Framework, the company known for designing and selling upgradeable, modular laptops, has struggled with providing up-to-date software for its products. Ars Technica's Andrew Cunningham spoke with CEO Nirav Patel to discuss how the company is working on fixing these issues. Longtime Slashdot reader snikulin shares the report: Driver bundles remain un-updated for years after their initial release. BIOS updates go through long and confusing beta processes, keeping users from getting feature improvements, bug fixes, and security updates. In its community support forums, Framework employees, including founder and CEO Nirav Patel, have acknowledged these issues and promised fixes but have remained inconsistent and vague about actual timelines. [...] Patel says Framework has taken steps to improve the update problem, but he admits that the team's initial approach -- supporting existing laptops while also trying to spin up firmware for upcoming launches -- wasn't working. "We started 12th-gen [Intel Framework Laptop] development, basically the 12th-gen team was also handling looking back at 11th-gen [Intel Framework Laptop] to do firmware updates there," Patel told Ars. "And it became clear, especially as we continued to add on more platforms, that just wasn't a sustainable path to proceed on."

Part of the issue is that Framework relies on external companies to put together firmware updates. Some components are provided by Intel, AMD, and other chip companies to all PC companies that use their chips. Others are provided by Insyde, which writes UEFI firmware for Framework and others. And some are handled by Compal, the contract manufacturer that actually produces Framework's systems and has also designed and sold systems for most of the big-name PC companies. As far back as August 2023, Patel has written that the plan is to work with Compal and Insyde to hire dedicated staff to provide better firmware support for Framework laptops. However, the benefits of this arrangement have been slow to reach users. "[Compal] started recruiting on their side towards the end of last year," Patel told Ars. "And now, just at the beginning of this year, we've been able to get that whole team into place and start onboarding them. And especially after Lunar New Year, which is in early February, that team is now up and running at full speed." The goal, Patel says, is to continuously cycle through all of Framework's actively supported laptops, updating each of them one at a time before looping back around and starting the process over again. Functionality-breaking problems and security fixes will take precedence, while additional features and user requests will be lower-priority. ... snikulin adds: "As a recent Framework 13/AMD owner, I can confirm that it does not sleep properly on a default Windows 11 install. When I close the lid in the evening, the battery is dead the next morning. It's interesting to hear from Linus Sebastian (LTT) on the topic because he is a stakeholder in Framework."

The United States Senate is poised to vote on legislation this week that, for the next two years at least, could dramatically expand the number of businesses that the US government can force to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant. From a report: Some of the nation's top legal experts on a controversial US spy program argue that the legislation, known as the Reforming Intelligence and Securing America Act (RISAA), would enhance the US government's spy powers, forcing a variety of new businesses to secretly eavesdrop on Americans' overseas calls, texts, and email messages. Those experts include a handful of attorneys who've had the rare opportunity to appear before the US government's secret surveillance court.

The Section 702 program, authorized under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, was established more than a decade ago to legalize the government's practice of forcing major telecommunications companies to eavesdrop on overseas calls in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. On the one hand, the government claims that the program is designed to exclusively target foreign citizens who are physically located abroad; on the other, the government has fiercely defended its ability to access wiretaps of Americans' emails and phone conversations, often years after the fact and in cases unrelated to the reasons the wiretaps were ordered in the first place.

The 702 program works by compelling the cooperation of US businesses defined by the government as "electronic communications service providers" -- traditionally phone and email providers such as AT&T and Google. Members of the House Intelligence Committee, whose leaders today largely serve as lobbyists for the US intelligence community in Congress, have been working to expand the definition of that term, enabling the government to force new categories of businesses to eavesdrop on the government's behalf.

A monthslong "Star Wars"-themed festival called Season of the Force is now happening at Disneyland — including John Williams compositions in the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge land during the park's fireworks. SFGate reports: Before the show starts, a voice rings through the land. "Black Spire Outpost has a long and colorful history of heroes and legends, Jedi and Sith, royalty and resistance," it says. "Those who would rule and those who refuse to bow. Here we celebrate that fiery spirit tonight." Then as the first fireworks fly into the sky, the majestic "Star Wars" music begins...

During the day, the land is overrun with tiny robots. Season of the Force also includes daily appearances from the new BDX Droids, cute little "explorer companions," per Disneyland, designed to assist with "exploration and research." These new audio-animatronics interact with guests, clicking and whirring with a surprising amount of personality.

