An anonymous reader shared this report from the Guardian: ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal.

The new revelations are based on previously unreported documents subpoenaed by New York's attorney general as part of an investigation into the company announced in 2015. They add to a slew of documents that record a decades-long misinformation campaign waged by Exxon, which are cited in a growing number of state and municipal lawsuits against big oil... In 2008, Exxon pledged to stop funding climate-denier groups. But that very same year, company leadership said it would support the company in directing a scientist to help the nation's top oil and gas lobbying group write a paper about the "uncertainty" of measuring greenhouse gas emissions...

The documents could bolster legal efforts to hold oil companies accountable for their alleged attempts to sow doubt about climate science. More than two dozen U.S. cities and states are suing big oil, claiming the industry knew for decades about the dangers of burning coal, oil and gas but hid that information.
More context from NPR: Earlier investigations found Exxon worked for decades to sow confusion about climate change, even though its own scientists had begun warning executives as early as 1977 that carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels were warming the planet, posing dire risks to human beings. By the late 1980s, concern was growing domestically and overseas that fossil fuel use was heating the planet, increasing the risks of extreme weather. In response, the Journal reported, Exxon executive Frank Sprow sent a memo to colleagues warning that if there were a global consensus on addressing climate change, "substantial negative impacts on Exxon could occur." According to the Journal, Sprow wrote: "Any additional R&D efforts within Corporate Research on Greenhouse should have two primary purposes: 1. Protect the value of our resources (oil, gas, coal). 2. Preserve Exxon's business options."

Sprow told the Journal that the approach in his memo was adopted as policy, in "what would become a central pillar of Exxon's strategy," the paper said. A few years after the memo, Exxon became the architect of a highly effective strategy of climate change denial that succeeded for decades in politicizing climate policy and delaying meaningful action to cut heat-trapping pollution...

Last year, Exxon said it plans to spend about $17 billion on "lower emission initiatives" through 2027. That represents, at most, 17% of the total capital investments the company plans to make during that period. Exxon recently said it is buying a company called Denbury that specializes in capturing carbon dioxide emissions and injecting them into oil wells to boost production. It's also planning to build a hydrogen plant and a facility to capture and store carbon emissions in Texas.

When Linus Torvalds announced Linux kernel 6.6's first release candidate, it included a newly-stable version of KSMBD, which is Samsung's in-kernel server for the SMB protocol (for sharing files/folders/printers over a network).

An announcement in 2021 had said that "For many cases the current userspace server choices were suboptimal either due to memory footprint, performance or difficulty integrating well with advanced Linux features."

LWN noted at the time that Linux has been using "the user-space Samba solution since shortly after the beginning." In a sense, ksmbd is not meant to compete with Samba; indeed, it has been developed in cooperation with the Samba project. It is, however, meant to be a more performant and focused solution than Samba is; at this point, Samba includes a great deal of functionality beyond simple file serving. Ksmbd claims significant performance improvements on a wide range of benchmarks...One other reason — which tends to be spoken rather more quietly — is that a new implementation can be licensed under GPLv2, while Samba is GPLv3.
The Register notes that when Samba switched to GPL 3, "one result was that Apple dropped Samba from Mac OS X and replaced it with its own, in-house server called SMBX." And they also remember that a month after its debut in 2021, "Linux sysadmins got to enjoy KSMBD's first security exploit." What's changed now is that it has faced considerable security testing and as a result it is no longer marked as experimental. It's been developed with the assistance of the Samba team, which itself documents how to use it. It's compatible with existing Samba configuration files. As the team says, "It is not meant to replace the existing Samba fileserver 'smbd', but rather be an extension and will integrate with Samba in the future...."

KSMBD is also important in that placing such core server functionality right inside the kernel represents a significant potential attack surface for crackers... The new bcachefs file system will not be going into kernel 6.6, and its developer is not happy.
"It's taken some time to get KSMBD to a state that was considered stable," points out Linux magazine. That time has come, and KSMBD is planned for Linux kernel 6.6.: But why is KSMBD important? First off, it promises considerable performance gains and better support for modern features such as Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)... KSMBD also adds enhanced security, considerably better performance for both single and multi-thread read/write, better stability, and higher compatibility. In the end, hopefully, this KSMBD will also mean easier share setups in Linux without having to jump through the same hoops one must with the traditional Samba setup.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: The ALPHV/BlackCat ransomware group claimed responsibility for the MGM Resorts cyber outage on Tuesday, according to a post by malware archive vx-underground. The group claims to have used common social engineering tactics, or gaining trust from employees to get inside information, to try and get a ransom out of MGM Resorts, but the company reportedly refuses to pay. The conversation that granted initial access took just 10 minutes, according to the group.

