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Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Visual Studio Code extension faces March shutdown with no transition guidance:

Microsoft has abruptly announced the deprecation of Polyglot Notebooks with less than two months' notice, throwing the future of the .NET Interactive project into doubt.

The deprecation will come into effect on March 27, whereupon bug fixes and support will cease, and no new features will be added. However, the extension won't be automatically uninstalled from a user's Visual Studio Code installation.

Polyglot Notebooks is an important element of the Microsoft .NET Interactive project, which Microsoft describes as "an engine and API for running and editing code interactively." .NET Interactive can run as a kernel for notebooks and "enables a polyglot (multi-language) notebook experience," according to Microsoft. "For the best experience when working with multi-language notebooks, we recommend installing the Polyglot Notebooks extension for Visual Studio Code."

That recommendation presumably remains in place until Microsoft pulls the plug.

The deprecation announcement was made in the project's GitHub repository and the thread was locked, limiting conversation. However, users were quick to raise additional issues, questioning the reasoning behind the deprecation and the short time frame.

One pointed out the Polyglot Notebooks extension in Visual Studio Code was Microsoft's recommendation for data analysts, since Azure Data Studio is retiring at the end of this month. Microsoft's reaction was to remove the recommendation.

fliptop writes:

In 2023, the science fiction literary magazine Clarkesworld stopped accepting new submissions because so many were generated by artificial intelligence. Near as the editors could tell, many submitters pasted the magazine's detailed story guidelines into an AI and sent in the results. And they weren't alone:

This is only one example of a ubiquitous trend. A legacy system relied on the difficulty of writing and cognition to limit volume. Generative AI overwhelms the system because the humans on the receiving end can't keep up.

This is happening everywhere. Newspapers are being inundated by AI-generated letters to the editor, as are academic journals. Lawmakers are inundated with AI-generated constituent comments. Courts around the world are flooded with AI-generated filings, particularly by people representing themselves. AI conferences are flooded with AI-generated research papers. Social media is flooded with AI posts. In music, open source software, education, investigative journalism and hiring, it's the same story.

Like Clarkesworld's initial response, some of these institutions shut down their submissions processes. Others have met the offensive of AI inputs with some defensive response, often involving a counteracting use of AI.

[...] These are all arms races: rapid, adversarial iteration to apply a common technology to opposing purposes. Many of these arms races have clearly deleterious effects. Society suffers if the courts are clogged with frivolous, AI-manufactured cases. There is also harm if the established measures of academic performance – publications and citations – accrue to those researchers most willing to fraudulently submit AI-written letters and papers rather than to those whose ideas have the most impact. The fear is that, in the end, fraudulent behavior enabled by AI will undermine systems and institutions that society relies on.

TFA goes on to discuss the upsides of AI, how AI makes fraud easier, and some ideas on balancing harms with benefits. Originally spotted on Schneier on Security.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Dispute erupts between popular web archive and independent blogger:

Archive.today, also known as Archive.is and Archive.ph, has gained notoriety in recent years as a useful tool for archiving web pages and bypassing paywalls. However, the site's CAPTCHA page currently weaponizes visitor traffic in a DDoS campaign against a blogger who attempted to unmask Archive.today's mysterious operator(s). The behavior has prompted Wikipedia editors to debate whether to ban the archive site, which might be living on borrowed time and underpins hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia citations.

Wikipedia relies heavily on Archive.today because it is more effective than conventional alternatives, such as the Internet Archive. However, the properties that have made Archive.today so useful have also drawn the attention of the FBI, likely because the site circumvents the paywalls of numerous prominent media outlets.

In contrast with the Internet Archive, which is legally sanctioned and complies with takedown requests, Archive.today follows no such rules, and its creator remains anonymous. Its advanced scraping methods and free-wheeling nature have turned it into a repository for sources that are likely available nowhere else. If the site were to enter Wikipedia's blacklist, which occurred once from 2013 to 2016, nearly 700,000 citation links would become useless, and many would likely never be repaired.