Sabine Wren from "Ahsoka" is also making appearances in Galaxy's Edge during Season of the Force, and there are specialty food offerings in the land like the Celto Slush (a green, pandan-flavored horchata cold brew coffee drink) and the return of Dewback Chili Noodles (spicy fettuccine with ginger-spiced ground pork, broccolini stems and shredded red cabbage).
For the event, Disneyland's long-running Star Tours ride now includes appearances from the Mandalorian (and Grogu), Ahsoka, and Cassian Andor, according to the article. "Also back this year is Hyperspace Mountain, the seasonal overlay of Space Mountain that puts riders into an intergalactic fight between the Resistance and the First Order."

Popular Science reports that early last week, researchers at the U.S. Energy Department's Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory revealed their new "MUSE" stellarator — "a unique fusion reactor that uses off-the-shelf and 3D-printed materials to contain its superheated plasma."

The researchers' announcement says the technique suggests "a simple way to build future devices for less cost and allow researchers to test new concepts for future fusion power plants." Stellarators typically rely on complicated electromagnets that have complex shapes and create their magnetic fields through the flow of electricity. Those electromagnets must be built precisely with very little room for error, increasing their cost. However, permanent magnets, like the magnets that hold art to refrigerator doors, do not need electric currents to create their fields. They can also be ordered off the shelf from industrial suppliers and then embedded in a 3D-printed shell around the device's vacuum vessel, which holds the plasma.

"MUSE is largely constructed with commercially available parts," said Michael Zarnstorff, a senior research physicist at PPPL. "By working with 3D-printing companies and magnet suppliers, we can shop around and buy the precision we need instead of making it ourselves." The original insight that permanent magnets could be the foundation for a new, more affordable stellarator variety came to Zarnstorff in 2014. "I realized that even if they were situated alongside other magnets, rare-earth permanent magnets could generate and maintain the magnetic fields necessary to confine the plasma so fusion reactions can occur," Zarnstorff said, "and that's the property that makes this technique work." [...]

In addition to being an engineering breakthrough, MUSE also exhibits a theoretical property known as quasisymmetry to a higher degree than any other stellarator has before. It is also the first device completed anywhere in the world that was designed specifically to have a type of quasisymmetry known as quasiaxisymmetry. Conceived by physicist Allen Boozer at PPPL in the early 1980s, quasisymmetry means that although the shape of the magnetic field inside the stellarator may not be the same around the physical shape of the stellarator, the magnetic field's strength is uniform around the device, leading to good plasma confinement and higher likelihood that fusion reactions will occur. "In fact, MUSE's quasisymmetry optimization is at least 100 times better than any existing stellarator," Zarnstorff said.

"The fact that we were able to design and build this stellarator is a real achievement," said Tony Qian, a graduate student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics, which is based at PPPL.
Also covered by Gizmodo. Thanks to Slashdot reader christoban for sharing the news.

An anonymous reader shared this report from BleepingComputer: Researchers have demonstrated the "first native Spectre v2 exploit" for a new speculative execution side-channel flaw that impacts Linux systems running on many modern Intel processors. Spectre V2 is a new variant of the original Spectre attack discovered by a team of researchers at the VUSec group from VU Amsterdam. The researchers also released a tool that uses symbolic execution to identify exploitable code segments within the Linux kernel to help with mitigation.

The new finding underscores the challenges in balancing performance optimization with security, which makes addressing fundamental CPU flaws complicated even six years after the discovery of the original Spectre....

As the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) disclosed yesterday, the new flaw, tracked as CVE-2024-2201, allows unauthenticated attackers to read arbitrary memory data by leveraging speculative execution, bypassing present security mechanisms designed to isolate privilege levels. "An unauthenticated attacker can exploit this vulnerability to leak privileged memory from the CPU by speculatively jumping to a chosen gadget," reads the CERT/CC announcement. "Current research shows that existing mitigation techniques of disabling privileged eBPF and enabling (Fine)IBT are insufficient in stopping BHI exploitation against the kernel/hypervisor."
"For a complete list of impacted Intel processors to the various speculative execution side-channel flaws, check this page updated by the vendor."

This week the new "Find My Device" feature rolled out to Android devices around the world, starting in the U.S. and Canada.

"With a new, crowdsourced network of over a billion Android devices, Find My Device can help you find your misplaced Android devices and everyday items quickly and securely," according to a Google blog post. ZDNet explains: Although Google already offers a Find My Device setting on Android phones, the device you're looking for must be powered on and connected for the feature to work. The new Find My Device network is designed to use Bluetooth to track down missing phones and other devices that are disconnected from a Wi-Fi or cellular network. A Powered Off Finding feature would let each device store beacons in its Bluetooth controller's memory, letting the network see any supported device even if it's not connected.
From Google's blog post: Locate your compatible Android phone and tablet by ringing them or viewing their location on a map in the app — even when they're offline. And thanks to specialized Pixel hardware, Pixel 8 and 8 Pro owners will also be able to find their devices if they're powered off or the battery is dead.

