month, maintaining around 48% share. Windows 10 continued to drop, as expected, and is now on just 40% of PCs. While I wouldn't be surprised if some people had experimented with going back to Windows 7 recently, I highly doubt it's a number as high as 9.61%.

[...] Windows 11 failing to gain any market share in the final month before Windows 10's end of support is frankly shocking, and if the numbers are accurate, should be setting alarm bells off for Microsoft internally. It's clear that much of the market has rejected Windows 11, whether that be because of its high system requirements or insistence on AI features, people aren't moving to it.

In recent months, it seems Windows' reputation has fallen off a cliff. With enshittification slowly moving in, a lack of innovative new features and experiences that aren't tied to AI, and monthly updates that consistently introduce unnecessary changes and issues, people are getting tired of Microsoft's antics.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Are VPNs Under Attack? An Anti-Censorship Group Speaks Out:

"Leave VPNs alone." That's the plea from anti-online censorship and surveillance group Fight for the Future, which designated Sept. 25 as a VPN Day of Action to press lawmakers not to ban virtual private networks. A week later, there's still an opportunity to get involved and raise awareness.

The group of activists, artists, engineers and technologists is asking people to sign an open letter encouraging politicians to preserve the existence of VPNs and "defend privacy and to access knowledge and information online." Virtual private networks encrypt internet connections and can hide your physical location.

Joining the action on Thursday was the VPN Trust Initiative -- comprised of NordVPN, Surfshark and ExpressVPN -- and the VPN Guild, which includes Amnezia VPN.

The open letter refers to recent "age-verification" laws propelling legislative moves to ban or restrict VPN usage. Such measures would lead to increased online surveillance and censorship, which "has a huge chilling effect on our freedoms, particularly the freedoms of traditionally marginalized people," the letter notes.

Lia Holland, Fight for the Future's campaigns and communication director, said VPNs are vital for "people living under authoritarian regimes" to avoid censorship and surveillance, and have become an essential tool in exercising basic human rights.

Half of all US states have passed age-verification laws requiring internet users to prove their age with government-issued IDs, credit card checks and other methods. The laws have spurred consumers to sign up for VPNs to avoid giving out sensitive information, with one recent VPN sign-up spike in the UK.

Michigan is considering a bill banning adult content online and VPNs. If it becomes law, Michigan would be the first US state to ban VPNs. Many countries, including China, India and Iran, already ban or heavily restrict VPNs.

"Amid a moral panic, ignorant 'save-the-children' politicians are getting very close to kicking the hornet's nest of millions of people who know how important VPNs are," Holland said.

Banning VPNs would be "difficult," according to attorney Mario Trujillo of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an international digital rights group.

Trujillo told CNET that VPNs are best for routing your network connection through a different network. "They can be used to help avoid censorship, but they are also used by employees in every sector to connect to their company's network," he said. "That is a practical reality that would make any ban difficult."

Trujillo added that the US lags behind the rest of the world in privacy regulation, and that lawmakers should focus more on privacy than VPN bans.

Fight for the Future identifies local lawmakers and provides templates for contacting them. This information is on the same page as the open letter.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

The ship wasn't designed to withstand the powerful ice compression forces—and Shackleton knew it:

In 1915, intrepid British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew were stranded for months in the Antarctic after their ship, Endurance, was trapped by pack ice, eventually sinking into the freezing depths of the Weddell Sea. Miraculously, the entire crew survived. The prevailing popular narrative surrounding the famous voyage features two key assumptions: that Endurance was the strongest polar ship of its time, and that the ship ultimately sank after ice tore away the rudder.

However, a fresh analysis reveals that Endurance would have sunk even with an intact rudder; it was crushed by the cumulative compressive forces of the Arctic ice with no single cause for the sinking. Furthermore, the ship wasn't designed to withstand those forces and Shackleton was likely well aware of that fact, according to a new paper published in the journal Polar Record. Yet he chose to embark on the risky voyage anyway.

Author Jukka Tuhkuri of Aalto University is a polar explorer and one of the leading researchers on ice worldwide. He was among the scientists on the Endurance22 mission that discovered the Endurance shipwreck in 2022, documented in a 2024 National Geographic documentary. The ship was in pristine condition partly because of the lack of wood-eating microbes in those waters. In fact, the Endurance22 expedition's exploration director, Mensun Bound, told The New York Times at the time that the shipwreck was the finest example he's ever seen; Endurance was "in a brilliant state of preservation."

