The Antenna

finding signal in the noise

Items collected from feeds in science_and_technology.txt

science and technology

(date: 2024-11-20 08:44:50)


Microsoft unveils beefy custom AMD chip to crunch HPC workloads on Azure

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

In-house DPU and HSM silicon also shown off

Ignite  One of the advantages of being a megacorp is that you can customize the silicon that underpins your infrastructure, as Microsoft is demonstrating at this week's Ignite conference in Chicago.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/microsoft_azure_custom_amd/


Making Mars’ Moons: Supercomputers Offer ‘Disruptive’ New Explanation

date: 2024-11-20, from: NASA breaking news

A NASA study using a series of supercomputer simulations reveals a potential new solution to a longstanding Martian mystery: How did Mars get its moons? The first step, the findings say, may have involved the destruction of an asteroid.  The research team, led by Jacob Kegerreis, a postdoctoral research scientist at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s […]


https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/planets/mars/making-mars-moons-supercomputers-offer-disruptive-new-explanation-2/


Italian Hiker Discovers Animal Tracks From a Time Before Dinosaurs, Hinting at a Prehistoric Ecosystem

date: 2024-11-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Revealed by melting snow in the Alps, the imprints in rock were left by reptiles and amphibians during the Permian period, which ended with the world’s largest mass extinction


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/italian-hiker-discovers-animal-tracks-from-a-time-before-dinosaurs-hinting-at-a-prehistoric-ecosystem-180985496/


SpaceX claims another Starship success, but fumbles the catch

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

In-space engine reignition paves way for orbital missions

SpaceX has notched up another test flight of its Starship behemoth, but chose not to try catching the Super Heavy Booster this time.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/spacex_starship_success/


All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet LUCA.

date: 2024-11-20, from: Quanta Magazine

The clearest picture yet of our “last universal common ancestor” suggests it was a relatively complex organism living 4.2 billion years ago, a time long considered too harsh for life to flourish.

The post All Life on Earth Today Descended From a Single Cell. Meet LUCA. first appeared on Quanta Magazine


https://www.quantamagazine.org/all-life-on-earth-today-descended-from-a-single-cell-meet-luca-20241120/


NASA’s Swift Reaches 20th Anniversary in Improved Pointing Mode

date: 2024-11-20, from: NASA breaking news

After two decades in space, NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is performing better than ever thanks to a new operational strategy implemented earlier this year. The spacecraft has made great scientific strides in the years since scientists dreamed up a new way to explore gamma-ray bursts, the most powerful explosions in the universe. “The idea […]


https://science.nasa.gov/missions/swift/nasas-swift-reaches-20th-anniversary-in-improved-pointing-mode/


Gateway Tops Off

date: 2024-11-20, from: NASA breaking news

Gateway’s Power and Propulsion Element is now equipped with its xenon and liquid fuel tanks.


https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/gateway/gateway-tops-off/


Vincent van Gogh’s Brilliant Blue ‘Irises’ Were Originally Purple, New Research Reveals

date: 2024-11-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine

An exhibition at the Getty Center shows that the painting’s pigment faded over many years, creating the hue that art lovers are familiar with today


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/van-goghs-famous-blue-irises-were-originally-purple-180985499/


date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Vendor offers 20% discount on new model, but not patches

Owners of older models of D-Link VPN routers are being told to retire and replace their devices following the disclosure of a serious remote code execution (RCE) vulnerability.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/dlink_rip_replace_router/


Kyndryl insiders say there’s little new business

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

IT giant aims to end revenue slide by March, former employees have doubts

Special report  Kyndryl, the managed infrastructure services business spun out of IBM in 2021, earlier this month repeated its somewhat glum prediction that its revenue will shrink by two to four percent for its fiscal 2025, the year ending March 31.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/kyndryl_little_new_business/


HPE lets loose VM Essentials to run on third-party platforms

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

GreenLake update dangles juicy carrot for VMware refugees

HPE is continuing its GreenLake push with availability of its own virtualization product, plus disconnected operations for regulated environments, while touting an object storage platform intended to deliver greater performance and scale for modern workloads.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/hpe_vm_essentials_greenlake/


Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 struggles to take off

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

If only the company in the title knew how to scale servers in the cloud

The debut of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 yesterday was met with severe turbulence as servers struggled to keep up with user demand.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/microsoft_flight_simulator_2024_launch/


BASIC co-creator Thomas Kurtz hits END at 96

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Pioneering Dartmouth College mathematician died last week

Obit  Professor Thomas Eugene Kurtz, co-inventor of the BASIC programming language, has died aged 96.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/rip_thomas_kurtz/


About the Office of the Chief Knowledge Officer (OCKO)

date: 2024-11-20, from: NASA breaking news

The overarching purpose of the OCKO is to cultivate and sustain a learning culture at Goddard in support of mission success. We have instituted various processes and programs for lessons learned and critical knowledge identification, sharing, and application. The focus of the OCKO is to promote local learning practices that enhances domain-specific expertise within an […]


https://www.nasa.gov/general/about-the-ocko/


Inside the Terrifying True Story of the Sperm Whale That Sank the Whale-Ship ‘Essex’ and Inspired Herman Melville’s ‘Moby-Dick’

date: 2024-11-20, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Survivors of the whale attack drifted at sea for months, succumbing to starvation, dehydration—and even cannibalism


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/inside-the-terrifying-true-story-of-the-sperm-whale-that-sank-the-whale-ship-essex-and-inspired-herman-melvilles-moby-dick-180985362/


“Why I stopped using OpenBSD”

date: 2024-11-20, from: OS News

I’ve linked to quite a few posts by OpenBSD developer Solène Rapenne on OSNews, mostly about her work for and knowledge of OpenBSD. However, she recently posted about her decision to leave the OpenBSD team, and it mostly comes down to the fact she hasn’t been using OpenBSD for a while now due to a myriad of problems she’s encountering. Posts like these are generally not that fun to link to, and I’ve been debating about this for a few days now, but I think highlighting such problems, especially when detailed by a now-former OpenBSD developer, is an important thing to do. Hardware compatibility is an issue because OpenBSD has no Bluetooth support, its gamepad support is fractured and limited, and most of all, battery life and heat are a major issue, as Solène notes that “OpenBSD draws more power than alternatives, by a good margin”. For her devops work, she also needs to run a lot of software in virtual machines, and this seems to be a big problem on OpenBSD, as performance in this area seems limited. Lastly, OpenBSD seems to be having stability issues and crashes a lot for her, and while this in an of itself is a big problem already, it’s compounded by the fact that OpenBSD’s file system is quite outdated, and most crashes will lead to corrupted or lost files, since the file system doesn’t have any features to mitigate this. I went through a similar, but obviously much shorter and far less well-informed experience with OpenBSD myself. It’s such a neat, understandable, and well-thought out operating system, but its limitations are obvious, and they will start to bother you sooner or later if you’re trying to use it as a general purpose operating system. While it’s entirely understandable because OpenBSD’s main goal is not the desktop, it still sucks because everything else about the operating system is so damn nice and welcoming. Solène found her alternative in Linux and Qubes OS: I moved from OpenBSD to Qubes OS for almost everything (except playing video games) on which I run Fedora virtual machines (approximately 20 VM simultaneously in average). This provides me better security than OpenBSD could provide me as I am able to separate every context into different spaces, this is absolutely hardcore for most users, but I just can’t go back to a traditional system after this. ↫ Solène Rapenne She lists quite a few Linux features she particularly likes and why, such as cgroups, systemd, modern file systems like Btrfs and ZFS, SELinux, and more. It’s quite rare to see someone of her calibre so openly list the shortcomings of the system she clearly otherwise loves and put a lot of effort in, and move to what is generally looked at with some disdain within the community she came from. It also highlights that issues with running OpenBSD as a general purpose operating system are not confined to less experienced users such as myself, but extend towards extremely experienced and knowledgeable people like actual OpenBSD developers. I’m definitely not advocating for OpenBSD to change course or make a hard pivot to becoming a desktop operating system, but I do think that even within the confines of a server operating system there’s room for at least things like a much improved and faster file system that provides the modern features server users expect, too.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141170/why-i-stopped-using-openbsd/