Starting in May, you'll be able to locate everyday items like your keys, wallet or luggage with Bluetooth tracker tags from Chipolo and Pebblebee in the Find My Device app.
Google promises "end-to-end encryption of location data as well as aggregated device location reporting, a first-of-its-kind safety feature that provides additional protection against unwanted tracking back to a home or private location." Find My Device is available on compatible devices running Android 9 or higher.

In addition, "Sometimes what we're looking for is right under our noses. If you're close to your lost device but need a little extra help tracking it down, a 'Find nearby' button will appear to help you figure out exactly where it's hiding. You'll also be able to use this to find everyday items, like your wallet or keys, when Bluetooth tags launch in May.

"More often than not, we lose everyday items like our keys or phone right at home. So the Find My Device app now shows a lost device's proximity to your home Nest devices, giving you an easy reference point."

Under a new agreement between the U.S. and Japan, the first non-American on the Moon as part of the Artemis lunar exploration campaign will be a Japanese astronaut. SpaceNews reports: At an event in Washington, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Masahito Moriyama signed an agreement regarding an additional Japanese contribution to Artemis, a pressurized lunar rover called Lunar Cruiser. NASA will deliver the rover to the moon, which the agencies said should take place ahead of the Artemis 7 mission scheduled for no earlier than 2031. NASA will also provide two seats on future Artemis lunar landing missions to astronauts from the Japanese space agency JAXA, the first agency other than NASA to secure spots on landing missions.

The Japanese rover will support extended expeditions from Artemis landing sites that are beyond the range of the Lunar Terrain Vehicle that three American companies are developing for NASA under contracts announced April 3. The rover is designed to accommodate two astronauts for up to 30 days, with an overall lifetime of 10 years. The announcement, though, offered no details about when the Japanese astronauts would fly to the moon. "It depends," Nelson said at an April 10 briefing when asked about schedules, noting that the two countries "announced a shared goal for a Japanese national to land on the moon on a future NASA mission assuming benchmarks are achieved."

"No mission has been currently assigned to a Japanese astronaut," added Lara Kearney, manager of NASA's extravehicular activity and human surface mobility program, at the briefing. The implementing agreement (PDF) said several factors will go into crew assignments, including progress on the pressurized rover, or PR: "The timing of the flight opportunities will be determined by NASA in line with existing flight manifesting and crew assignment processes and will take into account program progress and constraints, MEXT's request for the earliest possible assignment of the Japanese astronauts to lunar surface missions, and major PR milestones such as when the PR is first deployed on the lunar surface." The assumption among many in the industry, though, is that at least one of the astronauts will fly before the rover is delivered, and possibly as soon as the Artemis 4 mission, the second crewed landing, in the late 2020s.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today it is investigating a breach at business intelligence company Sisense, whose products are designed to allow companies to view the status of multiple third-party online services in a single dashboard. CISA urged all Sisense customers to reset any credentials and secrets that may have been shared with the company, which is the same advice Sisense gave to its customers Wednesday evening. New York City based Sisense has more than 1,000 customers across a range of industry verticals, including financial services, telecommunications, healthcare and higher education. On April 10, Sisense Chief Information Security Officer Sangram Dash told customers the company had been made aware of reports that "certain Sisense company information may have been made available on what we have been advised is a restricted access server (not generally available on the internet.)" In its alert, CISA said it was working with private industry partners to respond to a recent compromise discovered by independent security researchers involving Sisense.

Sisense declined to comment when asked about the veracity of information shared by two trusted sources with close knowledge of the breach investigation. Those sources said the breach appears to have started when the attackers somehow gained access to the company's code repository at Gitlab, and that in that repository was a token or credential that gave the bad guys access to Sisense's Amazon S3 buckets in the cloud. Both sources said the attackers used the S3 access to copy and exfiltrate several terabytes worth of Sisense customer data, which apparently included millions of access tokens, email account passwords, and even SSL certificates.