[...] Once the wreck had been found, the team recorded as much as they could with high-resolution cameras and other instruments. Vasarhelyi, particularly, noted the technical challenge of deploying a remote digital 4K camera with lighting at 9,800 feet underwater, and the first deployment at that depth of photogrammetric and laser technology. This resulted in a millimeter-scale digital reconstruction of the entire shipwreck to enable close study of the finer details.

It was shortly after the Endurance22 mission found the shipwreck that Tuhkuri realized that there had never been a thorough structural analysis conducted of the vessel to confirm the popular narrative. Was Endurance truly the strongest polar ship of that time, and was a broken rudder the actual cause of the sinking? He set about conducting his own investigation to find out, analyzing Shackleton's diaries and personal correspondence, as well as the diaries and correspondence of several Endurance crew members.

janrinok writes:

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-forensic-recovers-fingerprints-ammunition-casings.html

A pioneering new test that can recover fingerprints from ammunition casing, once thought nearly impossible, has been developed by two Irish scientists.

Dr. Eithne Dempsey, and her recent Ph.D. student Dr. Colm McKeever, of the Department of Chemistry in Ireland's Maynooth University have developed a unique electrochemical method which can visualize fingerprints on brass casings, even after they have been exposed to the high temperature conditions experienced during gunfire. The study is published in the journal Forensic Chemistry.

For decades, investigators have struggled to recover fingerprints from weapons because any biological trace is usually destroyed by the high temperatures, friction and gas released after a gun is fired. As a result, criminals often abandon their weapons or casings at crime scenes, confident that they leave no fingerprint evidence behind.

"The Holy Grail in forensic investigation has always been retrieving prints from fired ammunition casings," said Dr. Dempsey. "Traditionally, the intense heat of firing destroys any biological residue. However, our technique has been able to reveal fingerprint ridges that would otherwise remain imperceptible."

The team found they could coat brass casings with a thin layer of specialized materials to make hidden fingerprint ridges visible. Unlike existing methods that need dangerous chemicals or high-powered equipment, the new process uses readily available non-toxic polymers and minimal amounts of energy to quickly reveal prints from seemingly blank surfaces.

It works by placing the brass casing of interest in an electrochemical cell containing specific chemical substances. When a small voltage is applied, chemicals in the solution are attracted to the surface, coating the spaces between fingerprint ridges and creating a clear, high contrast image of the print. The fingerprint appears within seconds as if by magic!

"Using the burnt material that remains on the surface of the casing as a stencil, we can deposit specific materials in between the gaps, allowing for the visualization," said Dr. McKeever.

Tests showed that this technique also worked on samples aged up to 16 months, demonstrating remarkable durability.

The research has significant implications for criminal investigations, where the current assumption is that firing a gun eliminates fingerprint residues on casings.

"Currently, the best case of forensic analysis of ammunition casings is to match it to the gun that fired it," said Dr. McKeever. "But we hope a method like this could match it back to the actual person who loaded the gun."

The team focused specifically on brass ammunition casings, a substance that has been traditionally resistant to fingerprint detection and is the most common type of material used globally.

The researchers believe that the test for fingerprints on brass they have developed could be adapted for other metallic surfaces, expanding its range of potential forensic applications, from firearm-related crimes to arson.

This technique uses a device called a potentiostat, which controls voltage and can be as portable as a mobile phone, making it possible to create a compact forensic testing kit.

"With this method, we have turned the ammunition casing into an electrode, allowing us to drive chemical reactions at the surface of the casing," said Dr. McKeever.

While promising, the new technology faces rigorous testing and validation before it could potentially be adopted by law enforcement agencies worldwide.

More information: Colm McKeever et al, Electrodeposition of redox materials with potential for enhanced visualisation of latent finger-marks on brass substrates and ammunition casings., Forensic Chemistry (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.forc.2025.100663

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Guess how much of Britain's direct transatlantic data capacity runs through two cables in Bude?:

Feature The first transatlantic cable, laid in 1858, delivered a little over 700 messages before promptly dying a few weeks later. 167 years on, the undersea cables connecting the UK to the outside world process £220 billion in daily financial transactions. Now, the UK Parliament's Joint Committee on National Security Strategy (JCNSS) has told the government that it has to do a better job of protecting them.

