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Google

Google Performs First Quantum Simulation of a Chemical Reaction (newscientist.com)

Posted by BeauHD from the first-of-its-kind dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NewScientist: Google researchers have used a quantum computer to simulate a chemical reaction for the first time. The reaction is a simple one, but this marks a step towards finding a practical use for quantum computers. A team at Google has used the company's Sycamore device to perform the first accurate quantum simulation of a chemical reaction. Sycamore achieved quantum supremacy in 2019 when it carried out a calculation that would be impossible for a classical computer to perform in a practical amount of time. For the computer's latest feat, the researchers simulated a diazene molecule, which consists of two nitrogen atoms and two hydrogen atoms, undergoing a reaction in which the hydrogen atoms move into different configurations around the nitrogens. The quantum simulation agreed with simulations the researchers performed on classical computers to check their work. The researchers published their findings in the journal Science.
Books

'We Must Take a Stand': Portland's Iconic Powell's Books Says It Won't Sell Books On Amazon Anymore (oregonlive.com) 14

Posted by BeauHD from the enough-is-enough dept.
Portland-based Powell's Books, the world's largest new and used bookstore, says it won't sell on Amazon anymore, "declaring that the online retail giant undermines communities by siphoning business from the real world and replacing it with internet commerce," reports Oregon Live. From the report: "For too long, we have watched the detrimental impact of Amazon's business on our communities and the independent bookselling world," CEO Emily Powell wrote in a note to customers Wednesday. "The vitality of our neighbors and neighborhoods depends on the ability of local businesses to thrive," Powell wrote. "We will not participate in undermining that vitality."

Portland-based Powell's is among the world's largest bookstores and is the city's signature retailer. But it's dwarfed by the inventory available through Amazon's website. So Powell's, like many other retailers, supplements its business by listing its products on Amazon's own site -- and giving Amazon a share of each sale. That puts smaller retailers at an obvious disadvantage, given that they're depending on a much larger competitor for an important share of their sales. But many feel they have no choice but to list on Amazon given that company's dominant market position online. The bookstore declined to elaborate on Wednesday's statement or say how much of its business flows through Amazon. "We understand that in many communities, Amazon -- and big box retail chains -- have become the only option," Emily Powell wrote. "And yet when it comes to our local community and the community of independent bookstores around the U.S., we must take a stand."
China

China Secretly Built a Vast New Infrastructure To Imprison Muslims (buzzfeednews.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the not-so-secret-anymore dept.
In a series of investigations, BuzzFeed News used satellite images to reveal 268 newly-built internment camps for Muslims in the Xinjiang region. Longtime Slashdot reader wiredog shares the reports with us.

Part 1: China Secretly Built A Vast New Infrastructure To Imprison Muslims
Part 2: What They Saw: Ex-Prisoners Detail The Horrors Of China's Detention Camps
Part 3: Blanked Out Spots On China's Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang's Camps

Here's an excerpt from Part 1 of their investigation: China has secretly built scores of massive new prison and internment camps in the past three years, dramatically escalating its campaign against Muslim minorities even as it publicly claimed the detainees had all been set free. The construction of these purpose-built, high-security camps -- some capable of housing tens of thousands of people -- signals a radical shift away from the country's previous makeshift use of public buildings, like schools and retirement homes, to a vast and permanent infrastructure for mass detention. In the most extensive investigation of China's internment camp system ever done using publicly available satellite images, coupled with dozens of interviews with former detainees, BuzzFeed News identified more than 260 structures built since 2017 and bearing the hallmarks of fortified detention compounds. There is at least one in nearly every county in the far-west region of Xinjiang. During that time, the investigation shows, China has established a sprawling system to detain and incarcerate hundreds of thousands of Uighurs, Kazakhs, and other Muslim minorities, in what is already the largest-scale detention of ethnic and religious minorities since World War II.