Steam cuts the cord for legacy Windows and macOS

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Don't say you weren't warned

The latest Steam client finally delivers on the warning from January, dropping support for several older OS versions.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/valve_steam_legacy_os/


Study suggests X turned right just in time for election season

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Significant uptick in visibility for Musk, Republican account posts from July 13

A pair of researchers say they've determined that July 13 was likely the day that X, formerly known as Twitter, made platform-level algorithm changes that increased the visibility of posts made by Elon Musk and Republican-leaning accounts in the run-up to the US election.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/x_marks_the_spot_for/


Data is the new uranium – incredibly powerful and amazingly dangerous

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

CISOs are quietly wishing they had less data, because the cost of management sometimes exceeds its value

Column  I recently got to play a 'fly on the wall' at a roundtable of chief information security officers. Beyond the expected griping and moaning about funding shortfalls and always-too-gullible users, I began to hear a new note: data has become a problem.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/data_is_the_new_uranium/


European Cloud Competition Observatory created to keep an eye on software licensing

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Initiative follows Microsoft settlement with CISPE consortium

Exclusive  The Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE) consortium has launched the European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO) to keep an eye on software licensing practices in the sector.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/european_cloud_competition_observatory/


China wants mobile devices to limit usage time for minors, ensure they only see nice content

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Seeks grand alliance between manufacturers, developers and content providers – all in the name of socialism

The Cyberspace Administration of China last week released guidelines that suggest mobile devices be equipped with "minors mode" that enforces both censorship and automatic usage time limits.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/china_minor_mode/


Google changes Android release cycle so new versions arrive in Q2

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Version 16 developer preview starts the new cycle, with warnings for devs to test sooner rather than later

Google on Monday delivered the first developer preview of Android 16 – a release notable for both its status as the first step towards a new version and its release date signalling a change in the release cycle for the OS.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/android_16_new_release_cycle/


Japan looks to nuclear energy to power AI-powered datacenter boom

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Shuttered reactor's operator says it's needed - once giant seawall is finished

The president of Japanese energy company Hokkaido Electric Power wants to restart one of its nuclear reactors due to a surge in demand from local datacenters.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/hokkaido_electric_power_nuclear_datacenter_ambition/


Healthcare org Equinox notifies 21K patients and staff of data theft

date: 2024-11-20, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Ransomware scum LockBit claims it did the dirty deed

Equinox, a New York State health and human services organization, has begun notifying over 21 thousand clients and staff that cyber criminals stole their health, financial, and personal information in a "data security incident" nearly seven months ago.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/20/equinox_patients_employees_data/


date: 2024-11-19, from: OS News

One of my favourite devices that never took on in the home is the thin client. Whenever I look at a fully functional Sun Microsystems thin client setup, with Sun Rays, a Solaris server, and the smartcards instantly loading up your desktop the moment you slide it in the Ray’s slot, my mind wonders about the future we could’ve had in our homes – a powerful, expandable, capable server in the basement, running every family member’s software, and thin clients all throughout the house where family members can plug their smartcard into to load up their stuff. This is the future they took from us. Well, not entirely. They took this future, made it infinitely worse by replacing that big server in our basement with massive datacentres far away from us in the “cloud”, and threw it back in our faces as a shittier inevitability we all have to deal with. The fact this model relies on subscriptions is, of course, entirely coincidental and not all the main driving force behind taking our software away from us and hiding it stronghold datacentres. So anyway Microsoft is launching a thin client that connects to a Windows VM running in the cloud. They took the perfection Sun gave us, shoved it down their throats, regurgitated it like a cow, and are now presenting it to us as the new shiny. It’s called the Windows 365 Link, and it connects to, as the name implies, Windows 365. Here’s part of the enterprise marketing speak: Today, as users take advantage of virtualization offerings delivered on an array of devices, they can face complex sign-in processes, peripheral incompatibility, and latency issues. Windows 365 Link helps address these issues, particularly in shared workspace scenarios. It’s compact, lightweight, and designed to maximize productivity with its highly responsive performance. It takes seconds to boot and instantly wakes from sleep, allowing users to quickly get started or pick up where they left off on their Cloud PC. With dual 4K monitor support, four USB ports, an Ethernet port, Wi-Fi 6E, and Bluetooth 5.3, Windows 365 Link offers seamless connectivity with both wired and wireless peripherals. ↫ Anthony Smith at the Windows IT Pro Blog This is just a thin client, but worse, since it seemingly can only connect to Microsoft’s “cloud”, without the ability to connect to a server on-premises, which is a very common use case. In fact, you can’t even use another vendor’s tooling, so if you want to switch from Windows 365 to some other provider later down the line, you seemingly can’t – unless there’s some BIOS switches or whatever you can flip. At the very least, Microsoft intends for other vendors to also make Link devices, so perhaps competition will bring the price down to a more manageble level than $349. Unless an enterprise environment is already so deep into the Microsoft ecosystem that they don’t even rely on things like Citrix or any of the other countless providers of similar services, why would you buy thousands of these for your employees, only to lock your entire company into Windows 365? I’m no IT manager, obviously, so perhaps I’m way off base here, but this thing seems like a hard sell when there are so, so many alternative services, and so many thin client devices to choose from that can use any of those services.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141166/windows-365-link-a-thin-client-from-microsoft/


China-linked group abuses Fortinet 0-day with post-exploit VPN-credential stealer

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

No word on when or if the issue will be fixed

Chinese government-linked snoops are exploiting a zero-day bug in Fortinet's Windows VPN client to steal credentials and other information, according to memory forensics outfit Volexity.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/china_brazenbamboo_fortinet_0day/


From Houston to the Moon: Johnson’s Thermal Vacuum Chamber Tests Lunar Solar Technology

date: 2024-11-19, from: NASA breaking news

Imagine designing technology that can survive on the Moon for up to a decade, providing a continuous energy supply. NASA selected three companies to develop such systems, aimed at providing a power source at the Moon’s South Pole for Artemis missions.  Three companies were awarded contracts in 2022 with plans to test their self-sustaining solar […]


https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/from-houston-to-the-moon-johnsons-thermal-vacuum-chamber-tests-lunar-solar-technology/


Russian suspected Phobos ransomware admin extradited to US over $16M extortion

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

This malware is FREE for EVERY crook ($300 decryption keys sold separately)