"All ALPHV ransomware group did to compromise MGM Resorts was hop on LinkedIn, find an employee, then call the Help Desk," the organization wrote in a post on X. Those details came from ALPHV, but have not been independently confirmed by security researchers. The international resort chain started experiencing outages earlier this week, as customers noticed slot machines at casinos owned by MGM Resorts shut down on the Las Vegas strip. As of Wednesday morning, MGM Resorts still shows signs that it's experiencing downtime, like continued website disruptions. In a statement on Tuesday, MGM Resorts said: "Our resorts, including dining, entertainment and gaming are currently operational." However, the company said Wednesday that the cyber incident has significantly disrupted properties across the United States and represents a material risk to the company.

"[T]he major credit rating agency Moody's warned that the cyberattack could negatively affect MGM's credit rating, saying the attack highlighted 'key risks' within the company," reports CNBC. "The company's corporate email, restaurant reservation and hotel booking systems remain offline as a result of the attack, as do digital room keys. MGM on Wednesday filed a 8-K report with the Securities and Exchange Commission noting that on Tuesday the company issued a press release 'regarding a cybersecurity issue involving the Company.'" MGM's share price has declined more than 6% since Monday.

In a deal that could be worth $200 million, Microsoft announced that it is purchasing 315,000 metric tons of carbon removal over a multi-year period from climate tech startup Heirloom Carbon. It's one of the biggest deals of its kind, reports The Wall Street Journal (paywalled). GeekWire reports: San Francisco-based Heirloom is harnessing a geologic approach to catching and holding carbon dioxide. Limestone naturally binds to carbon, but Heirloom's technology dramatically speeds up the process, cutting it from years to days. The startup operates the only U.S. facility permanently capturing carbon. Even more important than the volume of carbon to be removed is the deal's ability to unlock additional funding and investments to grow Heirloom's business and the sector more broadly.

Microsoft previously invested in Heirloom through its $1 billion Climate Innovation Fund. The new deal represents a financially empowering "bankable agreement," said Heirloom CEO Shashank Samala. "Bankable agreements of this magnitude enable Heirloom to raise project finance for our rapid scale-up, fueling exponential growth like what we've seen in the renewable energy industry," Samala said in a statement. The guaranteed cash flow can facilitate financing needed to build Heirloom's next two commercial sites. The deal is also "an example of the impact of the Biden administration's 2021 infrastructure bill," notes the report. "[T]he purchase was tied to Heirloom being selected by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of the nation's direct air capture (DAC) hubs. It will receive $600 million of matching funding thanks to the designation."

Ryan Salame, a top FTX executive who played a key role in the exchange's political fundraising operations, will forfeit $1.5 billion after pleading guilty on Thursday to federal criminal charges tied to the exchange. CoinDesk reports: Salame, who was co-CEO of FTX's Bahamas entity FTX Digital Markets, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to make unlawful contributions and defraud the Federal Election Commission and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transferring business. "I made political contributions in my name that were funded by transfers from an Alameda subsidiary," Salame told Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is also overseeing Bankman-Fried's trial, as he entered his guilty plea. The transfers were "categorized as loans," Salame said, but "it was understood that the would not be repaid." The donations, according to Salame, "were for the benefit of initiatives introduced by others but supported by Sam Bankman-Fried."

As part of his plea agreement with the government, Salame has been ordered to forfeit more than $1.5 billion dollars. He agreed to forfeit $6 million before his sentencing, expected in March of next year. To help cover this amount, Salame has already agreed to give the government a "2021 Porsche automobile" and multiple properties, including two Massachusetts homes and ownership of the East Rood Farm Corporation, an entity Salame owns. Additionally, Salame was ordered to pay more than $5.5 million in restitution to FTX debtors. According to a DOJ document (PDF), the $1.5 billion Salame will forfeit represents "property involved in" the unlicensed money transmitter charge.