These forbidding facilities -- including several built or significantly expanded within the last year -- are part of the government's unprecedented campaign of mass detention of more than a million people, which began in late 2016. That year Chen Quanguo, the region's top official and Communist Party boss, whom the US recently sanctioned over human rights abuses, also put Muslim minorities -- more than half the region's population of about 25 million -- under perpetual surveillance via facial recognition cameras, cellphone tracking, checkpoints, and heavy-handed human policing. They are also subject to many other abuses, ranging from sterilization to forced labor. To detain thousands of people in short order, the government repurposed old schools and other buildings. Then, as the number of detainees swelled, in 2018 the government began building new facilities with far greater security measures and more permanent architectural features, such as heavy concrete walls and guard towers, the BuzzFeed News analysis shows. Prisons often take years to build, but some of these new compounds took less than six months, according to historical satellite data. The government has also added more factories within camp and prison compounds during that time, suggesting the expansion of forced labor within the region. Construction was still ongoing as of this month.

BuzzFeed News identified 268 newly built compounds by cross-referencing blanked-out areas on Baidu Maps -- a Google Maps-like tool that's widely used in China -- with images from external satellite data providers. These compounds often contained multiple detention facilities.
Facebook

Facebook Sues Maker of Advertising SDK for Refusing To Participate in Audit (zdnet.com) 9

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Facebook has filed lawsuits today in both the US and the UK against MobiBurn, a UK software company that provided advertising tools for mobile app developers. From a report: In particular, MobiBurn provided an advertising software development kit (SDK) that allowed app developers to embed ads inside their applications and monetize user behavior. But in a lawsuit filed today, Facebook claims the SDK contained malicious code that illegally collected the personal data of Facebook users. Facebook said the data was collected when users installed any mobile app that contained the MobiBurn advertising SDK. When this happened, the code would activate and collect a person's name, time zone, email address, and gender. "Security researchers first flagged MobiBurn's behavior to us as part of our data abuse bounty program," said Jessica Romero, Facebook's Director of Platform Enforcement and Litigation.
Open Source

'The Future of American Industry Depends On Open Source Tech' (wired.com) 22

Posted by BeauHD from the what-needs-to-happen dept.
An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from Wired, written by Kevin Xu and Jordan Schneider. Xu is the author of Interconnected, investor and advisor of open source startups at OSS Capital, and served in the Obama White House. Schneider is the author of the ChinaTalk newsletter and host of the ChinaTalk podcast, posted on Lawfare. From the report: Open source is a technology development and distribution methodology, where the codebase and all development -- from setting a roadmap to building new features, fixing bugs, and writing documentation -- is done in public. A governing body (a group of hobbyists, a company, or a foundation) publicly manages this work, which is most often done in a public repository on either GitHub or GitLab. Open source has two important, and somewhat counterintuitive, advantages: speed and security. These practices lead to faster technological developments, because a built-in global community of developers help them mature, especially if the technology is solving a real problem. Top engineers also prefer to work with and on open source projects. Wrongly cast as secretive automatons, they are more often like artists, who prefer to learn, work, collaborate, and showcase what they've built in public, even when they are barely compensated for that work.

But doesn't keeping a technology's codebase open make it more vulnerable to attack? In fact, exposing the codebase publicly for security experts and hackers to easily access and test is the best way to keep the technology secure and build trust with end users for the long haul. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and open source is that sunlight in technology. Linux, the operating system, and Kubernetes, the cloud container orchestration system, are two of the most prominent examples. [...] Using open source technology is now the fastest way new products get built and legacy technologies get replaced. Yet as US policymakers develop their industrial policy to compete with China, open source is conspicuously absent.