A Russian citizen has been extradited from South Korea to the United States to face charges related to his alleged role in the Phobos ransomware operation.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/suspected_phobos_admin/


On This Day: Apollo 12 Lands on the Moon

date: 2024-11-19, from: NASA breaking news

NASA astronaut Alan Bean steps off the lunar module ladder in this photo from Nov. 19, 1969, joining astronaut Charles Conrad Jr. on the Moon in the area called the Ocean of Storms. The two would then complete two spacewalks on the lunar surface, deploying science instruments, collecting geology samples, and inspecting the Surveyor 3 […]


https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/on-this-day-apollo-12-lands-on-the-moon/


Microsoft 365 Copilot trips over angle brackets, frustrating coders

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Chatbot seems to choke when fed tricky less-than character

Microsoft 365 Copilot appears to have developed an allergy to the less-than typographical symbol, which is preventing users from pasting HTML markup and programming code into the text area for Copilot prompts.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/microsoft_365_copilot_symbol/


New Exhibition Unravels Sigmund Freud’s Complex Relationship With the Women in His Life and Work

date: 2024-11-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine

“Women & Freud: Patients, Pioneers, Artists” spotlights the women who influenced the Austrian neurologist—and the field of psychoanalysis more broadly


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-exhibition-unravels-sigmund-freuds-complex-relationship-with-the-women-in-his-life-and-work-180985476/


NASA Plans to Assign Missions for Two Future Artemis Cargo Landers

date: 2024-11-19, from: NASA breaking news

NASA, along with its industry and international partners, is preparing for sustained exploration of the lunar surface with the Artemis campaign to advance science and discovery for the benefit of all. As part of that effort, NASA intends to award Blue Origin and SpaceX additional work under their existing contracts to develop landers that will […]


https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-plans-to-assign-missions-for-two-future-artemis-cargo-landers/


See Every Nook and Cranny of St. Peter’s Basilica With This New, Stunningly Accurate 3D Replica

date: 2024-11-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Microsoft and the Vatican used artificial intelligence to virtually recreate the historic Vatican City church


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-vaticans-ai-generated-st-peters-basilica-visitors-to-explore-unforeseen-angles-of-the-church-180985502/


America’s drinking water systems have a hard-to-swallow cybersecurity problem

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

More than 100M rely on gear rife with vulnerabilities, says EPA OIG

Nearly a third of US residents are served by drinking water systems with cybersecurity shortcomings, the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Inspector General found in a recent study – and the agency lacks its own system to track potential attacks. …


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/us_drinking_water_systems_cybersecurity/


FLTK 1.4.0 brings Wayland support

date: 2024-11-19, from: OS News

FLTK 1.4.0 has been released. This new version of the Fast Light Toolkit contains some major improvements, such as Wayland support on both Linux and FreeBSD. X11 and Wayland are both supported by default, and applications using FLTK will launch using Wayland if available, and otherwise fall back to starting with X11. This new release also brings HiDPI support on Linux and Windows, and improves said support on macOS. Those are the headline features, but there’s more changes here, of course, as well as the usual round of bugfixes. Right after the release of 1.4.0, a quick bugfix release, version 1.4.0-1, was released to address an issue in 1.4.0 – a build error on a single test program on Windows, when using Visual Studio. Not exactly a major bug, but great to see the team fix it so rapidly.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141163/fltk-1-4-0-brings-wayland-support/


Northwestern University Takes Top Honors in BIG Idea Lunar Inflatables Challenge

date: 2024-11-19, from: NASA breaking news

Following eight months of intense research, design, and prototyping, six university teams presented their “Inflatable Systems for Lunar Operations” concepts to a panel of judges at NASA’s 2024 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge forum.  The challenge, funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and Office of STEM Engagement, seeks novel ideas from higher […]


https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/stmd/northwestern-university-takes-top-honors-in-big-idea-lunar-inflatables-challenge/


Super Insulation Requires Super Materials

date: 2024-11-19, from: NASA breaking news

NASA researchers helped create an insulation coating that blocks heat and sunlight


https://www.nasa.gov/technology/tech-transfer-spinoffs/super-insulation-requires-super-materials/


Microsoft breaks timezones in Settings and calls on an unlikely ally for help

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Control Panel hobbles to the rescue!

As its Ignite conference kicks off, Microsoft is admitting there is another known issue with Windows 11 24H2. If you try to change the time zone, you might find it a challenge.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/microsoft_breaks_timezones_in_settings/


New 3D Bioprinter Could Build Replicas of Human Organs, Offering a Boost for Drug Discovery

date: 2024-11-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The invention uses light, sound and bubbles to quickly create copies of soft tissue that might one day support testing individualized therapies for cancer and other diseases


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-3d-bioprinter-could-build-replicas-of-human-organs-offering-a-boost-for-drug-discovery-180985460/


Microsoft Fabric promises transactions, analytics on one database service

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Windows giant also improving Iceberg support after throwing lot in with Delta Parquet

Ignite  Microsoft is set to launch a database service that can manage transactional and analytical workloads in the same system.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/microsoft_data_platform_fabric_upgrade/


Bob Swap Builds Bridges With ‘Science Diplomacy’

date: 2024-11-19, from: NASA breaking news

Associate Director for Mission Planning, Earth Sciences, and environmental scientist Robert J. “Bob” Swap makes a difference by putting knowledge into action. Name: Robert J. “Bob” SwapTitle: Associate Director for Mission Planning, Earth SciencesOrganization: Earth Science Division (Code 610) What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? I […]


https://www.nasa.gov/people-of-nasa/goddard-people/bob-swap-builds-bridges-with-science-diplomacy/


Supermicro hot-swaps auditor in hope of dodging Nasdaq delisting

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Server maker tries accounting reboot amid reports of customers bailing

Server maker Supermicro has appointed a new independent auditor and submitted a compliance plan to the Nasdaq stock exchange to avoid being delisted amid reports it is losing customers because of uncertainty over its future.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/supermicro_new_auditor_nasdaq/


An Ancient Tablet Inscribed With Nine of the Ten Commandments From the Book of Exodus Is for Sale

date: 2024-11-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The marble slab, which dates to between 300 and 500 C.E., is the oldest-known stone tablet inscribed with the Commandments. Nobody recognized its significance until decades after its discovery


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/an-ancient-tablet-inscribed-with-nine-of-the-ten-commandments-from-the-book-of-exodus-is-for-sale-180985473/


Palo Alto Networks tackles firewall-busting zero-days with critical patches

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Amazing that these two bugs got into a production appliance, say researchers

Palo Alto Networks (PAN) finally released a CVE identifier and patch for the zero-day exploit that caused such a fuss last week.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/palo_alto_networks_patches/


date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Just as good as Apple at making squat boxes, but this one doesn't do very much

Ignite  Microsoft is having a go at the terminal market with a device purpose-built to connect to Windows 365, imaginatively named "Windows 365 Link."…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/microsoft_windows_365_link/


Database warhorse SQL Server 2025 goes all-in on AI

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Better locking, improved query optimization, and… Copilot