The incident raises questions about whether Sisense was doing enough to protect sensitive data entrusted to it by customers, such as whether the massive volume of stolen customer data was ever encrypted while at rest in these Amazon cloud servers. It is clear, however, that unknown attackers now have all of the credentials that Sisense customers used in their dashboards. The breach also makes clear that Sisense is somewhat limited in the clean-up actions that it can take on behalf of customers, because access tokens are essentially text files on your computer that allow you to stay logged in for extended periods of time -- sometimes indefinitely. And depending on which service we're talking about, it may be possible for attackers to re-use those access tokens to authenticate as the victim without ever having to present valid credentials. Beyond that, it is largely up to Sisense customers to decide if and when they change passwords to the various third-party services that they've previously entrusted to Sisense. "If they are hosting customer data on a third-party system like Amazon, it better damn well be encrypted," said Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at University of California, Berkeley's International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and lecturer at UC Davis. "If they are telling people to rest credentials, that means it was not encrypted. So mistake number one is leaving Amazon credentials in your Git archive. Mistake number two is using S3 without using encryption on top of it. The former is bad but forgivable, but the latter given their business is unforgivable."

theodp writes: From a Wednesday press release: "Code.org, in collaboration with The Piech Lab at Stanford University, launched today its AI Teaching Assistant, ushering in a new era of computer science instruction to support teachers in preparing students with the foundational skills necessary to work, live and thrive in an AI world. [...] Launching as a part of Code.org's leading Computer Science Discoveries (CSD) curriculum [for grades 6-10], the tool is designed to bolster teacher confidence in teaching computer science." EdWeek reports that in a limited pilot project involving twenty teachers nationwide, the AI computer science grading tool cut one middle school teacher's grading time in half. Code.org is now inviting an additional 300 teachers to give the tool a try. "Many teachers who lead computer science courses," EdWeek notes, "don't have a degree in the subject -- or even much training on how to teach it -- and might be the only educator in their school leading a computer science course."

Stanford's Piech Lab is headed by assistant professor of CS Chris Piech, who also runs the wildly-successful free Code in Place MOOC (30,000+ learners and counting), which teaches fundamentals from Stanford's flagship introduction to Python course. Prior to coming up with the new AI teaching assistant, which automatically assesses Code.org students' JavaScript game code, Piech worked on a Stanford Research team that partnered with Code.org nearly a decade ago to create algorithms to generate hints for K-12 students trying to solve Code.org's Hour of Code block-based programming puzzles (2015 paper [PDF]). And several years ago, Piech's lab again teamed with Code.org on Play-to-Grade, which sought to "provide scalable automated grading on all types of coding assignments" by analyzing the game play of Code.org students' projects. Play-to-Grade, a 2022 paper (PDF) noted, was "supported in part by a Stanford Hoffman-Yee Human Centered AI grant" for AI tutors to help prepare students for the 21st century workforce. That project also aimed to develop a "Super Teaching Assistant" for Piech's Code in Place MOOC. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, who was present for the presentation of the 'AI Tutors' work he and his wife funded, is a Code.org Diamond Supporter ($1+ million). In other AI grading news, Texas will use computers to grade written answers on this year's STAAR tests. The state will save more than $15 million by using technology similar to ChatGPT to give initial scores, reducing the number of human graders needed.

The embargo has lifted for reviews of Humane's AI Pin and the general consensus appears to be that this device isn't ready to usher us into the all-but-inevitable AI future. Starting at $699 with a pricy $24-a-month subscription, the wearable device is designed to incorporate artificial intelligence into everyday scenarios, with the ability to make calls, translate languages, recommend nearby restaurants, and capture photos and videos. "The best description so far is that it's a combination of a wearable Siri button with a camera and built-in projector that beams onto your palm," writes Cherlynn Low via Engadget. While full of potential, the AI Pin creates more problems than it solves and many of the features you'd intuitively expect from it aren't supported at launch.

Here's a roundup of some of the first reviews:

Engadget: The Humane AI Pin is the solution to none of technology's problems
The Verge: Humane AI Pin review: not even close
Wired: Humane Ai Pin Review: Too Clunky, Too Limited
The Washington Post: I've been living with a $699 AI Pin on my chest. You probably shouldn't.
CNET: Humane AI Hands-On: My Life So Far With a Wearable AI Pin

Apple, aiming to boost sluggish computer sales, is preparing to overhaul its entire Mac line with a new family of in-house processors designed to highlight AI. Bloomberg News: The company, which released its first Macs with M3 chips five months ago, is already nearing production of the next generation -- the M4 processor -- according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new chip will come in at least three main varieties, and Apple is looking to update every Mac model with it, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans haven't been announced.