Starting in December, Facebook users in the U.K., France and Germany will no longer see a dedicated section for news articles. CNBC reports: Meta said Tuesday that it is plans to "deprecate" the Facebook News tab in early December for users in those European countries as "part of an ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most." The company added that it plans to spend more time and money on short-form video, as best exemplified by its TikTok-like Reels product.

News represents less than 3% of what people see in their Facebook feeds, Meta said. Meta said it would honor the Facebook News obligations it had made to publishers in those countries, but said it won't enter into new deals and has no plans to offer new products for news publishers. In June, Meta removed all news content from Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada, following the passage of a bill requiring big tech companies to compensate news businesses when their content is made available on their services.

The organization that represents the literary works of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard has filed a petition with the Federal Government, asking it to make it illegal to circumvent software locks for the repair of a highly specific set of electronic devices, according to a letter reviewed by 404 Media. From the report: The letter doesn't refer to any single device, but experts say the petition covers Scientology's "E-Meter," a "religious artifact" and electronic that is core to Scientology. Author Services Inc., a group "representing the literary, theatrical, and musical works of L. Ron Hubbard," told the U.S. Copyright Office that it opposes the renewal of an exemption to Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that makes it legal for consumers to hack their personal electronics for the purposes of repair.

This exemption to copyright law is needed because many electronics manufacturers put arbitrary software locks, Digital Rights Management systems, or other technological prevention measures that stop consumers from diagnosing or repairing devices unless they are authorized to do so. Special exemptions to copyright law make it legal for farmers to hack past John Deere's DRM to fix their tractors, consumers to use software tools to help them repair certain parts of game consoles, or use third-party software to circumvent repair locks on printers, air conditioners, laptops, etc.

Timothy Geigner writes via Techdirt: Paramount has gone after fan-made works playing off of the franchise for years and years. Even Paramount's release of guidelines by which fans could create fan films served mostly as a giant middle finger to the fandom, so stringent were the rules. This apparently represents the owners of Star Trek's IP being completely deaf to the history of Star Trek and the internet and what the fans have meant to the franchise. And this all continued into the present day.

Recently, a fan-made project called Wolf 359 Project suffered a DMCA takedown from Paramount. If you're a Next Generation fan, that name will likely sound familiar: "The Battle of Wolf 359 hearkens to a classic The Next Generation two-episode event called 'The Best of Both Worlds.' Captain Picard is assimilated by the Borg, and before the Enterprise crew rescues him, the relentless Borg forces fight a battle that kills 11,000 people. Star Trek: Picard Season 3 dealt with this, specifically through the character of Captain Liam Shaw. It was the first time someone described the Starfleet experience during one of the costliest battles in Star Trek history. Star Trek fans are never one to let a good idea go to waste, and The Wolf 359 Project is a fan-written oral history of the battle. The 'book' ran over 500 pages long, and its authors were giving it away for free. However, Paramount issued a Digital Millennium Copyright Act strike against it."

So here's what this essentially is: fans who love TNG filling in the gaps of the original story they love with the unexplored rest of the universe of people who would have been impacted by that storyline. That's important for two reasons. First and foremost, this doesn't take anything away from Paramount's Star Trek production, and in fact does the opposite. The project doesn't replace the original episodes, but rather builds upon them. In other words, this project could only possibly serve to draw more interest to Paramount's product, since the book isn't going to make much sense to anyone who hasn't seen the original episodes. Second, this is a work being done for free, given away for free, all by fans that are doing what Star Trek fans have always done: create. [...] ]

Walt Disney Pictures' VFX team filed for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday. As Motherboard notes, the filing "marks the second time in history that workers in the visual effects industry have announced their intent to organize -- the first being Marvel VFX workers, who did so three weeks prior." From the report: The Walt Disney Pictures workers, who are behind the visual effects in movies like the live-action Aladdin and Pirates of the Caribbean, plan to join the VFX Union, a new branch of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which represents much of the entertainment industry behind the scenes. Their filing comes after over 80 percent of the 18 in-house VFX crewmembers at Walt Disney Pictures in Los Angeles signed cards demonstrating their desire to unionize, according to a press release by the union.