By leaning on the advantages of open source, policymakers can pursue an industrial policy to help the US compete in the 21st century in line with our broader values. The alternative is to continue a top-down process that picks winners and losers based on not just technology but also political influence, which only helps individual firms secure market share, not sparking innovation more broadly. A few billion more dollars won't save Intel from its technical woes, but a healthier ecosystem leveraging open source technology and community would put the US in a better position for the future. Open source technology allows for vendor-neutrality. Whether you're a country or a company, if you use open source, you're not locked in to another company's technical stack, roadmap, or licensing agreements. After Linux was first created in 1991, it was widely adopted by large companies like Dell and IBM as a vendor neutral alternative to Microsoft's Windows operating system. In the future, chip designers won't be locked into Intel or ARM with RISC-V. With OpenRAN, 5G network builders won't be forced to buy from Huawei, Nokia, or Ericsson. [...] By doubling down on open source, America not only can address some of our most pressing technological challenges faster and more securely, but also revive relationships with our allies and deepen productive collaborations with the tech sector.
Medicine

FDA Approves $5 Rapid Coronavirus Test That Doesn't Require Special Computer (cbsnews.com) 30

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
schwit1 writes: The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first rapid coronavirus test that doesn't need any special computer equipment to get results. The 15-minute test from Abbott Laboratories will sell for $5, giving it a competitive edge over similar tests that need to be popped into a small machine. The self-contained test is the size of a credit card and is based on the same technology used to test for the flu, strep throat and other infections. It's the latest cheaper, simpler test to hit the U.S. market, providing new options to expand testing as schools and businesses struggle to reopen and flu season approaches. The FDA also recently greenlighted a saliva test from Yale University that bypasses some of the supplies that have led to testing bottlenecks. Both tests have limitations and neither can be done at home. Several companies are developing rapid, at-home tests, but none have yet won approval. Abbott's new test still requires a nasal swab by a health worker, like most older coronavirus tests. The Yale saliva test eliminates the need for a swab, but can only be run at high-grade laboratories. And in general, rapid tests like Abbott's are less accurate than lab-developed tests.
Technology

Amazon Opens Its First Amazon Fresh Physical Grocery Store, in LA (techcrunch.com) 10

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The shift to online shopping has accelerated in the COVID-19 pandemic, but today Amazon made a bold move that underscores its belief that physical stores will remain a key component of how consumers shop. From a report: In the Los Angeles neighborhood of Woodland Hills, the e-commerce giant today opened its first Amazon Fresh supermarket. This is the first of a series of Amazon Fresh stores that the company plans to open, with others so far confirmed in Oak Lawn, Illinois; Schaumburg, Illinois; Naperville, Illinois; Irvine; California; and North Hollywood, California. A blog post from Jeff Helbling, the head of Amazon Fresh Stores, notes that the store will open initially invitation-only, based on emails it will be sending out to locals, from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. PT.
Privacy

Amazon announces Halo, a fitness band and app that scans your body and voice (theverge.com) 18

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Amazon is getting into the health gadget market with a new fitness band and subscription service called Halo. From a report: Unlike the Apple Watch or even most basic Fitbits, the Amazon Halo band doesn't have a screen. The app that goes along with it comes with the usual set of fitness tracking features along with two innovative -- and potentially troubling -- ideas: using your camera to create 3D scans for body fat and listening for the emotion in your voice. The Halo band will cost $99.99 and the service (which is required for Halo's more advanced features) costs $3.99 per month. Amazon is launching it as an invite-only early access program today with an introductory price of $64.99 that includes six months of the service for free. The Halo service is a separate product that isn't part of Amazon Prime. The lack of a screen on the Halo band is the first indicator that Amazon is trying to carve out a niche for itself that's focused a little less on sports and exercise and a little more on lifestyle changes. Alongside cardio, sleep, body fat, and voice tone tracking, a Halo subscription will offer a suite of "labs" developed by partners. They're short challenges designed to improve your health habits -- like meditation, improving your sleep habits, or starting up basic exercise routines.
Windows

Microsoft Tests Fix For Bug That Defrags SSD Drives Too Often (bleepingcomputer.com) 70