The new Macs are underway at a critical time. After peaking in 2022, Mac sales fell 27% in the last fiscal year, which ended in September. In the holiday period, revenue from the computer line was flat. Apple attempted to breathe new life into the Mac business with an M3-focused launch event last October, but those chips didn't bring major performance improvements over the M2 from the prior year. Apple also is playing catch-up in AI, where it's seen as a laggard to Microsoft, Alphabet's Google and other tech peers. The new chips are part of a broader push to weave AI capabilities into all its products. Apple is aiming to release the updated computers beginning late this year and extending into early next year.

After 64 years of service, ULA on Tuesday launched its last-ever Delta rocket carrying a classified payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). "The powerful booster departed Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:53 p.m. EDT (1653 GMT), literally setting itself on fire for the 16th and final time," reports Space.com. From the report: That spectacle, which was unique to the Delta IV in its heaviest configuration, was the result of hydrogen building up in the flame trench and then rising up alongside the rocket after it was used to cool down the three RS-68A engines to cryogenic temperatures. When the engines fired, the hydrogen ignited and flames lapped at the orange insulation covering the core stage and its two side-mounted boosters. The two boosters were jettisoned about four minutes into the flight, followed by the core, or first stage, separating one minute and 45 seconds later. A single RL10C-2-1 engine on the Delta cryogenic second stage then took over, propelling the NROL-70 payload into space. Due to national security concerns, coverage of the launch ceased following fairing jettison at about 6 minutes and 40 seconds into the flight.

ULA is retiring the Delta IV, and eventually its other legacy rocket, the Atlas V, in favor of its newly introduced Vulcan, which flew a near-perfect first mission in January. The Vulcan was developed to replace both long-flying rockets in all of their configurations. "This is a great mission to think about that transition, because national security space missions is our core and the unique set of missions there require a high-energy launch vehicle. We designed Vulcan specifically for that," said [Tory Bruno, chief executive officer of United Launch Alliance]. In addition to being the 16th Delta IV Heavy, Tuesday's launch was also the 45th liftoff of a Delta IV, the 35th Delta IV to fly from Florida and the 389th Delta launch of any kind since 1960 (of which 294 were sent skyward from Cape Canaveral). Half of the Delta IV Heavy launches were devoted to sending NRO payloads into orbit. The rocket and its less powerful configurations were also used in support of NASA, NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), U.S. Air Force and commercial payloads.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Congress may be closer than ever to passing a comprehensive data privacy framework after key House and Senate committee leaders released a new proposal on Sunday. The bipartisan proposal, titled the American Privacy Rights Act, or APRA, would limit the types of consumer data that companies can collect, retain, and use, allowing solely what they'd need to operate their services. Users would also be allowed to opt out of targeted advertising, and have the ability to view, correct, delete, and download their data from online services. The proposal would also create a national registry of data brokers, and force those companies to allow users to opt out of having their data sold. [...] In an interview with The Spokesman Review on Sunday, [Cathy McMorris Rodgers, House Energy and Commerce Committee chair] claimed that the draft's language is stronger than any active laws, seemingly as an attempt to assuage the concerns of Democrats who have long fought attempts to preempt preexisting state-level protections. APRA does allow states to pass their own privacy laws related to civil rights and consumer protections, among other exceptions.

In the previous session of Congress, the leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committees brokered a deal with Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, on a bill that would preempt state laws with the exception of the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Biometric Information Privacy Act of Illinois. That measure, titled the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, also created a weaker private right of action than most Democrats were willing to support. Maria Cantwell, Senate Commerce Committee chair, refused to support the measure, instead circulating her own draft legislation. The ADPPA hasn't been reintroduced, but APRA was designed as a compromise. "I think we have threaded a very important needle here," Cantwell told The Spokesman Review. "We are preserving those standards that California and Illinois and Washington have."

APRA includes language from California's landmark privacy law allowing people to sue companies when they are harmed by a data breach. It also provides the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general, and private citizens the authority to sue companies when they violate the law. The categories of data that would be impacted by APRA include certain categories of "information that identifies or is linked or reasonably linkable to an individual or device," according to a Senate Commerce Committee summary of the legislation. Small businesses -- those with $40 million or less in annual revenue and limited data collection -- would be exempt under APRA, with enforcement focused on businesses with $250 million or more in yearly revenue. Governments and "entities working on behalf of governments" are excluded under the bill, as are the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and, apart from certain cybersecurity provisions, "fraud-fighting" nonprofits. Frank Pallone, the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, called the draft "very strong" in a Sunday statement, but said he wanted to "strengthen" it with tighter child safety provisions.