Ignite  A new version of Microsoft's database warhorse, SQL Server, is on the way, with some useful improvements squeezed between the inevitable artificial intelligence additions.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/microsoft_sql_server_2025/


Microsoft unleashes autonomous Copilot AI agents in public preview

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

They can learn, adapt, and make decisions – but don't worry, they're not coming for your job

Ignite  Microsoft has fresh tools out designed to help businesses build software agents powered by foundation models – overenthusiastically referred to as artificial intelligence, or AI.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/microsoft_autonomous_copilot_ai/


NASA Engineer Carries Indigenous Roots into New Aviation Era

date: 2024-11-19, from: NASA breaking news

Growing up outside of Philadelphia, Abigail Reigner spent most of her childhood miles away from where her family called home, and where there was little trace of her Native American tribe and culture. Belonging to the Comanche Nation that resides in Lawton, Oklahoma, Reigner’s parents made every effort to keep her connected to her Indigenous […]


https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/glenn/nasa-engineer-carries-indigenous-roots-into-new-aviation-era/


See the Dazzling Diamond Necklace With Possible Ties to Marie Antoinette That Just Sold for $4.8 Million

date: 2024-11-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Some of the gems may have featured in a royal scandal known as the “affair of the diamond necklace” that damaged the French queen’s reputation in 1785


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/see-the-dazzling-diamond-necklace-with-possible-ties-to-marie-antoinette-that-just-sold-for-48-million-180985484/


Crook breaks into AI biz, points $250K wire payment at their own account

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Fastidious attacker then tidied up email trail behind them

A Maryland AI company has confirmed to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it lost $250,000 to a misdirected wire payment.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/ilearningengines_bec_scam/


Europe glances Russia’s way after Baltic Sea data cables severed

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Probe continues into disruption affecting Germany, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania

Updated  Two optical fiber internet cables under the Baltic Sea appear to have been deliberately broken, Germany and Finland confirmed, prompting fresh concerns over possible Russian interference with technology infrastructure.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/baltic_sea_cables_cut/


Northern Ireland schools ditch £485M Fujitsu deal after less than a year

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

'Mutual agreement' sees end of contract

Updated  Fujitsu and a UK public authority have ended a £485 million ($613 million) contract the pair announced in the weeks following a national scandal around the Post Office computer system implemented by the Japanese tech services giant.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/northern_ireland_schools_fujitsu/


Abraham Lincoln’s Legendary Gettysburg Address Promised ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the People’

date: 2024-11-19, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The president’s humble speech, delivered on this day in 1863, was filled with profound reverence for the Union’s ideals—and the men who died fighting for them


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/abraham-lincolns-legendary-gettysburg-address-promised-government-of-the-people-by-the-people-for-the-people-180985477/


Windows 95 setup was three programs in a trench coat, Microsoft vet reveals

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

MS-DOS, a minimal Windows 3.1, and finally the teal delight of Windows 95 awaited installers

Microsoft veteran Raymond Chen has settled once and for all the question of why the Windows 95 setup program went on a tour of GUIs before finally introducing the user to the concept of the Start Menu.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/chen_windows_95_setup/


iOS 18 added secret and smart security feature that reboots iThings after three days

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Security researcher's reverse engineering effort reveals undocumented reboot timer that will make life harder for attackers

Apple's latest mobile operating system, iOS 18, appears to have added an undocumented security feature that reboots devices if they’re not used for 72 hours.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/ios_18_secret_reboot/


Why did Windows 95 setup use three operating systems?

date: 2024-11-19, from: OS News

Way back in April of this year, I linked to a question and answer about why some parts of the Windows 98 installer looked older than the other parts. It turns out that in between the MS-DOS (the blue part) and Windows 98 parts of the installation process, the installer boots into a small version of Windows 3.1. Raymond Chen posted an article detailing this process for Windows 95, and why, exactly, Microsoft had to resort to splitting the installer between MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95. The answer is, as always, backwards compatibility. Since Windows 95 could be installed from MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, and Windows 95 (to fix an existing installation), the installer needed to be able to work on all three. The easiest solution would be to write the installer as an MS-DOS program, since that works on all three of these starting points, but that would mean an ugly installer, even though Windows 95 was supposed to be most people’s first experience with a graphical user interface. This is why Microsoft ended up with the tiered installation process – to support all possible starting points in the most graphical way possible. Chen also mentions another fun fact that is somewhat related to this: the first version of Excel for Windows was shipped with a version of the Windows 2.1 runtime, so that even people without Windows could still run Excel. Even back then, Microsoft took backwards compatibility seriously, and made sure people who hadn’t upgraded from MS-DOS to Windows 2.x yet – meaning, everyone – could still enjoy the spreadsheet lifestyle. I say we pass some EU law forcing Microsoft to bring this back. The next version of Excel should contain whatever is needed to run it on MS-DOS. Make it happen, Brussels.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141161/why-did-windows-95-setup-use-three-operating-systems/


Citrix gives its Platform a polish with enhanced management tools

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Admins promised they can get stuff done with fewer clicks this year … or maybe next

Citrix has delivered a little of what it promised in March, when it bundled its software into a "Platform," in the form of new management tools and a revamped user interface.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/citrix_platform_updates/


Robot runs marathon in South Korea, apparently the first time this has happened

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Finishing in 4:19:52 makes it a SlowBot - although it did finish without a battery top-up

The South Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has forced one of its robo-dogs to run a marathon.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/robo_dogs_marathons/


Hardware barn denies that .004 seconds of facial recognition violated privacy

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Claims it was just spotting shoppers who threatened staff at Bluey's favorite big box store

Australian hardware chain Bunnings Warehouse will challenge a ruling by local regulators who found it violated shoppers' privacy by checking their identities with facial recognition tech.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/facial_recognition_privacy_appeal_bunnings_australia/


India slaps Meta with five-year ban on sharing info from WhatsApp for ads

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Shouldn't have abused messaging dominance, Zuck

India's Competition Commission has slapped Meta with a five-year ban on using info collected from WhatsApp to help with advertising on its other platforms.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/india_whatsapp_data_sharing_sanctions/


Trump’s pick to run the FCC has told us what he plans: TikTok ban, space broadband, and Section 230 reform

date: 2024-11-19, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Loathes Big Tech and is not at all keen on net neutrality

President-elect Donald Trump has announced his choice for head of the United States Federal Communications Commission: a current commissioner, Brendan Carr, whom Trump appointed last time he was in there White House.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/19/brendan_carr_fcc/


Ford ‘actively investigating’ after employee data allegedly parked on leak site

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-19, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Plus: Maxar Space Systems confirms employee info stolen in digital intrusion

Updated  Ford Motor Company says it is looking into allegations of a data breach after attackers claimed to have stolen an internal database containing 44,000 customer records and dumped the info on a cyber crime souk for anyone to "enjoy."…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/ford_actively_investigating_breach/