Posted by msmash from the watch-out dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Windows 10 May 2020 Update, otherwise known as version 2004, was released in May with at least ten known issues. Microsoft later expanded the list of the problems and acknowledged that this feature update is also plagued with a bug that breaks Drive Optimize tool. After upgrading to Windows 10 version 2004, users observed that Optimize Drives (also known as defragmentation tool) is not correctly recording the last time a drive has been optimized. As a result, when you open the tool, you will see that your SSD drive says it 'Needs Optimization' even though you've manually optimized the drives already or automatic maintenance was run this morning. Since the last optimizations times are forgotten, Windows 10's built-in maintenance tool started defragging an SSD drive much more often when you restart Windows. With Windows 10 Build 19042.487 (20H2) for Insiders, Microsoft has finally resolved all problems with the Optimize Drives (also known as defragmentation tool).
Businesses

Walmart Says It Has Teamed up With Microsoft on TikTok Bid (cnbc.com) 37

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Walmart said it's teaming up with Microsoft in a bid for TikTok. From a report: The retail giant confirmed to CNBC that it's interested in buying the tech company. TikTok is nearing an agreement to sell its U.S., Canadian, Australian and New Zealand operations in a deal that's likely to be in the $20 billion to $30 billion range, sources say. It has not yet chosen a buyer, but could announce the deal in coming days, sources say. With Walmart's confirmation, it joins several others bidding on the tech company, including Oracle. Walmart is pursuing the acquisition at a time when it's trying to better compete with Amazon. It plans to launch a membership program, called Walmart+, soon. The subscription-based service is the retailer's answer to Amazon Prime, which includes original TV shows and movies. In a statement, the big-box retailer said TikTok's integration of e-commerce and advertising "is a clear benefit to creators and users in those markets." It did not say how it would use TikTok or whether it would be part of Walmart+.
Intel

Intel Slips, and a High-Profile Supercomputer Is Delayed (nytimes.com) 63

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The chip maker was selected for an Energy Department project meant to show American tech independence. But problems at Intel have thrown a wrench into the effort. From a report: When it selected Intel to help build a $500 million supercomputer last year, the Energy Department bet that computer chips made in the United States could help counter a technology challenge from China. Officials at the department's Argonne National Laboratory predicted that the machine, called Aurora and scheduled to be installed at facilities near Chicago in 2021, would be the first U.S. system to reach a technical pinnacle known as exascale computing. Intel pledged to supply three kinds of chips for the system from its factories in Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico. But a technology delay by the Silicon Valley giant has thrown a wrench into that plan, the latest sign of headwinds facing government and industry efforts to reverse America's dependence on foreign-made semiconductors. It was also an indication of the challenges ahead for U.S. hopes to regain a lead in critical semiconductor manufacturing technology.

Intel, which supplies electronic brains for most personal computers and web services, has long driven miniaturization advances that make electronic devices smaller, faster and cheaper. But Robert Swan, its chief executive, warned last month that the next production advance would be 12 months late and suggested that some chips for Aurora might be made outside Intel factories. Intel's problems make it close to impossible that Aurora will be installed on schedule, researchers and analysts said. And shifting a key component to foreign factories would undermine company and government hopes of an all-American design. "That is part of the story they were trying to sell," said Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee who tracks supercomputer installations around the world. "Now they stumbled."
AI

Visa Unveils More Powerful AI Tool That Approves or Denies Card Transactions (wsj.com) 45

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Visa said it has developed a more advanced artificial intelligence system that can approve or decline credit and debit transactions on behalf of banks whose own networks are down. From a report: The decision to approve or deny a transaction typically is made by the bank. But bank networks can crash because of natural disasters, buggy software or other reasons. Visa said its backup system will be available to banks who sign up for the service starting in October. The technology is "an incredible first step in helping us reduce the impact of an outage," said Rajat Taneja, president of technology for Visa. The financial services company is the largest U.S. card network, as measured both by the number of cards in circulation and by transactions. The new service reflects the growing use of AI in banking. Banks are expected to spend $7.1 billion on AI in 2020, growing to $14.5 billion by 2024, on initiatives such as fraud analysis and investigation, according to market research firm International Data Corp. The service, Smarter Stand-In Processing, uses a branch of AI called deep learning that roughly mimics neurons in the human brain and is an underlying technology powering self-driving cars, voice-enabled digital assistants and facial recognition.
Technology