Fairphone, the Dutch smartphone maker known for its user-repairable smartphones, is bringing its ultra-repairable design philosophy to their "Fairbuds" wireless earbuds. Liliputing reports: The Fairbuds have the sort of features we've come to expect from premium earbuds. They're noise-cancelling Bluetooth 5.3 earbuds with support for wind noise reduction and an environmental noise-cancelling feature that sets noise reduction depending on your environment. Fairphone's earbuds have six microphones, 11mm drivers, and an IP54 rating for water (and sweat) resistance. They also support multipoint connectivity, which means you can connect the earbuds to two different devices at the same time (like your phone and your laptop).

The earbuds offer up to 6 hours of battery life and they come with a charging case that gives you another 20 hours of use between charges. And Fairphone offers iOS and Android apps that let you adjust EQ, install firmware updates, and make other changes. Other features include automatic play and pause when the Fairbuds are removed from your ears, capacitive touch controls, and three different ear tips sizes included in the box.

But the key thing that makes these earbuds different from the competition is that they're designed to be repairable rather than replaceable. Lose just one earbud? Fairphone will let you buy a single earbud without paying again for a full set with a case. Is your battery life degrading a few years after purchase? Fairphone will sell battery replacements and let you swap out the batteries in your earbuds or charging case. All told, the company offers seven repairable/replaceable components for the Fairbuds. The company also offers a 3-year warranty for its new Fairbuds and notes that they're manufactured using:

- 70% of all materials used in production are fair and recycled (fair = ethically sourced).
- 100% of rare earth elements used are recycled.
- Plastics used in the Fairbuds and their charging case are recycled. The Fairbuds are currently only available in Europe for 149 euros.

Japan's largest telecommunications company and the country's biggest newspaper called for speedy legislation to restrain generative AI, saying democracy and social order could collapse if AI is left unchecked. From a report: Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, or NTT, and Yomiuri Shimbun Group Holdings made the proposal in an AI manifesto to be released Monday. Combined with a law passed in March by the European Parliament restricting some uses of AI, the manifesto points to rising concern among American allies about the AI programs U.S.-based companies have been at the forefront of developing.

The Japanese companies' manifesto, while pointing to the potential benefits of generative AI in improving productivity, took a generally skeptical view of the technology. Without giving specifics, it said AI tools have already begun to damage human dignity because the tools are sometimes designed to seize users' attention without regard to morals or accuracy. Unless AI is restrained, "in the worst-case scenario, democracy and social order could collapse, resulting in wars," the manifesto said. It said Japan should take measures immediately in response, including laws to protect elections and national security from abuse of generative AI.

When Disneyland opened in 1955, its car-themed attraction Autopia "represented the future of what would become America's multilane limited-access highways," according to Wikipedia, " which were still being developed. President Eisenhower had yet to sign the Interstate Highway legislation..."

Wikipedia adds that the cars "generate a moderate level of exhaust from the Honda GX gasoline engines that propel the cars." But that may change, according to a climate-oriented newsletter from the Los Angeles Times: If anyone could get away with defending the toxic odor, it might be Bob Gurr. He designed the original Autopia cars in the mid-1950s, working closely with Walt himself. He's proud of what they built together. But today the 92-year-old Disney legend says the polluting motors need to go. "Get rid of those God-awful gasoline fumes," he told me.

Disney is finally preparing to do just that. In news shared exclusively with The Times ahead of this column's publication — after several weeks of my prodding the company for answers on the future of Autopia — Disney officials revealed that pure gasoline engines are on their way out... "As the industry moves toward alternative fuel sources, we have developed a roadmap to electrify this attraction and are evaluating technology that will enable us to convert from gas engines in the next few years," spokesperson Jessica Good said in an email. Good wouldn't confirm whether that means electric vehicles, or if hybrids are a possibility...

[Gurr] also expressed a grander vision for Tomorrowland as a hub for stories about renewable energy, public transit and other sustainable technologies that will help us create a better tomorrow... [H]ow about using the former Innoventions building, which once displayed futuristic technologies but is now closed to most guests, to showcase solar panels, lithium-ion batteries and other clean energy devices that guests might want in their homes...? Why not switch to electric cooking at the Alien Pizza Planet restaurant, and offer induction stove demos for diners? Maybe start screening some National Geographic films (Disney owns NatGeo) at the largely unused Magic Eye Theater...? Add some infotainment-style signs and voice-overs about the wonders of clean energy and public transit, and boom, you've got a Tomorrowland that should leave kids and their parents excited to help build a safer, happier, more sustainable world...

