An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Seagate has been working on dual-actuator hard drives -- drives with two independently controlled sets of read/write heads -- for several years. Its first production dual-actuator drive, the Mach.2, is now "available to select customers," meaning that enterprises can buy it directly from Seagate, but end-users are out of luck for now. Seagate lists the sustained, sequential transfer rate of the Mach.2 as up to 524MBps -- easily double that of a fast "normal" rust disk and edging into SATA SSD territory. The performance gains extend into random I/O territory as well, with 304 IOPS read / 384 IOPS write and only 4.16 ms average latency. (Normal hard drives tend to be 100/150 IOPS and about the same average latency.)

The added performance requires additional power; Mach.2 drives are rated for 7.2 W idle, while Seagate's standard Ironwolf line is rated at 5 W idle. It gets more difficult to compare loaded power consumption because Seagate specs the Mach.2 differently than the Ironwolf. The Mach.2's power consumption is explicitly rated for several random I/O scenarios, while the Ironwolf line is rated for an unhelpful "average operating power," which isn't defined in the data sheet. Still, if we assume -- probably not unreasonably -- a similar expansion of power consumption while under load, the Mach.2 represents an excellent choice for power efficiency since it offers roughly 200% of the performance of competing traditional drives at roughly 144% of the power budget. Particularly power-conscious users can also use Seagate's PowerBalance mode -- although that feature decreases sequential performance by 50% and random performance by 10%.

On May 18, a South Korean politician put forward a bill that would stop esports tournament organizers and stakeholders from unilaterally terminating tournaments without first informing participants and other principles involved in the event. The Esports Observer reports: The bill, "The Heroes of the Storm Law," was put forward to parliament by Congressman Dong-su Yoo of the Democratic Party of Korea, as first reported in Naver Sports. As Yoo explained, the bill is to prevent a game publishers' unilateral termination of an esports competition, and would require the game publisher or distribution company (which owns the copyright of the game, or has the rights to operate an event) to inform involved parties several months in advance if they are planning to shut down an esports competition.

The "HOTS Law" was inspired by an incident that traces back to December 2018, when Blizzard Entertainment shut down Heroes Global Championship (HGC) and Heroes of the Dorm. The decision was made by Blizzard President J. Allen Brack and infuriated many esports organizations, players, and coaches because they were not informed of the cancelation prior to the announcement. South Korean team Gen.G Esports was one of the best Heroes of The Storm teams at the time and were forced out of jobs because of it.

Amazon is shutting down its standalone Prime Now delivery app, with its speedy two-hour delivery options moving exclusively into the company's main app and website, the company announced today. The standalone Prime Now app and website will be retired by the end of the year. The Verge reports: Originally launched in 2014, Prime Now was designed to offer deliveries of essential items within hours rather than days for Prime members. The service was initially available in just a small number of cities, but has since expanded to over 5,000 locations around the world, CNBC notes. Writing in a blog post, Amazon's vice president of grocery Stephenie Landry said shutting down the separate app will "make this experience even more seamless for customers."

Two-hour delivery options from Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods have been available on the main Amazon site and app in the US since 2019, but the company says third-party partners and local stores around the world will be moved onto its main service by the end of the year. These include local stores like Bartell's in Seattle, Morrisons in Leeds, or Monoprix in Paris.

Israeli company ElectReon Wireless is building a kilometer-long stretch of electric vehicle-charging highway between Milan and Brescia in Italy. It's the first trial of its kind involving a highway and will help determine if the technology is ready for widespread adoption. Innovation Origins reports: In a nutshell, Electreon is building the infrastructure by installing copper coils under the asphalt. Energy is transferred directly and wirelessly to the vehicle's batteries while driving by means of magnetic induction. The system includes a control unit located on the side of the lane of the electrified road. A receiver is installed in the chassis of each electric vehicle that is participating in the trial.