"Today, courageous visual effects workers at Walt Disney Pictures overcame the fear and silence that have kept our community from having a voice on the job for decades," said Mark Patch, a IATSE VFX union organizer, in a statement. "With an overwhelming supermajority of these crews demanding an end to 'the way VFX has always been,' this is a clear sign that our campaign is not about one studio or corporation. It's about VFX workers across the industry using the tools at our disposal to uplift ourselves and forge a better path forward."

Nearly seven decades after he died, James Dean "has been cast as the star in a new, upcoming movie," reports the BBC: A digital clone of the actor — created using artificial intelligence technology similar to that used to generate deepfakes — will walk, talk and interact on screen with other actors in the film...

This is the second time Dean's digital clone has been lined up for a film. In 2019, it was announced he would be resurrected in CGI for a film called Finding Jack, but it was later cancelled. Travis Cloyd, chief executive of immersive media agency WorldwideXR (WXR), confirmed to BBC, however, that Dean will instead star in Back to Eden, a science fiction film in which "an out of this world visit to find truth leads to a journey across America with the legend James Dean". The digital cloning of Dean also represents a significant shift in what is possible. Not only will his AI avatar be able to play a flat-screen role in Back to Eden and a series of subsequent films, but also to engage with audiences in interactive platforms including augmented reality, virtual reality and gaming.

The technology goes far beyond passive digital reconstruction or deepfake technology that overlays one person's face over someone else's body. It raises the prospect of actors — or anyone else for that matter — achieving a kind of immortality that would have been otherwise impossible, with careers that go on long after their lives have ended. But it also raises some uncomfortable questions. Who owns the rights to someone's face, voice and persona after they die? What control can they have over the direction of their career after death — could an actor who made their name starring in gritty dramas suddenly be made to appear in a goofball comedy or even pornography? What if they could be used for gratuitous brand promotions in adverts...? Dean's image is one of hundreds represented by WRX and its sister licensing company CMG Worldwide — including Amelia Earhart, Bettie Page, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks...

Voice actors, in particular, have been leading the conversation and working across acting guilds to form a unified front in protecting the rights and careers of actors... Cloyd acknowledges the potential for fewer acting opportunities but offers a "glass-half-full" perspective toward employing dead actors. "At the end of the day, it creates lots of jobs," he says, referring to the other technical and film industry jobs the technology could generate. "So even though it could be jeopardising one person's role or job, at the same time, it's creating hundreds of jobs in regards to what it takes to do this at a high level."

If the dead — or rather, their digital clones — are damned to an eternity of work, who benefits financially? And do the dead have any rights? Simply put, the rules are murky and, in some regions of the world, non-existent.
In June Rolling Stone published this advice from Samuel L. Jackson. "Future actors should do what I always do when I get a contract and it has the words 'in perpetuity' and 'known and unknown' on it: I cross that shit out. It's my way of saying, 'No, I do not approve of this.'"

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In May, the World Health Organization issued an alarming report that declared widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss, and long term consumption may increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults. A few months later, WHO declared aspartame, a key ingredient in Diet Coke, to be a "possible carcinogen," then quickly issued a third report that seemed to contradict its previous findings -- people could continue consuming the product at levels determined to be safe decades ago, before new science cited by WHO raised health concerns. That contradiction stems from beverage industry corruption of the review process by consultants tied to an alleged Coca-Cola front group, the public health advocacy group US Right-To-Know said in a recent report.

It uncovered eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi). Their involvement in developing intake guidelines represents "an obvious conflict of interest", said Gary Ruskin, US Right-To-Know's executive director. "Because of this conflict of interest, [the daily intake] conclusions about aspartame are not credible, and the public should not rely on them," he added. [...] Ilsi describes itself as a nonprofit that conducts "science for the public good", but it was founded in 1978 by a Coca-Cola executive who simultaneously worked for the company through 2021, US Right-To-Know found. Other Coca-Cola executives have worked with the group, and US Right-To-Know detailed tax returns that show millions in donations from Coca-Cola and other beverage industry players. Coke ended its official membership with the group in 2021.