[Gurr] told me that if he could, he'd tear out everything in Tomorrowland except the Monorail and rebuild it as a version of the public transit-oriented futuristic city that Walt once planned for Florida — only with clean energy at the core of its storytelling... At the very least, he said it's time for an Autopia where guests "don't smell the fumes, don't hear that racket of the little motor going putt-putt-putt."
The newsletter agrees electric vehicles for Autopia are "the obvious starting point" for remodeling Tomorrowland with "a buzz of optimism and futuristic energy." ("Solar-panel shade structures over the line would be great too.") They even add that "it's not that it's my job to make money for Disney, but I'm sure the company could find sponsors for this vision of Tomorrowland. There are plenty of renewable energy companies, electric utilities and environmental groups eager to tout their causes and their credentials."

And it shares this observation from climate scientist and communicator Katharine Hayhoe (paraphrasing another scientist who studies climate communications): "Showing people what climate solutions look like is one of the most effective ways to get them to support action." The newsletter's conclusion? "This is where Tomorrowland could prove especially valuable in the fight to save the planet."


Some additional context... Disney's current CEO once said he was "particuarly proud" of the 270-acre, 50+-megawatt solar facility the company brought online in Orlando." And the Washington Post reports that Disney's plans to electrify Autopia "comes as the park is taking steps to decarbonize as part of an effort to reach a goal of net-zero emissions by 2030."

Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon have been found liable on civil fraud charges on Friday by a jury in Manhattan. The jury agreed with the SEC that the two misled investors before their stablecoin's 2022 collapse shocked crypto markets around the world. Reuters reports: The SEC accused the company and Kwon of misleading investors in 2021 about the stability of TerraUSD, a stablecoin designed to maintain a value of $1. The regulator also accused them of falsely claiming Terraform's blockchain was used in a popular Korean mobile payment app. SEC attorney Laura Meehan said during closing arguments that the platform's success story was "built on lies." "If you swing big and you miss, and you don't tell people that you came up short, that is fraud," Meehan said.

Louis Pellegrino, an attorney for Terraform, told the jury on Friday the SEC's case relied on statements taken out of context and that Terraform and Kwon had been truthful about their products and how they worked, even when they failed. "Terraform is still out there, trying to rebuild and make purchasers whole," he said. The regulator is seeking civil financial penalties and orders barring Kwon and Terraform from the securities industry. Kwon, who was arrested in Montenegro in March 2023, did not attend the trial, which began March 25. Both the U.S. and South Korea, where Kwon is a citizen, have sought his extradition on criminal charges.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Kotaku: A new patent recently filed by TV and streaming device manufacturer Roku hints toward a possible future where televisions could display ads when you pause a movie or game. For Roku, the time in which the TV is on but users aren't doing anything is valuable. The company has started leasing out ad space in its popular Roku City screensaver -- which appears when your TV is idle -- to companies like McDonald's and movies like Barbie. As tech newsletter Lowpass points out, Roku finds this idle time and its screensaver so valuable that it forbids app developers from overriding the screensaver with their own. But, if you plug in an Xbox or DVD player into the HDMI port on a Roku TV, you bypass the company's screensaver and other ads. And so, Roku has been figuring out a way to not let that happen.

As reported by Lowpass on April 4, Roku recently filed a patent for a technology that would let it inject ads into third-party content -- like an Xbox game or Netflix movie -- using an HDMI connection. The patent describes a situation where you are playing a video game and hit pause to go check your phone or grab some food. At this point, Roku would identify that you have paused the content and display a relevant ad until you unpaused the game. Roku's tech isn't designed to randomly inject ads as you are playing a game or watching a movie, it knows that would be going too far and anger people. Instead, the patent suggests several ways that Roku could spot when your TV is paused, like comparing frames, to make sure the user has actually paused the content. Roku might also use the HDMI's audio feed to search for extended moments of silence. The company also proposes using HDMI CEC -- a protocol designed to help devices communicate better -- to figure out when you pause and unpause content. Similarly, Roku's patent explains that it will use various methods to detect what people are playing or watching and try to display relevant ads. So if it sees you have an Xbox plugged in, it might try to serve you ads that it thinks an Xbox owner would be interested in.