ElectReon is working with more than ten Italian partners to carry out the test. The most important of these is Brebemi, who operate the toll road. The goal of the pilot is to see how the technology will fare on toll roads. Brebemi is footing the bill for the pilot project while ElectReon will supply the wireless electric road system. "Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer," as the technology is called, will be tested on different types of electric vehicles in both stationary and dynamic environments.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: [T]he Responsible Artificial Intelligence Institute (RAI) -- a non-profit developing governance tools to help usher in a new generation of trustworthy, safe, Responsible AIs -- hopes to offer a more standardized means of certifying that our next HAL won't murder the entire crew. In short they want to build "the world's first independent, accredited certification program of its kind." Think of the LEED green building certification system used in construction but with AI instead. Work towards this certification program began nearly half a decade ago alongside the founding of RAI itself, at the hands of Dr. Manoj Saxena, University of Texas Professor on Ethical AI Design, RAI Chairman and a man widely considered to be the "father" of IBM Watson, though his initial inspiration came even further back.

Certifications are awarded in four levels -- basic, silver, gold, and platinum (sorry, no bronze) -- based on the AI's scores along the five OECD principles of Responsible AI: interpretability/explainability, bias/fairness, accountability, robustness against unwanted hacking or manipulation, and data quality/privacy. The certification is administered via questionnaire and a scan of the AI system. Developers must score 60 points to reach the base certification, 70 points for silver and so on, up to 90 points-plus for platinum status. [Mark Rolston, founder and CCO of argodesign] notes that design analysis will play an outsized role in the certification process. "Any company that is trying to figure out whether their AI is going to be trustworthy needs to first understand how they're constructing that AI within their overall business," he said. "And that requires a level of design analysis, both on the technical front and in terms of how they're interfacing with their users, which is the domain of design."

RAI expects to find (and in some cases has already found) a number of willing entities from government, academia, enterprise corporations, or technology vendors for its services, though the two are remaining mum on specifics while the program is still in beta (until November 15th, at least). Saxena hopes that, like the LEED certification, RAI will eventually evolve into a universalized certification system for AI. He argues, it will help accelerate the development of future systems by eliminating much of the uncertainty and liability exposure today's developers -- and their harried compliance officers -- face while building public trust in the brand. "We're using standards from IEEE, we are looking at things that ISO is coming out with, we are looking at leading indicators from the European Union like GDPR, and now this recently announced algorithmic law," Saxena said. "We see ourselves as the 'do tank' that can operationalize those concepts and those think tank's work."

Around 4.5% of all bitcoin mining takes place in Iran, allowing the country to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies that can be used to buy imports and lessen the impact of sanctions, a new study has found. At its current level of mining, Iran's bitcoin production would amount to revenues close $1 billion a year, according to figures from blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. Reuters reports: The United States imposes an almost total economic embargo on Iran, including a ban on all imports including those from the country's oil, banking and shipping sectors. While, exact figures are "very challenging to determine," Elliptic estimates are based on data collected from bitcoin miners by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance up to April 2020, and statements from Iran's state-controlled power generation company in January that up to 600 MW of electricity was being consumed by miners.

"Iran has recognised that bitcoin mining represents an attractive opportunity for a sanctions-hit economy suffering from a shortage of hard cash, but with a surplus of oil and natural gas," the study finds. The electricity being used by miners in Iran would require the equivalent of around 10 million barrels of crude oil each year to generate, around 4% of total Iranian oil exports in 2020, according to the study. "The Iranian state is therefore effectively selling its energy reserves on the global markets, using the Bitcoin mining process to bypass trade embargoes," the study reads. "Iran-based miners are paid directly in Bitcoin, which can then be used to pay for imports - allowing sanctions on payments through Iranian financial institutions to be circumvented."