DOJ will push Google to sell Chrome to break search monopoly

date: 2024-11-18, from: OS News

Speaking of Google, the United States Department of Justice is pushing for Google to sell off Chrome. Top Justice Department antitrust officials have decided to ask a judge to force Alphabet Inc.’s Google to sell off its Chrome browser in what would be a historic crackdown on one of the biggest tech companies in the world. The department will ask the judge, who ruled in August that Google illegally monopolized the search market, to require measures related to artificial intelligence and its Android smartphone operating system, according to people familiar with the plans. ↫ Leah Nylen and Josh Sisco Let’s take a look at the history and current state of independent browsers, shall we? Netscape is obviously dead, Firefox is hanging on by a thread (which is inconspicuously shaped like a giant sack of money from Google), Opera is dead (its shady Chrome skin doesn’t count), Brave is cryptotrash run by a homophobe, and Vivaldi, while an actually good and capable Chrome skin with a ton of fun features, still isn’t profitable, so who knows how long they’ll last. As an independent company, Chrome wouldn’t survive. It seems the DoJ understands this, too, because they’re clearly using the words “sell off”, which would indicate selling Chrome to someone else instead of just spinning it off into a separate company. But who has both the cash and the interest in buying Chrome, without also being a terrible tech company with terrible business incentives that might make Chrome even more terrible than it already is? Through Chrome, Google has sucked all the air out of whatever was left of the browser market back when they first announced the browser. An independent Chrome won’t survive, and Chrome in anyone else’s hands might have the potential to be even worse. A final option out of left field would be turning Chrome and Chromium into a truly independent foundation or something, without a profit motive, focused solely on developing the Chromium engine, but that, too, would be easily abused by financial interests. I think the most likely outcome is one none of us want: absolutely nothing will happen. There’s a new administration coming to Washington, and if the recent proposed picks for government positions are anything to go by, America will be incredibly lucky if they get someone smarter than a disemboweled frog on a stick to run the DoJ. More likely than not, Google’s lawyers will walk all over whatever’s left of the DoJ after 20 January, or Pichai will simply kiss some more gaudy gold rings to make the case go away.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141156/doj-will-push-google-to-sell-chrome-to-break-search-monopoly/


Google is reportedly killing Chrome OS in favour of Android

date: 2024-11-18, from: OS News

Mishaal Rahman, who has a history of being right about Google and Android-related matters, is reporting that Google is intending to standardise its consumer operating system efforts onto a single platform: Android. To better compete with the iPad as well as manage engineering resources more effectively, Google wants to unify its operating system efforts. Instead of merging Android and Chrome OS into a new operating system like rumors suggested in the past, however, a source told me that Google is instead working on fully migrating Chrome OS over to Android. While we don’t know what this means for the Chrome OS or Chromebook brands, we did hear that Google wants future “Chromebooks” to ship with the Android OS in the future. That’s why I believe that Google’s rumored new Pixel Laptop will run a new version of desktop Android as opposed to the Chrome OS that you’re likely familiar with. ↫ Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority The fact both Chrome OS and Android exist, and are competing with each other in some segments – most notably tablets – hasn’t done either operating system any favours. I doubt many people even know Chrome OS tablets are a thing, and I doubt many people would say Android tablets are an objectively better choice than an iPad. I personally definitely prefer Android on tablets over iOS on tablets, but I fully recognise that for 95% of tablet buyers, the iPad is the better, and often also more affordable, choice. Google has been struggling with Android on tablets for about as long as they’ve existed, and now it seems that the company is going to focus all of its efforts on just Android, leaving Chrome OS to slowly be consumed and replaced by it. In June, Google already announced it was going to replace both the kernel and several subsystems in Chrome OS with their Android counterparts, and now they’re also building a new version of Chrome for Android with extensions supports – to match Chrome on Chrome OS – as well as a terminal application for Android that gives access to a local Linux virtual machine, much like is available on Chrome OS. As mentioned, laptops running Android will also be making an entrance, including a Pixel laptop straight from Google. The next big update for Android 15 contains a ton of new proper windowing features, and there’s more coming: improved keyboard and mouse support, as well as external monitors, virtual desktops, and a lot more. As anyone who has ever attempted to run Android on a desktop or laptop knows, there’s definitely a ton of work Google needs to do to make Android palatable to consumers on that front. Of course, this being Google, any of these rumours or plans could change at any time without any sense of logic behind it, as managers fulfill their quotas, get promoted, or leave the company.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141154/google-is-reportedly-killing-chrome-os-in-favour-of-android/


Critical 9.8-rated VMware vCenter RCE bug exploited after patch fumble

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

If you didn't fix this a month ago, your to-do list probably needs a reshuffle

Two VMware vCenter server bugs, including a critical heap-overflow vulnerability that leads to remote code execution (RCE), have been exploited in attacks after Broadcom’s first attempt to fix the flaws fell short.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/vmware_vcenter_rce_exploited/


Sols 4366–4367: One of Those Days on Mars (Sulfate-Bearing Unit to the West of Upper Gediz Vallis)

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

Earth planning date: Friday, Nov. 15, 2024 The Monday plan and drive had executed successfully, so the team had high hopes for APXS and MAHLI data on several enticing targets in the rover’s workspace. Alas, it was not to be: The challenging terrain had resulted in an awkwardly perched wheel at the end of the […]


https://science.nasa.gov/blog/sols-4366-4367-one-of-those-days-on-mars-sulfate-bearing-unit-to-the-west-of-upper-gediz-vallis/


Endangered Sierra Nevada Yellow-Legged Frogs Are Making a Comeback

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Scientists are celebrating the recovery of the species in Yosemite National Park, where they were decimated by the introduction of non-native fish and the deadly amphibian chytrid fungus


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/endangered-sierra-nevada-yellow-legged-frogs-are-making-a-comeback-180985489/


Judges not impressed by Amazon, SpaceX’s attempt to have NLRB declared unconstitutional

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Big Tech's big war on American labor watchdog stumbles… bigly

Amazon and SpaceX argued in court today that the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an unconstitutional body – but a three-judge panel didn't seem particularly enamored of their arguments.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/appeals_court_amazon_spacex_nlrb/


Part Ojibwe, All NASA: Linda Spuler’s Role in Protecting Johnson Space Center

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

Linda Spuler, emergency manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, believes that everyone has a story. “Our stories highlight what we have in common, but they also make us each unique,” she said.  Spuler has worked at Johnson for over 32 years, spending most of her career in Center Operations. Her story has involved […]


https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/part-ojibwe-all-nasa-linda-spulers-role-in-protecting-johnson-space-center/


New Statue Honoring Civil Rights Activist John Lewis Unveiled in His Home State of Alabama

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The life-sized bronze sculpture of the congressman joins statues of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks in the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Plaza in Montgomery


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-statue-honoring-civil-rights-activist-john-lewis-unveiled-in-his-home-state-of-alabama-180985491/


T-Mobile US ‘monitoring’ China’s ‘industry-wide attack’ amid fresh security breach fears

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Un-carrier said to be among those hit by Salt Typhoon, including AT&T, Verizon

T-Mobile US said it is "monitoring" an "industry-wide" cyber-espionage campaign against American networks – amid fears Chinese government-backed spies compromised the un-carrier among with various other telecommunications providers.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/tmobile_us_attack_salt_typhoon/


The Far Side of the Moon Was Volcanically Active, New Studies Confirm

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

Scientists analyzed the first and only rock samples from the region, which were brought back to Earth as part of a recent Chinese mission