Matthew Connatser reports via The Register: An ASIC designed to display the infamous Rickroll meme is here, alongside 164 other assorted functions. The project is a product of Matthew Venn's Zero to ASIC Course, which offers prospective chip engineers the chance to "learn to design your own ASIC and get it fabricated." Since 2020, Zero to ASIC has accepted several designs that are incorporated into a single chip called a multi-project wafer (MPW), a cost-saving measure as making one chip for one design would be prohibitively expensive. Zero to ASIC has two series of chips: MPW and Tiny Tapeout. The MPW series usually includes just a handful of designs, such as the four on MPW8 submitted in January 2023. By contrast, the original Tiny Tapeout chip included 152 designs, and Tiny Tapeout 2 (which arrived last October) had 165, though could bumped up to 250. Of the 165 designs, one in particular may strike a chord: Design 145, or the Secret File, made by engineer and YouTuber Bitluni. His Secret File design for the Tiny Tapeout ASIC is designed to play a small part of Rick Astley's music video for Never Gonna Give You Up, also known as the Rickroll meme.

Bitluni was a late inclusion on the Tiny Tapeout 2 project, having been invited just three days before the submission deadline. He initially just made a persistence-of-vision controller, which was revised twice for a total of three designs. "At the end, I still had a few hours left, and I thought maybe I should also upload a meme project," Bitluni says in his video documenting his ASIC journey. His meme of choice was of course the Rickroll. One might even call it an Easter egg. However, given that there were 250 total plots for each design, there wasn't a ton of room for both the graphics processor and the file it was supposed to render, a short GIF of the music video. Ultimately, this had to be shrunk from 217 kilobytes to less than half a kilobyte, making its output look similar to games on the Atari 2600 from 1977. Accessing the Rickroll rendering processor and other designs isn't simple. Bitluni created a custom circuit board to mount the Tiny Tapeout 2 chip, creating a device that could then be plugged into a motherboard capable of selecting specific designs on the ASIC. Unfortunately for Bitluni, his first PCB had a design error on it that he had to correct, but the revised version worked and was able to display the Rickroll GIF in hardware via a VGA port.

Many investors are lining up to bet on the collapse of former President Donald J. Trump's social media company, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp., which made its stock market debut last week under the ticker "DJT." The stock has been called the "mother of all meme stocks" since it is highly volatile and there are no fundamental underpinnings. It's being valued at roughly 1,600 times its annual revenue, at Wednesday's closing price. "By comparison, the stock of Facebook's owner trades at about eight times revenues, and Google's owner trades at six times," notes Fast Company. The New York Times reports: Trump Media is the most "shorted" special purpose acquisition vehicle in the country, according to the financial data company S3 Partners. Short-sellers bet that the price of a stock will fall. They do that by borrowing shares of a company and selling them into the market, hoping to buy them back later at a lower price, before returning the shares to the lender and pocketing the difference as profit. The demand to short Trump Media, the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, is so great that stock lenders can charge enormous fees, making it hard for short-sellers to turn a profit unless the shares fall significantly. Still, there is a lot of interest in taking the bet. "They are looking for this stock to crater and crater very quickly," said Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3. Last month, traders lost $126 million betting against Trump Media, according to S3.

On Monday, Trump Media published updated financial information, revealing little revenue, large losses and a statement from the company's independent auditor expressing "substantial doubt" about its financial viability. This appeared to galvanize investors betting against the company, as the stock slipped from its highs. But short-sellers are finding it difficult and costly to trade in Trump Media. There are roughly 137 million shares in the company, and only around five million of those are available to short-sellers. Mr. Trump owns about 60 percent of shares, and company executives also hold a chunk of the stock. Company insiders tend not to lend their shares to short-sellers. Big asset managers like BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street, which regularly lend out shares, are not major holders of Trump Media, further crimping the supply.

According to S3, 4.9 million of the roughly five million available shares are already on loan. As with any loan, when share owners lend their stock to a short-seller, they charge a fee, usually expressed as an annual interest rate on the stock's current value. Typically, the fee for borrowing stock is a fraction of a percentage point. For Trump Media, it has risen to 550 percent, Mr. Dusaniwsky said. Trump Media's stock currently trades at around $50. That means that shorting it for a month would cost more than $20 per share. For a short-seller to break even, the stock price would have to fall by almost half by early May.

There is another wrinkle, too. One large broker said much of the short trading was not an outright bet against Trump Media. Since the advent of meme-stock trading and the vilification of short-sellers that win only if popular companies lose, large investors are wary of making such trades. Instead, the current trade driving demand is designed to capture the difference between DJT's stock price and outstanding "warrants," which will give the owners the right to new stock at a fixed price as long as regulators approve the new shares. Partly because of that uncertainty, those warrants currently trade below $19, with a list of hedge funds as recent holders. Even after the high cost to borrow stock is accounted for, they are still able to profit from the $30 difference between existing stock and what the warrants are worth, assuming the warrants become registered as shares.