An anonymous reader shares a report: One month ago the University of Minnesota was banned from contributing to the Linux kernel when it was revealed the university researchers were trying to intentionally submit bugs into the kernel via new patches as "hypocrite commits" as part of a questionable research paper. Linux kernel developers have finally finished reviewing all UMN.edu patches to address problematic merges to the kernel and also cleaning up / fixing their questionable patches. Sent in on Thursday by Greg Kroah-Hartman was char/misc fixes for 5.13-rc3. While char/misc fixes at this mid-stage of the kernel cycle tend to not be too exciting, this pull request has the changes for addressing the patches from University of Minnesota researchers. [...] Going by the umn.edu Git activity that puts 37 patches as having been reverted with this pull request. The reverts span from ALSA to the media subsystem, networking, and other areas. That is 37 reverts out of 150+ patches from umn.edu developers over the years.

Lanodonal shares a report from the BBC: Hackers responsible for causing widespread disruption to the Irish health system have unexpectedly gifted it with the tool to help it recover. The Conti ransomware group was reportedly asking the Irish health service for $20 million to restore services after the "catastrophic hack." But now the criminals have handed over the software tool for free.The Irish government says it is testing the tool and insists it did not, and would not, be paying the hackers. Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) MicheÃl Martin said on Friday evening that getting the software tool was good, but that enormous work is still required to rebuild the system overall.

Conti is still threatening to publish or sell data it has stolen unless a ransom is paid. On its darknet website, it told the Health Service Executive (HSE), which runs Ireland's healthcare system, that "we are providing the decryption tool for your network for free." "But you should understand that we will sell or publish a lot of private data if you will not connect us and try to resolve the situation." It was unclear why the hackers gave the tool -- known as a decryption key -- for free, said Health Minister Stephen Donnelly. In an alert made public Thursday by the American Hospital Association, the FBI said the Conti group has also hit at least 16 U.S. medical and first response networks in the past year.

Scientific research findings that are probably wrong gain far more attention than robust results, according to academics who suspect that the bar for publication may be lower for papers with grabbier conclusions. From a report: Studies in top science, psychology and economics journals that fail to hold up when others repeat them are cited, on average, more than 100 times as often in follow-up papers than work that stands the test of time. The finding -- which is itself not exempt from the need for scrutiny -- has led the authors to suspect that more interesting papers are waved through more easily by reviewers and journal editors and, once published, attract more attention.

[...] The study in Science Advances is the latest to highlight the "replication crisis" where results, mostly in social science and medicine, fail to hold up when other researchers try to repeat experiments. Following an influential paper in 2005 titled Why most published research findings are false, three major projects have found replication rates as low as 39% in psychology journals, 61% in economics journals, and 62% in social science studies published in the Nature and Science, two of the most prestigious journals in the world.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Crime and neighborhood watch app Citizen has ambitions to deploy private security workers to the scene of disturbances at the request of app users, according to leaked internal Citizen documents and Citizen sources. The plans mark a dramatic expansion of Citizen's purview. It is currently an app where users report "incidents" in their neighborhoods and, based on those reports and police scanner transcriptions, the app sends "real-time safety alerts" to users about crime and other incidents happening near where a user is located. It is essentially a mapping app that allows users to both report and learn about crime (or what users of the app perceive to be crime) in their neighborhood. The introduction of in-person, private security forces drastically alters the service, and potential impact, that Citizen may offer in the future, and provides more context as to why a Citizen-branded vehicle has been spotted driving around Los Angeles. The news comes after Citizen offered a $30,000 bounty against a person it falsely accused of starting a wildfire.

In short, the product, described as "security response" in internal emails, would have Citizen send a car with private security forces to an app user, according to the former employee. A private security company working with Citizen would provide the response staff, the former employee added. A second Citizen source confirmed this description of the service. Citizen has been actively testing the program, with what the company describes as quick response times and instant communication between Citizen and security partners, according to the emails.