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-studies-confirm-that-the-far-side-of-the-moon-was-volcanically-active-180985490/


iOS 18.1 will reboot iPhones to a locked state after 72 hours of inactivity

date: 2024-11-18, from: OS News

In recent weeks, law enforcement in the United States discovered, to their dismay, that iPhones were automatically rebooting themselves after a few days of inactivity, thereby denying them access to the contents of these phones. After a lot of speculation online, Jiska Classen dove into this story to find out what was going on, and through reverse-engineering they discovered that this was a new security feature built by Apple as part of iOS 18.1, to further make stolen iPhones useless for both thieves as well as law enforcement officers. It’s a rather clever feature. The Secure Enclave Processor inside the iPhone keeps track of when the phone was last unlocked, and if that period exceeds 72 hours, the SEP will inform a kernel module. This kernel module will then, in turn, tell the phone to gracefully reboot, meaning no data is lost in this process. If the phone for whatever reason does not reboot and remains powered on, the module will assume the phone’s been tampered with somehow and kernel-panic. Interestingly, if the reboot takes place properly, an analytics report stating how long the phone was not unlocked will be sent to Apple. The reason this is such a powerful feature is that a locked iPhone is entirely useless to anyone who doesn’t have the right code or biometrics to unlock it. Everything on the device is encrypted, and only properly unlocking it will decrypt the phone’s contents; in fact, a locked phone can’t even join a Wi-Fi network, because the stored passwords are encrypted (and I’m assuming that a locked phone does not provide access to any methods of joining an open network either). When you have a SIM card without any pincode, the iPhone will connect to the cellular network, but any notifications or calls coming in will effectively be empty, since incoming phone numbers can’t be linked to any of the still-encrypted contacts, and while the phone can tell it’s received notifications, it can’t show you any of their contents. A thief who’s now holding this phone can’t do much with it if it locks itself like this after a few days, and law enforcement won’t be able to access the phone either. This is a big deal in places where arrests based purely on skin colour or ethnicity or whatever are common, like in the United States (and in Europe too, just to a far lesser degree), or in places where people have to fear the authorities for other reasons, like in totalitarian dictatorships like Russia, China or Iran, where any hint of dissent can end you in harsh prisons. Apple is always at the forefront with features such as these, with Google and Android drunkenly stumbling into the open door a year later with copies that take ages to propagate through the Android user base. I’m legitimately thankful for Apple raising awareness of the need of features such as these – even if they’re too cowardly to enable them in places like China – as it’s quite clear a lot more people need to start caring about these things, with recent developments and all.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141151/ios-18-1-will-reboot-iphones-to-a-locked-state-after-72-hours-of-inactivity/


NASA to Provide Coverage of Progress 90 Launch, Space Station Docking

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

NASA will provide live launch and docking coverage of a Roscosmos cargo spacecraft delivering nearly three tons of food, fuel, and supplies to the Expedition 72 crew aboard the International Space Station. The unpiloted Progress 90 spacecraft is scheduled to launch at 7:22 a.m. EST (5:22 p.m. Baikonur time) Thursday, Nov. 21, on a Soyuz […]


https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-to-provide-coverage-of-progress-90-launch-space-station-docking/


A 35,000-Year-Old Saber-Toothed Cub Was Unearthed in Siberia—and It Still Had Its Whiskers and Claws

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The frozen kitten, discovered in 2020, has stunned scientists with its remarkably well-preserved body


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-35000-year-old-saber-toothed-kitten-was-unearthed-in-siberiaand-it-still-had-its-whiskers-and-claws-180985488/


Musk, America PAC sued for allegedly rigging $1M election prize

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

This was pretty inevitable after its lawyers admitted in court that the giveaway wasn't random

Elon Musk and his America PAC have been sued for allegedly lying about their $1 million election lottery after letting slip in a court hearing earlier this month that it wasn't as random as Musk suggested. …


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/musk_america_pac_sued/


Station Science Top News: Nov. 15, 2024

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

Anthocyanins protect seeds in space After exposure to space outside the International Space Station, purple-pigmented rice seeds rich in anthocyanin had higher germination rates than non-pigmented white rice seeds. This result suggests that anthocyanin, a flavonoid known to protect plants from UV irradiation, could help preserve seed viability on future space missions. Plants are key […]


https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/station-science-top-news-nov-15-2024/


November Transformer of the Month: Ariel Vargas

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

When Ariel Vargas joined NASA in 2023, he knew he wanted to make an impact. Despite his relatively short tenure, he has earned the reputation of a Digital Transformer in his work as a Network and ICAM (Identity, Credential, and Access Management) Service Integrator at Johnson Space Center (JSC). No matter the task at hand, […]


https://www.nasa.gov/general/november-transformer-of-the-month-ariel-vargas/


First Nations Launch Winners Watch Crew-7 Launch

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

In this image from Aug. 26, 2023, participants from the 14th First Nations Launch High-Power Rocket Competition watch NASA’s SpaceX Crew-7 launch at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Students and advisors from University of Washington, University of Colorado-Boulder, and an international team from Queens University – the 2023 First Nations Launch grand prize […]


https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/first-nations-launch-winners-watch-crew-7-launch/


Nvidia’s latest Blackwell boards pack 4 GPUs, 2 Grace CPUs, and suck down 5.4 kW

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

You can now glue four H200 PCIe cards together too

SC24  Nvidia's latest HPC and AI chip is a massive single board computer packing four Blackwell GPUs, 144 Arm Neoverse cores, up to 1.3 terabytes of HBM, and a scorching 5.4 kilowatt TDP.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/nvidia_gb200_nvl4/


15 Years Ago: STS-129 Delivers Cargo on the Third Utilization and Logistics Flight

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

On Nov. 16, 2009, space shuttle Atlantis began its 31st trip into space, on the third Utilization and Logistics Flight (ULF3) mission to the International Space Station, the 31st shuttle flight to the orbiting lab. During the 11-day mission, the six-member STS-129 crew worked with the six-person Expedition 21 crew during seven days of docked […]


https://www.nasa.gov/history/15-years-ago-sts-129-delivers-cargo-on-the-third-utilization-and-logistics-flight/


Nvidia continues its quest to shoehorn AI into everything, including HPC

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

GPU giant contends that a little fuzzy math can speed up fluid dynamics, drug discovery

SC24  Nvidia on Monday unveiled several new tools and frameworks for augmenting real-time fluid dynamics simulations, computational chemistry, weather forecasting, and drug development with everyone's favorite buzzword: AI.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/nvidia_ai_hpc/


Ancient Roman Gladiators Were Huge Celebrities Who Even Had Their Own Merch

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

A tiny gladiator figurine was used as a handle on a 2,000-year-old copper folding knife found in an English river, suggesting that popular fascination with the ancient fighters reached the edges of the empire


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-roman-gladiators-were-huge-celebrities-who-even-had-their-own-merch-180985481/


NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Takes a Last Look at Mysterious Sulfur

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

The rover captured a 360-degree panorama before leaving Gediz Vallis channel, a feature it’s been exploring for the past year. NASA’s Curiosity rover is preparing for the next leg of its journey, a monthslong trek to a formation called the boxwork, a set of weblike patterns on Mars’ surface that stretches for miles. It will […]


https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-science-laboratory/curiosity-rover/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-takes-a-last-look-at-mysterious-sulfur/