Over the years, Ilsi representatives have sought to shape food policy worldwide, and Ruskin, who has written multiple peer-reviewed papers on the group, characterized the aspartame controversy as a "masterpiece in how Ilsi worms its way into these regulatory processes." US Right To Know identified six out of 13 Jefca panel members with ties to the industry group. After it released its report, the WHO acknowledged two more of its members with industry ties. In a statement to the Guardian, a WHO spokesperson defended the industry consultants' inclusion in the review process. "For the meeting on aspartame, Jefca selected the experts likely to make the best contributions to the debate," said spokesperson Fadela Chaib. She said WHO's guidelines only require disclosure of conflicts of interest within the last four years. "To our knowledge, the experts you listed by name have not participated in any Ilsi activities for at least 10 years," she said. But that partially contradicts a statement made by WHO just weeks before to the news outlet Le Parisien in which it acknowledged two people currently working with Ilsi were involved in the process. The Guardian had also asked about those two people identified in the Parisien story but were not listed "by name" in its email. The WHO told Le Parisien: "We regret that this interest was not declared by these two experts either in the written statement or orally at the opening of the meeting."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The US broadband industry is united in opposition to a requirement that Internet service providers list all of their monthly fees. Five lobby groups representing cable companies, fiber and DSL providers, and mobile operators have repeatedly urged the Federal Communications Commission to eliminate the requirement before new broadband labeling rules take effect. The trade associations petitioned the FCC in January to change the rules and renewed their call last week in a filing and in a meeting with FCC officials. The requirement that ISPs list all their monthly fees "would add unnecessary complexity and burdens to the label for consumers and providers and could result in some providers having to create many labels for any given plan," the groups said in the filing on Friday.

The trade groups said the FCC should instead "require providers to include an explanatory statement that such fees may apply and that they vary by jurisdiction, similar to the Commission's treatment of government-imposed taxes," or require "the display of the maximum level of government-imposed fees that might be passed through, so that consumers would not experience bill shock with respect to such fees." The filing was submitted by NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, which represents Comcast, Charter, Cox, and other cable companies. The NCTA's ex parte filing described a meeting with FCC officials that also included wireless industry trade group CTIA and USTelecom, which represents telcos including AT&T, Verizon, Lumen (formerly CenturyLink), Frontier, and Windstream.

Comcast submitted its own filing urging the FCC to scrap the rules in June. The calls to weaken the FCC's truth-in-billing rules angered consumer advocates, as we wrote at the time. "The label hasn't even reached consumers yet, but Comcast is already trying to create loopholes. This request would allow the big ISPs to continue hiding the true cost of service and frustrating customers with poor service," Joshua Stager, policy director at media advocacy group Free Press, told Ars. Congress required the FCC to implement broadband labels with exact prices for Internet service plans in a 2021 law, but gave the FCC some leeway in how to structure the rules. The FCC adopted specific label rules in November 2022. The labels must be displayed to consumers at the point of sale and include monthly price, additional charges, speeds, data caps, additional charges for data, and other information. The FCC rules aren't in force yet because they are subject to a federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) review under the US Paperwork Reduction Act.

In the first ruling of its kind nationwide, a Montana state court decided Monday in favor of young people who alleged the state violated their right to a "clean and healthful environment" by promoting the use of fossil fuels. From a report: The court determined that a provision in the Montana Environmental Policy Act has harmed the state's environment and the young plaintiffs, by preventing Montana from considering the climate impacts of energy projects. The provision is accordingly unconstitutional, the court said. The win, experts say, could energize the environmental movement and reshape climate litigation across the country, ushering in a wave of cases aimed at advancing action on climate change. "People around the world are watching this case," said Michael Gerrard, the founder of Columbia's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

The ruling represents a rare victory for climate activists who have tried to use the courts to push back against government policies and industrial activities they say are harming the planet. In this case, it involved 16 young Montanans, ranging in age from 5 to 22, who brought the nation's first constitutional and first youth-led climate lawsuit to go to trial. Though the cumulative number of climate cases around the world has more than doubled in the last five years, youth-led lawsuits in the United States have faced an uphill battle. Already, at least 14 of these cases have been dismissed, according to a July report from the United Nations Environment Program and the Sabin Center. The report said about three-quarters of the approximately 2,200 ongoing or concluded cases were filed before courts in the United States. Experts said the Montana youth had an advantage in the state's constitution, which guarantees a right to a "clean and healthful environment." Coal is critical to the state's economy, and Montana is home to the largest recoverable coal reserves in the country. The plaintiff's attorneys say the state has never denied a permit for a fossil fuel project.