The discussion arose after Archive.today used its CAPTCHA page to direct DDoS traffic toward blogger Jani Patokallio, who posted an inconclusive investigation into the site's origins in 2023. However, the blog did not draw much attention until 2025, when various outlets cited it while reporting on the FBI's investigation into Archive.today.

The CAPTCHA page currently contains code (pictured below) that drives requests to the search function of Patokallio's blog, meaning that every Wikipedia citation leading to Archive.today could potentially contribute to the DDoS attack. However, Patokallio claims that the attack has caused no real harm. Visiting the page with uBlock Origin installed also seems to neutralize the offending code.

[...] Wikipedia is currently weighing three options to address the issue: retaining the status quo, removing all links, or discouraging future citations while keeping existing links. Some also argue that pivoting away from Archive.today is prudent regardless of the current dispute due to the site's inherently precarious existence. In 2021, Archive.today's creator admitted that it is "doomed to die at any moment."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Another quarter, another gain for AMD:

AMD ended 2025 with fanfare as it managed to increase its market shares across all major CPU product segments, according to Mercury Research, and achieved a 29.2% share of all x86 processors shipped in the fourth quarter, which is an all-time record for the company. The company now controls its highest unit share across desktop, laptop, and server CPU markets while also capturing the most lucrative parts of these markets, and now controls 35.4% of x86 CPU revenue share.

In the client PC segment, AMD finished 2025 with one of its strongest quarters ever, partly because Intel struggled to get enough client silicon from its own fabs and from TSMC, but to a large degree because of highly competitive desktop CPUs and meticulously calculated mobile CPU lineup.

AMD's client CPU unit share rose to 29.2% in Q4 2025, up 3.8% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) and 4.6% year-over-year (YoY), driven by sales of both desktop and mobile offerings.

Intel remained the clear volume leader with about 70.8% of client CPU shipments, which is a sharp decline both sequentially and compared to the same quarter a year ago, which is not surprising as Intel had to reassign its internal manufacturing capacities to produce server CPUs instead of client silicon and could not get enough silicon from TSMC.

What is perhaps more alarming for Intel is that its client PC CPU revenue share declined to 68.8%, allowing AMD to control 31.2% of the dollar share of PC processor sales, up 2.9% QoQ and 7.4% YoY. This reflects AMD's higher average selling prices (ASPs), stronger sales of premium desktop and notebook processors, and continued gains in higher-margin segments.

Intel admits that it is hard to compete against AMD with its current lineup and hopes that things will begin to change in late 2026 – 2027, which means that AMD will likely continue to enjoy eating Intel's lunch in the coming quarters.

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/el-paso-airport-closed-after-military-used-new-anti-drone-laser-to-zap-party-balloon/

On Tuesday night, the Federal Aviation Administration closed airspace up to 18,000 feet above the El Paso International Airport in Texas, saying the restrictions would be in place for 10 days. Then, less than 10 hours later, the federal agency reopened the airspace, allowing planes to land and take off at the busy airport.

About an hour after lifting the restrictions, US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, whose responsibilities include overseeing the FAA, explained the unexpected closure by saying, "The FAA and DOW acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion."
[...]
Not everyone agrees with Duffy's account.

Based upon reporting from The New York Times and other publications, the military has been developing high-energy lasers to bring down drones.
[...]
FAA had not resolved all of its concerns about airplane safety from the tests.

Despite these apparently lingering concerns from the FAA, the military went ahead with a test earlier this week against what was thought to be a drone. The object was a party balloon.
[...]
One of the many lessons from the war in Ukraine, which has rapidly pushed forward drone technology in contested environments, is that it is not practical to shoot down drones with conventional missiles. So it is understandable that the US military is looking at alternatives. This all culminated in some sort of snafu between the FAA and military officials regarding coordination with this week's test.
[...]
action was taken without consulting local or state officials in Texas—who are understandably outraged
[...]
"I want to be very, very clear that this should've never happened," El Paso Mayor Renard Johnson said during a news conference on Wednesday. "That failure to communicate is unacceptable."