NASA Selects New Leader of Space Technology

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

Clayton P. Turner will serve as the associate administrator of the Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced Monday. His appointment is effective immediately. Turner has served as the acting associate administrator of STMD since July. In this role, Turner will continue to oversee executive leadership, […]


https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-new-leader-of-space-technology/


LLNL’s El Capitan surpasses Frontier with 1.74 exaFLOPS performance

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-20, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Uncle Sam tops supercomputer charts, while China recedes from public view

SC24  Lawrence Livermore National Lab's (LLNL) El Capitan system has ended Frontier's 2.5-year reign as the number one ranked supercomputer on the Top500, setting a new high water mark for high-performance computing (HPC).…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/top500_el_capitan/


Hollywood Techniques Help NASA Visualize Supercomputing Data

date: 2024-11-18, from: NASA breaking news

Captivating images and videos can bring data to life. NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio (SVS) produces visualizations, animations, and images to help scientists tell stories of their research and make science more approachable and engaging. Using the Discover supercomputer at the Center for Climate Simulation at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, visualizers use […]


https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/hollywood-techniques-help-nasa-visualize-supercomputing-data/


NASA wants ideas on how to haul injured moonwalkers

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

$45K says you can do it without a lunar rover

How do you rescue an injured crew member on the lunar surface? NASA is looking for ideas, and a share of a $45,000 prize pot is up for grabs.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/nasa_injured_astronaut_transport/


This Forgotten Sculpture Was Used as a Doorstop in a Scotland Shed. It Turned Out to Be a Masterpiece Worth Millions

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The marble bust was made by the celebrated sculptor Edmé Bouchardon nearly 300 years ago. After a small town purchased it in the 1930s, it was lost for decades


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-forgotten-sculpture-was-used-as-a-doorstop-in-a-scotland-shed-it-turned-out-to-be-a-masterpiece-worth-millions-180985463/


Sweden’s ‘Doomsday Prep for Dummies’ guide hits mailboxes today

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

First in six years is nearly three times the size of the older, pre-NATO version

Residents of Sweden are to receive a handy new guide this week that details how to prepare for various types of crisis situations or wartime should geopolitical events threaten the country.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/sweden_updates_war_guide/


Australian Zoo Asks Residents to Capture the World’s Most Venomous Spider: the Deadly Sydney Funnel-Web

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The Australian Reptile Park’s annual callout is crucial to creating life-saving antivenom


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/australian-zoo-asks-residents-to-capture-the-worlds-most-venomous-spider-the-deadly-sydney-funnel-web-180985483/


Trump appoints Musk associate Brendan Carr as FCC chair

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Likely to look more favorably on Elon's adventures in space-based comms

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), an agency charged with regulating US media and communications, is about to get a new boss: current commissioner Brendan Carr.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/brendan_carr_fcc_chair/


Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is

date: 2024-11-18, from: Quanta Magazine

The mathematician David Bessis claims that everyone is capable of, and can benefit greatly from, mathematical thinking.

The post Mathematical Thinking Isn’t What You Think It Is first appeared on Quanta Magazine


https://www.quantamagazine.org/mathematical-thinking-isnt-what-you-think-it-is-20241118/


LLNL looks to make HPC a little cloudier with Oxide’s rackscale compute platform

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

System to serve as a proof of concept for applying API-driven automation to scientific computing

SC24  Oxide Computing's 2,500 pound (1.1 metric ton) rackscale blade servers are getting a new home at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LNLL).…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/llnl_oxide_compute/


Pirate programmer walks the plank for role in massive TV streaming operation

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

US considers the cases concerning Jetflicks to be the largest of their kind

A programmer at the heart of a huge internet piracy website faces a lengthy prison sentence following five years of legal proceedings and a two-week trial.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/jetflicks_programmer_conviction/


UK test-fires Spear mini cruise missile that will equip F-35 fighters

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

2-way datalink allows in-flight info updates including retargeting and abort

The UK has conducted the first successful guided firing trial of Spear, a mini cruise missile that is set to be the chief strike weapon against ships for the carrier-launched F-35B fighter jets, and can also be used against tanks, target structures and fast-moving vehicles.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/uk_test_fires_spear_mini_cruise_missile/


UK tax collector inks £366M in ERP deals to get systems into cloud

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

SAP and Deloitte winners in transition from legacy software to SaaS, which includes housing and transport ministries

The UK's tax collector has awarded contracts worth up to £366 million ($461 million) in an effort to move a cluster of central government departments' ERP, HR and finance systems to the cloud and upgrade legacy software.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/uk_tax_collector_awards_366/


Migrating Windows VMs from Proxmox BIOS/KVM to FreeBSD UEFI/Bhyve

date: 2024-11-18, from: OS News

Another excellent guide from friend of the website Stefano Marinelli. A client of mine has several Windows Server VMs, which I had not migrated to FreeBSD/bhyve until a few weeks ago. These VMs were originally installed with the traditional BIOS boot mode, not UEFI, on Proxmox. Fortunately, their virtual disks are on ZFS, which allowed me to test and achieve the final result in just a few steps. This is because Windows VMs (server or otherwise) often installed on KVM (Proxmox, etc.), especially older ones, are non-UEFI, using the traditional BIOS boot mode. bhyve doesn’t support this setup, but Windows allows changing the boot mode, and I could perform the migration directly on the target FreeBSD server. ↫ Stefano Marinelli I link to guides like these because finding such detailed guides born out of experience, written by actual humans with actual experience – instead of bots on content farms – is remarkably hard. There’s more than enough similar content like this out there covering Windows or popular Linux distributions like Red Hat, but the BSDs tend to fall a bit short here. As such, promoting people writing such content is something I’ll happily do. Marinelli also happens to host the Matrix server (as part of his BSD Cafe effort) that houses the OSNews Matrix room, accessible by becoming an OSNews Patreon.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141149/migrating-windows-vms-from-proxmox-bios-kvm-to-freebsd-uefi-bhyve/


Microsoft starts boiling the Copilot frog: It’s not a soup you want to drink at any price

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

You think employee-generated content is bad now? 

Opinion  In 1968's Star Trek episode, "The Ultimate Computer," Captain Kirk had his ship used to test M5, a new computer. A copilot, if you will, for the Starship Enterprise.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/opinion_piece_ai_tools/


Linux 6.12 released

date: 2024-11-18, from: OS News

Version 6.12 of the Linux kernel has been released. The main feature consists of the merger of the real-time PREEMPT_RT scheduler, most likely one of the longest-running merger sagas in Linux’ history. This means that Linux now fully supports both soft and hard real-time capabilities natively, which is a major step forward for the platform, especially when looking at embedded development. It’s now no longer needed to draw in real-time support from outside the kernel. Linux 6.12 also brings a huge number of improvements for graphics drivers, for both Intel and AMD’s graphics cards. With 6.12, Linux now supports the Intel Xe2 integrated GPU as well as Intel’s upcoming discrete “Battlemage” GPUs by default, and it contains more AMD RDNA4 support for those upcoming GPUs. DRM panics messages in 6.12 will show a QR code you can scan for more information, a feature written in Rust, and initial support for the Raspberry Pi 5 finally hit mainline too. Of course, there’s a lot more in here, like the usual LoongArch and ARM improvements, new drivers, and so on. and if you’re a regular Linux user you’ll see 6.12 make it to your distribution within a few weeks or months.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141147/linux-6-12-released/