Amazon is reducing packaging on millions of deliveries. From a report: Millions of Amazon orders are arriving on doorsteps across the U.S. without any extra packaging. A new television may sit in the manufacturer's box at the door. A blender appears as if it were picked off a store shelf. The same for a box of baby wipes or trash bags. The change represents the next frontier in the tech giant's overhaul of its delivery processes, one Chief Executive Andy Jassy hopes will appeal to customers who are put off by the volume of Amazon-branded boxes they receive and discard every week.

The company in the past year revamped its logistics network, enabling faster and more efficient deliveries. Eliminating or reducing packaging has become increasingly important for the company to maintain its dominance, reduce costs and reach its goals related to its climate impact. "The recognition by a number of senior leaders was just that this is becoming more and more important," said Pat Lindner, who Amazon hired last year as its first vice president of packaging and innovation. "There's a significant need for our company to take the next step in innovation around packaging." About 11% of items that the company delivers now arrive without extra packaging, or what the company calls "ships in own container," Amazon said.

Researchers are now waking up to another factor why so many places on earth are getting warmer, one that could be filed under the category of unintended consequences: disappearing clouds known as ship tracks. From a report: Regulations imposed in 2020 by the United Nations's International Maritime Organization (IMO) have cut ships' sulfur pollution by more than 80% and improved air quality worldwide. The reduction has also lessened the effect of sulfate particles in seeding and brightening the distinctive low-lying, reflective clouds that follow in the wake of ships and help cool the planet. The 2020 IMO rule "is a big natural experiment," says Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "We're changing the clouds."

By dramatically reducing the number of ship tracks, the planet has warmed up faster, several new studies have found. That trend is magnified in the Atlantic, where maritime traffic is particularly dense. In the shipping corridors, the increased light represents a 50% boost to the warming effect of human carbon emissions. It's as if the world suddenly lost the cooling effect from a fairly large volcanic eruption each year, says Michael Diamond, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University. The natural experiment created by the IMO rules is providing a rare opportunity for climate scientists to study a geoengineering scheme in action -- although it is one that is working in the wrong direction. Indeed, one such strategy to slow global warming, called marine cloud brightening, would see ships inject salt particles back into the air, to make clouds more reflective. In Diamond's view, the dramatic decline in ship tracks is clear evidence that humanity could cool off the planet significantly by brightening the clouds. "It suggests pretty strongly that if you wanted to do it on purpose, you could," he says.

Paul Voosen writes via Science: Regulations imposed in 2020 by the United Nations's International Maritime Organization (IMO) have cut ships' sulfur pollution by more than 80% and improved air quality worldwide. The reduction has also lessened the effect of sulfate particles in seeding and brightening the distinctive low-lying, reflective clouds that follow in the wake of ships and help cool the planet. The 2020 IMO rule "is a big natural experiment," says Duncan Watson-Parris, an atmospheric physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "We're changing the clouds."

By dramatically reducing the number of ship tracks, the planet has warmed up faster, several new studies have found. That trend is magnified in the Atlantic, where maritime traffic is particularly dense. In the shipping corridors, the increased light represents a 50% boost to the warming effect of human carbon emissions. It's as if the world suddenly lost the cooling effect from a fairly large volcanic eruption each year, says Michael Diamond, an atmospheric scientist at Florida State University.

The natural experiment created by the IMO rules is providing a rare opportunity for climate scientists to study a geoengineering scheme in action -- although it is one that is working in the wrong direction. Indeed, one such strategy to slow global warming, called marine cloud brightening, would see ships inject salt particles back into the air, to make clouds more reflective. In Diamond's view, the dramatic decline in ship tracks is clear evidence that humanity could cool off the planet significantly by brightening the clouds. "It suggests pretty strongly that if you wanted to do it on purpose, you could," he says. The findings are available in a new preprint in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP).