Relevant video from a commenter on the original article: 99 Luftballons [3:57 Ed]

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://nand2mario.github.io/posts/2026/80386_barrel_shifter/

I'm currently building an 80386-compatible core in SystemVerilog, driven by the original Intel microcode extracted from real 386 silicon. Real mode is now operational in simulation, with more than 10,000 single-instruction test cases passing successfully, and work on protected-mode features is in progress. In the course of this work, corners of the 386 microcode and silicon have been examined in detail; this series documents the resulting findings.

In the previous post, we looked at multiplication and division -- iterative algorithms that process one bit per cycle. Shifts and rotates are a different story: the 386 has a dedicated barrel shifter that completes an arbitrary multi-bit shift in a single cycle. What's interesting is how the microcode makes one piece of hardware serve all shift and rotate variants -- and how the complex rotate-through-carry instructions are handled.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.theregister.com/2026/02/09/taiwan_us_chip_production/

Taiwan's vice-premier has ruled out relocating 40 percent of the country's semiconductor production to the US, calling the Trump administration's goal "impossible."

In an interview broadcast on the CTS channel, vice premier Cheng Li-chiun said she made clear to US officials that Taiwan's semiconductor ecosystem cannot be moved and its most advanced technologies will remain domestic.

"When it comes to 40 or 50 percent of production capacity being moved to the United States... I have made it very clear to the US side that this is impossible," she said, according to The Straits Times.

Cheng led Taiwan's January's trade delegation to Washington, which secured reduced US tariffs on Taiwanese goods - from 20 percent to 15 percent - in exchange for increased investment into America's tech sector.

At the time, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC the deal aimed to relocate 40 percent of Taiwan's entire chip manufacturing and production capacity to America.

A Department of Commerce release cast the agreement as a "massive reshoring of America's semiconductor sector."

Taiwan, which produces more than 60 percent of global semiconductors and roughly 90 percent of the world's most advanced chips, insists it gained this leadership position by investing in the tech when other countries didn't.

Former Intel chief Pat Gelsinger supports this view, publicly stating a couple of years ago that countries like Korea, Taiwan, and China put in place long-term industrial policies and investment in chipmaking, while the US and European nations failed to do the same.

Cheng reiterated this in her interview, saying that "an industrial ecosystem built up over decades cannot be relocated."

Taiwan views its semiconductor dominance as strategic defense against Chinese aggression. Beijing claims Taiwan as its territory and threatens reunification by force if necessary. Even Lutnick acknowledged this "silicon shield" dynamic last year, noting China's open ambitions:

"We need their silicon, the chips so badly that we'll shield them, we'll protect them."

TSMC considered relocating its chip fabs in 2024 due to China threats but decided against the idea given the difficulties.

Any Chinese invasion would devastate the global tech sector, as The Register pointed out recently. Most of Nvidia's GPUs are made in Taiwan, as are AMD's processors and Qualcomm's smartphone chips. The supply of these would be cut off by any invasion, and there is no other source these companies can easily turn to.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Controversial 2025 study "represents the encroachment of pseudoscience into the heart of biological research":

Last year, a team of scientists presented evidence that spruce trees in Italy's Dolomite mountains synchronized their bioelectrical activity in anticipation of a partial solar eclipse—a potentially exciting new insight into the complexities of plant communication. The findings naturally generated media interest and even inspired a documentary. But the claims drew sharp criticism from other researchers in the field, with some questioning whether the paper should even have been published. Those initial misgivings are outlined in more detail in a new critique published in the journal Trends in Plant Science.

For the original paper, Alessandro Chiolerio, a physicist at the Italian Institute of Technology, collaborated with plant ecologist Monica Gagliano of Southern Cross University and several others conducting field work in the Costa Bocche forest in the Dolomites. They essentially created an EKG for trees, attaching electrodes to three spruce trees (ranging in age from 20 to 70 years) and five tree stumps in the forest.