The Committee's report, released on September 19, calls the government "too timid" in its approach to protecting the cables that snake from the UK to various destinations around the world. It warns that "security vulnerabilities abound" in the UK's undersea cable infrastructure, when even a simple anchor-drag can cause major damage.

There are 64 cables connecting the UK to the outside world, according to the report, carrying most of the country's internet traffic. Satellites can't shoulder the data volumes involved, are too expensive, and only account for around 5 percent of traffic globally.

These cables are invaluable to the UK economy, but they're also difficult to protect. They are heavily shielded in the shallow sea close to those points. That's because accidental damage from fishing operations and other vessels is common. On average, around 200 cables suffer faults each year. But as they get further out, the shielding is less robust. Instead, the companies that lay the cables rely on the depth of the sea to do its job (you'll be pleased to hear that sharks don't generally munch on them).

The report praises a strong cable infrastructure, and admits that in some areas at least we have the redundancy in the cable infrastructure to handle disruptions. For example, it notes that 75 percent of UK transatlantic traffic routes through two cables that come ashore in Bude, Cornwall. That seems like quite the vulnerability, but it acknowledges that we have plenty of infrastructure to route around if anything happened to them. There is "no imminent threat to the UK's national connectivity," it soothes.

But it simultaneously cautions against adopting what it describes as "business-as-usual" views in the industry. The government "focuses too much on having 'lots of cables' and pays insufficient attention to the system's actual ability to absorb unexpected shocks," it frets. It warns that "the impacts on connectivity would be much more serious," if onward connections to Europe suffered as part of a coordinated attack.

"While our national connectivity does not face immediate danger, we must prepare for the possibility that our cables can be threatened in the event of a security crisis," it says.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-qnx-operating-system

Gordon Bell and Dan Dodge were finishing their time at the University of Waterloo in Ontario in 1979. In pursuit of their masters degrees, they'd worked on a system called Thoth in their real-time operating systems course. Thoth was interesting not only for having been real-time and having featured synchronous message passing, but also for originally having been written in the B programming langue. It was then rewritten in the UW-native Eh language (fitting for a Canadian university), and then finally rewritten in Zed. It is this last, Zed-written, version of Thoth to which Bell and Dodge would have been exposed. Having always been written in a high-level language, the system was portable, and programs were the same regardless of the underlying hardware. Both by convention and by design, Thoth strongly encouraged programs to be structured as networks of communicating processes. As the final project for the RTOS course, students were expected to implement a real-time system of their own. This experience was likely pivotal to their next adventure.

A very deep and excellent dive into the world/history of QNX:

Original Submission

janrinok writes:

https://phys.org/news/2025-09-human-skin-cells-fertilisable-eggs.html

Scientists said Tuesday they have turned human skin cells into eggs and fertilized them with sperm in the lab for the first time—a breakthrough that is hoped to one day let infertile people have children.

The technology is still years away from potentially becoming available to aspiring parents, the US-led team of scientists warned.

But outside experts said the proof-of-concept research could eventually change the meaning of infertility, which affects one in six people worldwide.

If successful, the technology called in-vitro gametogenesis (IVG) would allow older women or women who lack eggs for other reasons to genetically reproduce, Paula Amato, the co-author of a new study announcing the achievement, told AFP.

"It also would allow same-sex couples to have a child genetically related to both partners," said Amato, a researcher at the Oregon Health & Science University in the United States.

Scientists have been making significant advances in this field in recent years, with Japanese researchers announcing in July they had created mice with two biological fathers.

But the new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, marks a major advance by using DNA from humans, rather than mice.

The scientists first removed the nucleus from normal skin cells and transferred them into a donor egg which had its nucleus removed. This technique, called somatic cell nuclear transfer, was used to clone Dolly the sheep in 1996.

However a problem still had to be overcome: skin cells have 46 chromosomes, but eggs have 23.

The scientists managed to remove these extra chromosomes using a process they are calling "mitomeiosis", which mimics how cells normally divide.