TikTok CEO Mayer Quits After Three Months, Just as Firm Challenges US Ban (reuters.com) 34

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer has left the Chinese-owned video app firm just three months since joining, and only days since the company sued the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump over an executive order effectively banning it in the United States. He will be replaced by U.S. General Manager Vanessa Pappas on an interim basis, TikTok said in a statement. From a report: The resignation comes at a tricky time for super-fast growing TikTok as it tries to persuade both the United States and India that it is not a security threat, while at the same time holding discussions with prospective buyers following a second U.S. order demanding the sale of its U.S. operations. Mayer was Walt Disney's top streaming executive before becoming chief executive officer of TikTok and chief operating officer of parent ByteDance on June 1. "In recent weeks, as the political environment has sharply changed, I have done significant reflection on what the corporate structural changes will require, and what it means for the global role I signed up for," Mayer said in a letter to employees.
The Courts

DOJ Finally Starts Process of Investigating Nursing Home Deaths From COVID-19 (justice.gov) 195

Posted by BeauHD from the put-under-the-microscope dept.
onyxruby writes: The DOJ has finally launched the precursor to an investigation into the mass deaths of senior citizens in nursing homes and long term care facilities. Roughly half of all COVID-19 deaths in the United Stated have occurred in nursing homes. The governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan are being requested to provide information to the DOJ. This will be used to determine if a formal investigation into the deaths of tens of thousands of elderly patients will be launched.

From the release: "According to the Centers for Disease Control, New York has the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, with 32,592 victims, many of them elderly. New York's death rate by population is the second highest in the country with 1,680 deaths per million people. New Jersey's death rate by population is 1,733 deaths per million people -- the highest in the nation. In contrast, Texas's death rate by population is 380 deaths per million people; and Texas has just over 11,000 deaths, though its population is 50 percent larger than New York and has many more recorded cases of COVID-19 -- 577,537 cases in Texas versus 430,885 cases in New York. Florida's COVID-19 death rate is 480 deaths per million; with total deaths of 10,325 and a population slightly larger than New York.

The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division is evaluating whether to initiate investigations under the federal 'Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act' (CRIPA), which protects the civil rights of persons in state-run nursing homes, among others. The Civil Rights Division seeks to determine if the state orders requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes is responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents." In other COVID-19 related news, Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from The Wall Street Journal, reporting that Abbott has been given emergency use authorization for a rapid antigen test. "They say: [it takes 5 minutes and costs only $5]," writes schwit1. "Greater than 95% sensitivity and no machine or lab required, adding they have the ability to make 50 million tests per month by October.
Space

Breakthrough AI Identifies 50 New Planets From Old NASA Data 26

Posted by BeauHD from the planet-validation dept.
British researchers have identified 50 new planets using artificial intelligence, marking a technological breakthrough in astronomy. CNN reports: Astronomers and computer scientists from the University of Warwick built a machine learning algorithm to dig through old NASA data containing thousands of potential planet candidates. It's not always clear, however, which of these candidates are genuine. When scientists search for exoplanets (planets outside our solar system), they look for dips in light that indicate a planet passing between the telescope and their star. But these dips could also be caused by other factors, like background interference or even errors in the camera. But the new AI can tell the difference.

The research team trained the algorithm by having it go through data collected by NASA's now-retired Kepler Space Telescope, which spent nine years in deep space on a world-hunting mission. Once the algorithm learned to accurately separate real planets from false positives, it was used to analyze old data sets that had not yet been confirmed -- which is where it found the 50 exoplanets. These 50 exoplanets, which orbit around other stars, range in size from as large as Neptune to smaller than Earth, the university said in a news release. Some of their orbits are as long as 200 days, and some as short as a single day. And now that astronomers know the planets are real, they can prioritize them for further observation. The findings have been published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

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