Those sensors recorded a marked increase in bioelectrical activity during a partial solar eclipse on October 22, 2022. The activity peaked mid-eclipse and faded away in its aftermath. Chiolerio et al. interpreted this spike in activity as a coordinated response among the trees to the darkened conditions brought on by the eclipse. And older trees' electrical activity spiked earlier and more strongly than the younger trees, which Chiolerio et al. felt was suggestive of trees developing response mechanisms—a kind of memory captured in associated gravitational effects. Older trees might even transmit this knowledge to younger trees, the authors suggested, based on the detection of bioelectrical waves traveling between the trees.

Soon, other plant scientists weighed in, expressing strong skepticism and citing the study's small sample size and large number of variables, among other concerns. Justine Karst, a forest ecologist at the University of Alberta in Canada, unfavorably compared Chiolerio et al.'s findings to a 2019 study claiming evidence for the controversial "wood-wide web" concept, in which trees communicate and share resources via underground networks of mycorrhizal fungi. Karst co-authored a 2023 study demonstrating insufficient evidence for the wood-wide-web.

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/google/2026/02/google-recovers-deleted-nest-video-in-high-profile-abduction-case/

Like most cloud-enabled home security cameras, Google's Nest products don't provide long-term storage unless you pay a monthly fee. That video may not vanish into the digital aether right on time, though. Investigators involved with the high-profile abduction of Nancy Guthrie have released video from Guthrie's Nest doorbell camera—video that was believed to have been deleted because Guthrie wasn't paying for the service.
[...]
If you don't pay anything, Google only saves three hours of event history. After that, the videos are deleted, at least as far as the user is concerned.
[...]
Expired videos are no longer available to the user, and Google won't restore them even if you upgrade to a premium account later. However, that doesn't mean the data is truly gone. Nancy Guthrie was abducted from her home in the early hours of February 1, and at first, investigators said there was no video of the crime because the doorbell camera was not on a paid account. Yet, video showing a masked individual fiddling with the camera was published on February 10.
[...]
In statements made by investigators, the video was apparently "recovered from residual data located in backend systems." It's unclear how long such data is retained or how easy it is for Google to access it. Some reports claim that it took several days for Google to recover the data.
[...]
There is a temptation to ascribe some malicious intent to Google's video storage setup. After all, this video expired after three hours, but here it is nine days later. That feels a bit suspicious on the surface, particularly for a company that is so focused on training AI models that feed on video.
[...]
every event recorded by the camera is going to Google's servers, and it's probably recoverable long past the deletion timeline stipulated in the company's policy.
[...]
there are still more traditional "DVR" security cameras, which record footage to dedicated local storage. Many NAS boxes also have support for storing and managing video from select security cameras. If you're sending video to the cloud, you can't expect it will be totally gone even if you no longer have access to it.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

Elon Musk says launch windows and other logistics are behind the shift in strategy:

Elon Musk says SpaceX has shifted its near-term priorities from Mars settlement plans to building what he called a "self-growing city on the Moon," arguing the lunar target is faster and more achievable. In a post on X, Musk claims the company could complete this in less than 10 years, while doing the same on Mars would take over 20 years.

This marks a major shift for the aerospace company, as Musk points out that the logistics of first completing a proof of concept on the moon are easier with respect to launch windows and proximity to Earth. The SpaceX founder is notorious for promising optimistic timelines that never come to pass, and said in 2017 that a base on Mars would be ready for its first settlers as early as 2024.

In subsequent replies to other posts Musk predicted "Mars will start in 5 or 6 years, so will be done parallel with the Moon, but the Moon will be the initial focus." He also said a manned Mars flight might happen in 2031.

Early last year Musk said in a post on X that SpaceX would be going "straight to Mars" and that "the Moon is a distraction." This was in response to Space industry analyst Peter Hague pointing out that among other considerations, lunar regolith, a material found on the surface of the moon, is about 45 percent oxygen. In 2023 NASA proved this oxygen could be extracted, which would yield enormous payload savings as opposed to shipping liquid oxygen between Earth and Mars.