By 1983 there were a whopping 2,000 pieces of software for Apple's pre-Macintosh computer, the Apple II — more than for any other machine in the world. It turns out this left a trail for one historian to understand The Apple II Age: How the Computer Became Personal.

The new book (by New York University academic Laine Nooney) argues that it was the first purchasers of that software who are the true overlooked pioneers during the seven years before the Macintosh. And (as this reviewer explains, with quotes from the book), collectively they form the most compelling story about the history of Apple: It's about all those brave and curious people, the users, who came "Not to hack, but to play... Not to program, but to print..." And you can trace their activities in perfect detail through the decades-old software programs they left behind. It's a fresh and original approach to the history of technology. Yes, the Apple II competed with Commodore's PET 2001 and Tandy's TRS-80... [But] this trove of programs uniquely offers "a glimpse of what users did with their personal computers, or perhaps more tellingly, what users hoped their computers might do."

Looking back in time, Nooney calls the period "one of unusually industrious and experimental software production, as mom-and-pop development houses cast about trying to create software that could satisfy the question, 'What is a computer even good for...?'" The book's jacket promises "a constellation of software creation stories," with each chapter revisiting an especially iconic program that also represents an entire category of software...

[T]he book ultimately focuses more heavily on the lessons that can be learned from what programmers envisioned for these strange new devices — and how the software-buying public did (or didn't) respond... The earliest emergence of personal computing in America was "a wondrous mangle," Nooney writes, saying it turned into an era where "overnight entrepreneurs hastily constructed a consumer computing supply chain where one had never previously existed."
Vice republished an excerpt in May which describes the "roiling debate" that took place over copy protection in 1981.

The University of Southampton has an announcement. Slashdot reader pyroclast shared this report from ScienceDaily: Today an international team of researchers has chosen the location which best represents the beginnings of what could be a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene Working Group have put forward Crawford Lake, in Canada, as a Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) for the Anthropocene.

A GSSP is an internationally agreed-upon reference point to show the start of a new geological period or epoch in layers of rock that have built up through the ages. It's been proposed by some geologists that we are now living in the Anthropocene — a new geological epoch in which human activity has become the dominant influence on the world's climate and environment. The concept has significant implications for how we consider our impact on the planet. But there is disagreement in the scientific community about when the Anthropocene began, how it is evidenced and whether human influence has been substantial enough to constitute a new geological age, which usually span millions of years. To help answer these questions, the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) set up the Anthropocene Working Group.

"The sediments found at the bottom of Crawford Lake provide an exquisite record of recent environmental change over the last millennia," says Dr Simon Turner, Secretary of the Anthropocene Working Group from UCL. "Seasonal changes in water chemistry and ecology have created annual layers that can be sampled for multiple markers of historical human activity. It is this ability to precisely record and store this information as a geological archive that can be matched to historical global environmental changes which make sites such as Crawford Lake so important...."

Professor Andrew Cundy, Chair in Environmental Radiochemistry at the University of Southampton and member of the Anthropocene Working Group, explains: "The presence of plutonium gives us a stark indicator of when humanity became such a dominant force that it could leave a unique global 'fingerprint' on our planet. In nature, plutonium is only present in trace amounts. But in the early-1950s, when the first hydrogen bomb tests took place, we see an unprecedented increase and then spike in the levels of plutonium in core samples from around the world. We then see a decline in plutonium from the mid-1960s onwards when the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty came into effect."

Other geological indicators of human activity include high levels of ash from coal-fired power stations, high concentrations of heavy metals, such as lead, and the presence of plastic fibres and fragments. These coincide with 'The Great Acceleration' — a dramatic surge across a range of human activity, from transportation to energy use, starting in the mid-20th century and continuing today.
"Evidence from the sites will now be presented to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, which will decide next year whether to ratify the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Scientific American: Constant buzzing and ringing in the ears without any input from the external environment can seriously impair quality of life for the 10 percent of the U.S. population with severe tinnitus. A combination treatment using sound and electrical stimulation may now give hope to sufferers. One cause of tinnitus is probably overactivity of the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) in the brain stem. This is where acoustic signals are processed with other sensory stimuli. So the whistling and ringing in the ears caused by tinnitus is not purely a disease of the brain's auditory system. Up to 80 percent of people with the condition have the so-called somatic form, in which the disturbing noises are generated or altered by head or neck movements. In a recent clinical trial, Susan Shore of the University of Michigan and her colleagues used a new procedure to significantly alleviate the symptoms of tinnitus. "I think the study represents hope for all sufferers," says tinnitus expert Berthold Langguth of the University of Regensburg in Germany, who was not involved with the research.