They created 82 developing eggs called oocytes, which were then fertilized by sperm via in vitro fertilization (IVF).

After six days, less than 9% of the embryos developed to the point that they could hypothetically be transferred to the uterus for a standard IVF process.

However the embryos displayed a range of abnormalities, and the experiment was ended.

linuxrocks123 writes:

There have been a lot of recent stories about Google restricting sideloading to apps from developers who have registered with Google. Google has issued the very important clarification that adb will still be able to used to sideload unverified apps: https://support.google.com/android-developer-console/answer/16561738

So, if you own your phone, you can still install whatever you want on it. You just might have to install adb and enable the Developer Options menu first.

Original Submission

janrinok writes:

https://phys.org/news/2025-10-ultra-thin-sodium-alternative-gold.html

From solar panels to next-generation medical devices, many emerging technologies rely on materials that can manipulate light with extreme precision. These materials—called plasmonic materials—are typically made from expensive metals like gold or silver. But what if a cheaper, more abundant metal could do the job just as well or better?

That's the question a team of researchers set out to explore. The challenge? While sodium is abundant and lightweight, it's also notoriously unstable and difficult to work with in the presence of air or moisture—two unavoidable parts of real-world conditions. Until now, this has kept it off the table for practical optical applications.

Researchers from Yale University, Oakland University, and Cornell University have teamed up to change that. By developing a new technique for structuring sodium into ultra-thin, precisely patterned films, they found a way to stabilize the metal and make it perform exceptionally well in light-based applications.

Their approach, published in the journal ACS Nano, involved combining thermally-assisted spin coating with phase-shift photolithography—essentially using heat and light to craft nanoscopic surface patterns that trap and guide light in powerful ways.

Even more impressively, the team used ultrafast laser spectroscopy to observe what happens when these sodium surfaces interact with light on time scales measured in trillionths of a second. The results were surprising: sodium's electrons responded in ways that differ from traditional metals, suggesting it could offer new advantages for light-based technologies like photocatalysis, sensing, and energy conversion.

More information: Conrad A. Kocoj et al, Ultrafast Plasmon Dynamics of Low-Loss Sodium Metasurfaces, ACS Nano (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.5c04946

Original Submission

mrpg writes:

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/apple-removes-ice-tracking-apps-after-pressure-by-trump-administration-2025-10-03/:

Apple said on Thursday that it had removed ICEBlock and other similar ICE-tracking apps from its App Store after it was contacted by President Donald Trump's administration, in a rare instance of apps being taken down due to a U.S. federal government demand.

Alphabet's Google also removed similar apps on Thursday for policy violations, but the company said it was not approached by the Justice Department before taking the action.

The app alerts users to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in their area, which the Justice Department says could increase the risk of assault on U.S. agents.

[...] Apple removed more than 1,700 apps from its App Store in 2024 in response to government demands, but the vast majority — more than 1,300 — came from China, followed by Russia with 171 and South Korea with 79.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

First Dark Matter Sub-Halo Found In The Milky Way:

There are plenty of theories about what dark matter is and how it might be gravitationally affecting the universe. However, proving those theories out is hard since it hardly ever interacts with anything, especially on "small" scales like galaxies. So when a research team claims to have found evidence for dark matter in our own galaxy, it's worth taking a look at how. A new paper from Dr. Surkanya Chakrabati and her lab at the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH) does just that. They found evidence for a dark matter "sub-halo" in the galactic neighborhood, by looking at signals from binary pulsars.

A sub-halo is a clumping of dark matter that is brought together inside of a larger "halo" that is thought to form the core of galaxies. Since dark matter primarily interacts through gravity, going theory suggests that it should attract "baryonic" (i.e. normal) matter when it clumps together. This clumping is thought to the scaffolding that galaxies are built on.

Sub-halos are even denser groupings of dark matter that coalesce because of their gravitational attraction. Since they are relatively small compared to the big dark matter halos they are contained in, they can be difficult to detect. To do so, cosmologists would have to find a gravitational signal that deviates from what would be expected given the normal matter surrounding the sub-halo. So far, no one has been able to isolate that kind of signal, despite looking throughout our galactic neighborhood.