Currently, Citizen offers a subscription product called "Protect," which costs $19.99 per month. Protect sends a user's location to a Citizen employee when it's turned on, can stream video to a "Protect agent" when activated using a safeword, and is pitched to users as a "digital bodyguard." Protect also advertises "Instant emergency response to your exact location," and says "Live monitoring means you never have to walk alone." It is not clear if the private security response would be tied to Protect or another service. A Citizen spokesperson told Motherboard that "LAPS offers a personal rapid response service that we are testing internally with employees as a small test. For example, if someone would like an escort to walk them home late at night, they can request this service. We have spoken with various partners in designing this pilot project." They declined to answer other questions from Motherboard.

Apple CEO Tim Cook took his first turn in the witness chair this morning in what is probably the most anticipated testimony of the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. But rather than a fiery condemnation of Epic's shenanigans and allegations, Cook offered a mild, carefully tended ignorance that left many of the lawsuit's key questions unanswered, or unanswerable. TechCrunch reports: The facade of innocent ignorance began when he was asked about Apple's R&D numbers -- $15-20 billion annually for the last three years. Specifically, he said that Apple couldn't estimate how much of that money was directed towards the App Store, because "we don't allocate like that," i.e. research budgets for individual products aren't broken out from the rest. [...] This was further demonstrated when Cook was asked about Apple's deal with Google that keeps the search engine as the default on iOS. Cook said he didn't remember the specific numbers.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said that the same group of online extortionists blamed for striking the Irish health system last week have also hit at least 16 U.S. medical and first response networks in the past year. From a report: In an alert made public Thursday by the American Hospital Association, the FBI said the cybercriminals using the malicious software dubbed 'Conti' have targeted law enforcement, emergency medical services, dispatch centers, and municipalities. The alert did not name the victims or go into detail about the nature or severity of the breaches, saying only that they were among more than 400 organizations worldwide targeted by "Conti actors."

For years, technology companies have imposed strict limits on who can fix chipped iPhones, broken game consoles and a wealth of other non-working (or defective) gadgets. From a report: Components are kept in short supply or simply not shared with independent shops to mend things like USB ports and batteries. After seeing these restrictions firsthand, Millman [anecdote in the story, who runs a repair shop in New York] joined a cadre of small business owners, hobbyists and activists pushing right-to-repair bills across the country. These measures are designed to undo rules businesses set to restrict repairs to authorized providers for a vast range of products from a Kindle to a wheelchair.

Twenty-seven states considered such bills in 2021. More than half have already been voted down or dismissed, according to consumer groups tracking the proposals. To advocates of these bills, the current repair system is a major reason why we cycle through personal devices so quickly, furthering the environmental impact of these gadgets. [...] One reason these legislative efforts have failed is the opposition, which happens to sell boatloads of new devices every year. Microsoft's top lawyer advocated against a repair bill in its home state. Lobbyists for Google and Amazon.com swooped into Colorado this year to help quash a proposal. Trade groups representing Apple successfully buried a version in Nevada. Telecoms, home appliance firms and medical companies also opposed the measures, but few have the lobbying muscle and cash of these technology giants. While tech companies face high-profile scrutiny in Washington, they quietly wield power in statehouses to shape public policy and stamp out unwelcome laws.

For 10 years, Sci-Hub, the "Pirate Bay of Science" has hosted scientific papers free for anyone who wanted them. But it hasn't uploaded anything new since December 2020 and is facing prosecution in America. Now, determined activist archivists are working to make a decentralized backup of the website that can never be erased from the internet. From a report: Sci-Hub hosts 85 million articles and the Reddit community at /r/datahoarder wants to make sure they're free and available for everyone forever by decentralizing it because of recent legal challenges for the site, which was sued by science publishing giant Elsevier and owes it millions. "It's time we sent Elsevier and the USDOJ a clearer message about the fate of Sci-Hub and open science: we are the library, we do not get silenced, we do not shut down our computers, and we are many," said a post on the /r/datahoarder subreddit.