NASA's Artemis missions, which SpaceX is a contractor for at certain stages, are planned to see humans back on the lunar surface by 2028. Artemis II, during which astronauts will circle the moon before returning to Earth, is set to launch in March of this year.

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/byte-magazine-artist-robert-tinney-who-illustrated-the-birth-of-pcs-dies-at-78/

On February 1, Robert Tinney, the illustrator whose airbrushed cover paintings defined the look and feel of pioneering computer magazine Byte for over a decade, died at age 78 in Baker, Louisiana, according to a memorial posted on his official website.

As the primary cover artist for Byte from 1975 to the late 1980s, Tinney became one of the first illustrators to give the abstract world of personal computing a coherent visual language, translating topics like artificial intelligence, networking, and programming into vivid, surrealist-influenced paintings that a generation of computer enthusiasts grew up with.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Incident is at least the third time the exchange has been targeted by thieves:

Open source packages published on the npm and PyPI repositories were laced with code that stole wallet credentials from dYdX developers and backend systems and, in some cases, backdoored devices, researchers said.

"Every application using the compromised npm versions is at risk ...." the researchers, from security firm Socket, said Friday. "Direct impact includes complete wallet compromise and irreversible cryptocurrency theft. The attack scope includes all applications depending on the compromised versions and both developers testing with real credentials and production end-users."

Packages that were infected were:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

npm (@dydxprotocol/v4-client-js):

• 3.4.1
• 1.22.1
• 1.15.2
• 1.0.31

PyPI (dydx-v4-client):

• 1.1.5post1

dYdX is a decentralized derivatives exchange that supports hundreds of markets for "perpetual trading," or the use of cryptocurrency to bet that the value of a derivative future will rise or fall. Socket said dYdX has processed over $1.5 trillion in trading volume over its lifetime, with an average trading volume of $200 million to $540 million and roughly $175 million in open interest. The exchange provides code libraries that allow third-party apps for trading bots, automated strategies, or backend services, all of which handle mnemonics or private keys for signing.

[...] The malicious code available on PyPI contained the same credential theft function, although it also implemented a remote access Trojan (RAT) that allowed the execution of new malware on infected systems. The backdoor received commands from dydx[.]priceoracle[.]site. The domain was registered on January 9, 17 days before the malicious package was uploaded to PyPI.

hubie writes:

Subtle changes in Sir Terry Pratchett's use of language in his books anticipated his dementia diagnosis by almost ten years, research has shown:

The study, from academics at Cardiff University, Loughborough University and the University of Oxford, used computer software to analyse the range of nouns and adjectives used in 33 of his best-selling Discworld novels.

The results show a significant decrease in the diversity of nouns and adjectives in his later works. This shift was particularly marked in the diversity of adjectives, which decreased below a defined threshold approximately ten years before Pratchett's formal diagnosis.

Sir Terry Pratchett died in 2015 at the age of 66. He had posterior cortical atrophy, a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's disease that primarily affects visual processing.

Study co-author Dr Melody Pattison, based at Cardiff University's School of English, Communication and Philosophy, said: "Our analysis of Sir Terry Pratchett's novels suggests that subtle changes in linguistic patterns, such as decreased lexical diversity, may precede clinical diagnosis of dementia by a considerable margin. In particular we found the richness of descriptive language in his books gradually narrowed."

We would normally expect less lexical diversity as texts get longer, but even after controlling for text length our findings were still significant. This was not something a reader would necessarily notice, but rather a subtle, progressive change. --Dr Melody Pattison

[...] "Research indicates that memory problems may not be the first symptom of dementia. We wanted to explore whether language could be an early warning sign, and to do this, we used Sir Terry Pratchett's books, who himself suffered dementia.

"Our analysis found that Sir Terry's use of language did indeed change during his career. These results suggest that language may be one of the first signs of dementia, and Sir Terry's books reveal a potential new approach for early diagnosis."