Shore's team developed a "bisensory" treatment consisting of an in-ear headphone and two externally attached electrodes that delivered a combination of acoustic and electric stimuli to reduce activity in the DCN. The level of stimulation was individualized to each person's tinnitus. The study involved 99 people with somatic tinnitus, each of whom were given a prototype device for home treatment over the course of the study. Participants in the experimental group underwent the procedure for 30 minutes daily for six weeks during the study's first phase. Those in the control group also attached the electrodes near their ear and on their neck, but the electrical impulse was absent -- they received a purely acoustic treatment. Because the electrical impulses were not perceptible, none of the participants knew who belonged to which group.

After a six-week break, which was the second phase of the study, the protocol shifted for phase three: each of the two groups received the opposite treatment for another six weeks. After the first phase, the tinnitus in the experimental group was already reduced significantly, and the treatment provided meaningful clinical benefits. The participants' tinnitus was perceived as only half as loud on average after phase one. Even during the treatment break, the situation continued to improve. The effect lasted up to 36 weeks. "In my estimation, this is a very promising procedure," Langguth says. Shore now wants to move the new method quickly through the approval process and then onto the market.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The European Commission today decided it is safe for personal data to be transferred from the European Union to US-based companies, handing a victory to firms like Facebook and Google despite protests from privacy advocates who worry about US government surveillance. The commission announced that it "adopted its adequacy decision for the EU-US Data Privacy Framework," concluding "that the United States ensures an adequate level of protection -- comparable to that of the European Union -- for personal data transferred from the EU to US companies under the new framework. On the basis of the new adequacy decision, personal data can flow safely from the EU to US companies participating in the Framework, without having to put in place additional data protection safeguards."

In May, Facebook-owner Meta was fined 1.2 billion euros for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with transfers of personal data to the United States and was ordered to stop storing European Union user data in the US within six months. But Meta said at the time that if the pending data-transfer pact "comes into effect before the implementation deadlines expire, our services can continue as they do today without any disruption or impact on users." The data-transfer deal "is expected to face a legal challenge from European privacy advocates, who have long said that the US needs to make substantial changes to surveillance laws," a Wall Street Journal report said today. "Transfers of data from Europe to the US have been in question since an EU court ruled in 2020 that a previous deal allowing trans-Atlantic data flows was illegal because the US didn't give EU individuals an effective way to challenge surveillance of their data by the US government."

The EC's announcement said the new framework has "binding safeguards to address all the concerns raised by the European Court of Justice, including limiting access to EU data by US intelligence services to what is necessary and proportionate, and establishing a Data Protection Review Court (DPRC), to which EU individuals will have access." The new court "will be able to order the deletion" of data that is found to have been collected in violation of the new rules. The framework will be administered and monitored by the US Department of Commerce and the "US Federal Trade Commission will enforce US companies' compliance," the EC announcement said. EU residents who challenge data collection will have free access to "independent dispute resolution mechanisms and an arbitration panel." US companies can join the EU-US framework "by committing to comply with a detailed set of privacy obligations, for instance the requirement to delete personal data when it is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, and to ensure continuity of protection when personal data is shared with third parties," the European Commission said. The latest deal is expected to get challenged, according to the WSJ. European Parliament member Birgit Sippel, who is in Germany's Social Democratic Party, said the "framework does not provide any meaningful safeguards against indiscriminate surveillance conducted by US intelligence agencies," according to The New York Times.

The Computer & Communications Industry Association, which represents major tech companies like Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta, said: "Today's decision means that EU and US businesses will soon have full legal certainty again to transfer personal data across the Atlantic... Data flows are vital to transatlantic trade and the EU-US economic relationship, which is worth 5.5 trillion euros per year. Nevertheless, the two economies had been left without guidelines for data transfers after an EU Court ruling invalidated the previous framework back in 2020."