Apple's software engineering head Craig Federighi had a tricky task in the Epic v. Apple trial: explaining why the Mac's security wasn't good enough for the iPhone. From a report: Mac computers have an official Apple App Store, but they also allow downloading software from the internet or a third-party store. Apple has never opened up iOS this way, but it's long touted the privacy and security of both platforms. Then Epic Games sued Apple to force its hand, saying that if an open model is good enough for macOS, Apple's claims about iOS ring hollow. On the stand yesterday, Federighi tried to resolve this problem by portraying iPhones and Macs as dramatically different devices -- and in the process, threw macOS under the bus.

The second difference is data sensitivity. "iPhones are very attractive targets. They are very personal devices that are with you all the time. They have some of your most personal information -- of course your contacts, your photos, but also other things," he said. Mobile devices put a camera, microphone, and GPS tracker in your pocket. "All of these things make access or control of these devices potentially incredibly valuable to an attacker." That may undersell private interactions with Macs; Epic's counsel Yonatan Even noted that many telemedicine calls and other virtual interactions happen on desktop. Still, it's fair to say phones have become many people's all-purpose digital lockboxes. The third difference is more conceptual. Federighi basically says iOS users need to be more protected because the Mac is a specialist tool for people who know how to navigate the complexities of a powerful system, while the iPhone and iPad are -- literally -- for babies.

Senior managers at Google artificial-intelligence unit DeepMind have been negotiating for years with the parent company for more autonomy, seeking an independent legal structure for the sensitive research they do. From a report: DeepMind told staff late last month that Google called off those talks, WSJ reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The end of the long-running negotiations, which hasn't previously been reported, is the latest example of how Google and other tech giants are trying to strengthen their control over the study and advancement of artificial intelligence. Earlier this month, Google unveiled plans to double the size of its team studying the ethics of artificial intelligence and to consolidate that research.

[...] DeepMind's founders had sought, among other ideas, a legal structure used by nonprofit groups, reasoning that the powerful artificial intelligence they were researching shouldn't be controlled by a single corporate entity, according to people familiar with those plans. On a video call last month with DeepMind staff, co-founder Demis Hassabis said the unit's effort to negotiate a more autonomous corporate structure was over, according to people familiar with the matter. He also said DeepMind's AI research and its application would be reviewed by an ethics board staffed mostly by senior Google executives.

China's internet watchdog has named and shamed some of the country's most popular mobile applications, including the Chinese version of TikTok, Kuaishou, LinkedIn and 102 other apps, for the illegal collection and use of personal data. From a report: The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said that after receiving complaints from users, it had found that 105 apps had violated several laws and had infringed personal information through illegal access, over-collection and excessive authorisation, according to a notice on its WeChat official account. Short video apps including Kuaishou and ByteDance-owned TikTok were included in the list as well as Microsoft-owned LinkedIn and Bing, Tencent-owned music streaming service Kugou, and search giant Baidu's mobile browser.

Netflix is looking to hire an executive to oversee its expansion into videogames, The Information reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters: The company has approached veteran game industry executives in recent weeks, the report said. The move comes at a time when the video-streaming pioneer is stepping up efforts to grow beyond its traditional business as competition heats up and subscriber growth slows. The gaming industry has been a big pandemic winner thanks to a surge in demand from customers staying at home during the crisis.

Snap's new Spectacles glasses are its most ambitious yet. But there's a big catch: you can't buy them. From a report: On Thursday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel unveiled the company's first true augmented reality glasses, technology that he and rivals like Facebook think will one day be as ubiquitous as mobile phones. A demo showed virtual butterflies fluttering over colorful plants and landing in Spiegel's extended hand. The new Spectacles have dual waveguide displays capable of superimposing AR effects made with Snapchat's software tools. The frame features four built-in microphones, two stereo speakers, and a built-in touchpad. Front-facing cameras help the glasses detect objects and surfaces you're looking at so that graphics more naturally interact with the world around you.