Journal Reference: Brain Sci. 2026, 16(1), 94; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci16010094

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:

https://www.techspot.com/news/111241-mit-scientists-build-terahertz-microscope-reveals-hidden-superconducting.html

A team of physicists at MIT has managed to do something long thought impossible: peer into the ultrafast, quantum-scale motion of superconducting electrons. Using a microscope built around pulses of terahertz light – radiation oscillating trillions of times per second – they've captured a kind of atomic dance that has remained hidden until now.

The implications of the breakthrough could ripple through multiple industries. A better understanding of how superconductivity behaves at quantum scales could accelerate the development of room-temperature superconductors, radically improving electrical grids, quantum computers, and magnetic levitation systems.

The underlying terahertz technology itself – capable of transmitting and detecting signals at unprecedented speeds – could shape the future of wireless communications, sensing devices, and ultrafast data transfer for next-generation electronics.

The development, described in Nature, centers on bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide (BSCCO), a copper-based superconductor known for carrying electricity without resistance at relatively high temperatures.

When hit with precisely tuned terahertz bursts, the electrons inside the material began to move collectively, vibrating in unison at the same frequencies as the light itself. MIT physicist Nuh Gedik calls this previously unseen motion "a new mode of superconducting electrons."

The feat was accomplished using a terahertz microscope capable of compressing radiation that typically stretches hundreds of microns long down to the tiny scale of a quantum material. Terahertz radiation sits between microwaves and infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, an energy range considered a sweet spot for imaging because it's non-ionizing, penetrates deeply, and matches the natural oscillation rate of atoms and electrons.

Yet until now, it's been all but useless for imaging small structures because of a fundamental barrier called the diffraction limit – light can't be focused to a spot smaller than its own wavelength.

quietus writes:

... have you no sense of decency, sir?

(Attorney Joseph Welch, 1954 Army‑McCarthy hearings)

"The European Commission, in a comprehensive decade-long effort, has successfully pressured social media platforms to change their global content moderation rules, thereby directly infringing on Americans' online speech in the United States. Though often framed as combating so-called "hate speech" or "disinformation," the European Commission worked to censor true information and political speech about some of the most important policy debates in recent history—including the COVID-19 pandemic, mass migration, and transgender issues. After ten years, the European Commission has established sufficient control of global online speech to comprehensively suppress narratives that threaten the European Commission's power."

Thus opens a February 3 report [PDF] of the Committee on the Judiciary of the US House of Representatives.

The report is a long, long through-the-looking-glass argument against the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA), specifically its Code of Practice on Disinformation.

That DSA, goes the argument -- with a long list of screenshots of heavily redacted e-mails, and the occasional Fox News article as source -- has been used to gang-pressure a whole bunch of election campaigns in European countries: France (2024), the Netherlands (2023 & 2025), Slovakia (2023), Moldova (2024), Germany, Ireland (2024 & 2025), and Romania. Romania's 2024 presidential election is a particularly nasty example, with the EU and France pressuring Telegram and TikTok to block content associated with conservative candidate Călin Georgescu, despite the absence of evidence supporting allegations of Russian interference used to justify those actions (says the report). [Paywalled]

What the report also -- inadvertently -- highlights is how the European Union (and Australia, Japan, South-Korea and Canada) and the United States are diverging on the treatment of social media.

Out of the EU's 27 member states, 15 of them have a partial or complete ban on smartphone usage in schools in place. Nine EU countries -- Spain, Greece, France, Italy, Finland, Germany, Denmark, Austria and Portugal -- are currently discussing a ban on social media usage under a certain age (mostly around 15, 16): a debate driven by concerns about addiction, mental health impact, and the spread of harmful content.

South Korea has implemented a school‑wide phone‑ban since 2024 and is actively discussing, but has not yet legislated, a social‑media age limit for minors. Japan is considering age‑restriction policies and has a government‑led working group, but there is currently no legal ban on smartphones in schools nor a statutory social‑media age limit. In Canada, most provinces have mandatory school-wide bans, but there is no age limit being discussed (yet), while Australia has no ban on smartphone usage, but is the first to have a federal law barring under-16s of having accounts on major social media platforms.

Get 'em while they're young, I guess.

Original Submission