When Susan B. Anthony and 14 Other Women Were Arrested for Voting Illegally in a Presidential Election

date: 2024-11-18, from: Smithsonian Magazine

After her detainment on this day in 1872, Anthony was found guilty by a federal court. She refused to pay her “unjust” $100 fine


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/susan-b-anthony-and-14-other-women-were-arrested-for-voting-illegally-in-the-presidential-election-on-this-day-in-1872-180985279/


Framework laptops get modular makeover with RISC-V main board

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

One of the braver lightning talks we've seen: Swapping motherboards, live on stage

Ubuntu Summit 2024  The modular Framework laptop is moving outside the x86 world with a RISC-V main board now available.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/riscv_framework_main_board/


NIST trains AI to hear the ‘oh crap’ moment before batteries explode

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Machine learning used to separate opening a can of soda from something catastrophic

Researchers at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have come up with an early warning system for lithium-ion battery fires.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/battery_fail_sound_ai/


Undergrad thought he had mastered Unix in weeks. Then he discovered rm -rf

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Uni sysadmin who ran the lab he erased was a big part of the problem

Who, Me?  Another Monday and what a fine one it is here in the lair of Who, Me? – the reader contributed column in which your fellow Reg-admirers admit to the moments they messed up the tech they were supposed to tame.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/who_me/


First looks at China’s Moon rock samples suggest Luna had volcanoes for longer than previously thought

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Stuff from the far side is basalt - but less KREEP-y than expected

The first ever samples of soil and rock collected from the far side of the moon has revealed more recent lunar volcanic activity than expected, according to studies published in two journals last Friday.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/chinas_change_6_samples_reveal/


Lenovo’s enterprise hardware biz booms but profit remains elusive

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Execs at Chinese company confident President Trump's trade policies won’t present a problem

Lenovo’s enterprise business has posted 65 percent year on year growth but still posted a loss.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/lenovo_q2_2025/


Weekends were a mistake, says Infosys co-founder Narayama Murthy

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Again defends his belief that 70-hour weeks are essential and work/life balance is bunk

Infosys founder Narayama Murthy has tripled down on his previous statements that 70-hour work weeks are what's needed in India and revealed he also thinks weekends were a mistake.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/infosys_workaholic_founder/


Equinix to close its ‘Metal’ IaaS offering in 2026

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Joins the likes of HPE, Cisco, and VMware in failing to challenge dominant hyperscalers

Datacenter giant Equinix will end its foray into infrastructure-a-service by shuttering its “Metal” bare metal IaaS offering.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/equinix_ends_metal_iaas/


Teen serial swatter-for-hire busted, pleads guilty, could face 20 years

date: 2024-11-18, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

PLUS: Cost of Halliburton hack disclosed; Time to dump old D-Link NAS; More UN cybercrime convention concerns; and more

Infosec in brief  A teenager has pleaded guilty to calling in more than 375 fake threats to law enforcement, and now faces years in prison.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/18/teenage_serial_swatterforhire_busted/


US, China agree machines must not be allowed to control nuclear weapons

date: 2024-11-17, updated: 2024-11-18, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

PLUS: LG struts catwalk in stretchy screen; Samsung’s strike nears end; Vietnam warns Chinese e-commerce players; and more

ASIA IN BRIEF  President Xi Jinping of China and President Joe Biden of the USA have pledged to continue working together to ensure AI does not harm humanity.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/17/asia_tech_news_roundup/


Will passkeys ever replace passwords? Can they?

date: 2024-11-17, updated: 2024-11-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Here's why they really should

Systems Approach  I have been playing around with passkeys, or as they are formally known, discoverable credentials.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/17/passkeys_passwords/


How the Groundbreaking Suez Canal Forever Transformed the World’s Shipping Routes

date: 2024-11-17, from: Smithsonian Magazine

The massive global shortcut linking the Mediterranean and Red Seas took ten years to dig through the Isthmus of Suez and was built on the path of an ancient canal


https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-the-groundbreaking-suez-canal-forever-transformed-the-worlds-shipping-routes-180985273/


AI poetry out-humans humans as readers prefer bots to bards

date: 2024-11-17, updated: 2024-11-17, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)

Uncultured swine prone to believe complexity of verse is machine-generated babble

A study in the US has found that readers can't tell the difference between poems written by famous poets and those written by AI aping their style. To make matters worse – for anyone fostering a love of literature at least – research subjects tend to like AI poetry more than they do verse from human poets.…


https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/11/17/ai_poetry_study/


Free Towns OS: an open source recreation of FM Towns OS

date: 2024-11-17, from: OS News

A few weeks ago I linked to a story by Misty De Meo, in which they explored what happened to the various eccentric Japanese PC platforms. One of the platforms mentioned was FM Towns, made by Fujitsu, which came with its own graphical operating system from the era of Windows 3.x. I had never heard of this one before, but it looks incredibly interesting, with some unique UI ideas I’d love to explore, if only I could read Japanese. Since learning Japanese is a serious life-long commitment, I can safely say that’s not going to happen. It seems I’m not the only one interested in FM Towns, as a new project called Free Towns OS (or Tsugaru OS in Japanese) aims to provide an open source replacement for the Free Towns operating system. The goal of this project is to write a copyright-free FM Towns OS to run free games and the re-released games, or why not a brand-new game for FM Towns. without concerns of violating copyrights of the files included in the original Towns OS. Let’s see how far we can go! But, so far so good. Now Tsugaru OS is capable of running the three probably the most popular free games, Panic Ball 2, VSGP, and Sky Duel. All playable without single file from the original Towns OS. ↫ Free Towns OS GitHub page That’s a pretty good milestone already. The project aims to eventually also be able to run on real hardware instead of just emulators, but further than that, it’s difficult for me to extract more information from the descriptions since not every paragraph has been translated to English just yet. Finding English information on FM Towns OS in general is hard, so I’m also not entirely sure just how much the project has already been able to recreate. I definitely hope this effort attracts more interest, hopefully also from outside of Japan so we can get a translated version people outside of Japan can use.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141145/free-towns-os-an-open-source-recreation-of-fm-towns-os/


Microsoft finally publishes ISO for Windows on ARM

date: 2024-11-17, from: OS News

This option is for users that want to create a Windows 11 on Arm virtual machine on supported hardware using an ISO file or to install Windows 11 on Arm directly without a DVD or USB flash drive.  The ISO file can also be used to manually create bootable installation media (USB flash drive) to install Windows 11 on Arm, but it may be necessary to include drivers from the device manufacturer for the installation media to be successfully bootable. This download is a multi-edition ISO which uses your product key to unlock the correct edition. ↫ Windows on ARM ISO download Oddly enough, up until now, Microsoft hadn’t published a Windows 11 on ARM ISO yet. With this new ISO, ARM users can do a fresh install, and create Windows on ARM virtual machines. Not the biggest news in the world, but it’s a little bit surprising it’s taken them this long to publish this ISO file.


https://www.osnews.com/story/141142/microsoft-finally-publishes-iso-for-windows-on-arm/