[...] The idea is to encourage a small portion of the 200,000 people who already make AR effects in Snapchat to experiment with creating experiences for the new Spectacles, according to Spiegel. Like the bright yellow vending machines Snap used to sell the first version of Spectacles several years ago, the approach could end up being a clever way to build buzz for the glasses ahead of their wide release. Spiegel has said that AR glasses will take roughly a decade to reach mainstream adoption. "I don't believe the phone is going away," he told The Verge in an interview this week. "I just think that the next generation of Spectacles can help unlock a new way to use AR hands-free, and the ability to really roam around with your eyes looking up at the horizon, out at the world."

Apple injected a new level of intrigue in its bitter court fight with Epic Games, suggesting the Fortnite maker was acting as a stalking horse for Microsoft and withholding evidence. From a report: The iPhone maker made the accusations Wednesday night in a filing asking a judge to make an adverse credibility finding against Lori Wright, an Xbox executive who testified in the trial on behalf of Epic. That would mean the judge could ignore her testimony. Apple asked for such a ruling earlier, but upped its accusations in the new filing. "A reasonable observer might wonder whether Epic is serving as a stalking horse for Microsoft," Apple said. "Microsoft shielded itself from meaningful discovery in this litigation by not appearing as a party or sending a corporate representative to testify." Further reading: Apple and Microsoft's Rivalry Had Cooled. Now It's Back and Getting Testier.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Swedish private equity firm EQT had high hopes for its SUSE IPO on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and set the European Linux and cloud power's IPO price at 30 euros per share. Alas, SUSE's shares opened at 29.50 euros per share. By the close of business on May 20th, the stock crept up to 30.39 euros. This gave it a market cap of around 5 billion euros (approximately $6.1 billion). This is nothing to sneeze at, but it wasn't what EQT hoped for either. Before the IPO, EQT had sought an IPO price as high as 34 euros per share. Still, this was no failure. SUSE and its backers sold 37.8 million shares in the IPO, for 1.1 billion euros. EQT is still keeping a stake. SUSE itself continues to do well with reported revenue of $503 million for the 2020 financial year.

sciencehabit writes: Death Valley holds the record for the highest air temperature on the planet: On July 10, 1913, temperatures at the aptly named Furnace Creek area in the California desert reached a blistering 56.7C (134.1F). Average summer temperatures, meanwhile, often rise above 45C (113F). But when it comes to surface temperature, two spots have Death Valley beat. A new analysis of high-resolution satellite data finds the Lut Desert in Iran and the Sonoran Desert along the Mexican-U.S. border have recently reached a sizzling 80.8C (177.4F). The study uncovered other superlatives. The maximum temperature swing in a single day was 81.8C (147.3F), from -23.7C (-10.7F) to 58.1C (136.6F) on July 20, 2006 in China's Qaidam Basin, a crescent-shaped depression hemmed in by mountains on the Tibetan Plateau. And the coldest spot on our planet? No big surprise: Antarctica. But a satellite reading of 0110.9C (-167.6F) in 2016 is more than 20 degrees chillier than the coldest air temperature recorded in 1983. The findings have been reported in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

alaskana98 writes: In a newly leaked video, ship based U.S. Navy personnel appear to be tracking an orb-shaped UFO as it tracks closely above the water, eventually appearing to dip beneath water's surface. Last month, a still from this video was teased along with another video showing a triangular UFO transit the sky along with photos of three strange objects at high altitudes captured within minutes of each other by Navy pilots in 2019. These photos and videos all come on the eve of a highly anticipated unclassified report due to be released sometime in June for the intelligence and armed services committees in Congress. Referring to this report, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe states: "There are instances where we don't have good explanations for some of the things that we've seen."

Not everyone is convinced that these objects are being piloted by grey aliens. In an exhaustive report by the site "The War Zone," a plausible theory is laid out that purports that these objects are nothing more than cleverly disguised blimps or drones launched by U.S. adversaries, using nothing more than the social stigma of taking UFOS/UAPS seriously as a means to dissuade any serious attempts by the U.S. military to treat these as conventional domestic threats.