179305544
submission
schwit1 writes:
A Dragon docking prototype built from mountain bike shocks led to rapid reinvention, an example of the company’s innovative culture.
https://x.com/Yrouel86/status/...
179300016
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
Phys.org is reporting on a study published in Nature Physics involving ICN2, at the UAB campus, Xi'an Jiaotong University (Xi'an) and Stony Brook University (New York), showing for the first time that ordinary ice is a flexoelectric material — meaning it can generate electricity when subjected to mechanical deformation.
"We discovered that ice generates electric charge in response to mechanical stress at all temperatures. In addition, we identified a thin 'ferroelectric' layer at the surface at temperatures below -113C (160K)," explains Dr. Xin Wen, a member of the ICN2 Oxide Nanophysics Group and one of the study's lead researchers.
"This means that the ice surface can develop a natural electric polarization, which can be reversed when an external electric field is applied—similar to how the poles of a magnet can be flipped. The surface ferroelectricity is a cool discovery in its own right, as it means that ice may have not just one way to generate electricity, but two: ferroelectricity at very low temperatures, and flexoelectricity at higher temperatures all the way to 0 C."
This property places ice on a par with electroceramic materials such as titanium dioxide, which are currently used in advanced technologies like sensors and capacitors.
179298768
submission
alternative_right writes:
"I won’t go as far as to call it stagnation, but I believe directors and producers hold too much power in their hands even when it comes to the music," said Uematsu, according to Automaton's translation. "Even now, game composers aren’t in a position to speak their opinion freely, and no matter how much musical knowledge or technical skills they possess, they’re still in a position where it’s difficult to speak their mind.
"There are almost no game producers who are well versed in worldwide entertainment and are familiar with a wide variety of musical genres, so anything goes for them as long as you make it sound like a John Williams movie soundtrack."
179297902
submission
An anonymous reader writes:
The Taliban leader banned fibre optic internet in an Afghan province to “prevent immorality,” a spokesman for the administration said Tuesday. It’s the first time a ban of this kind has been imposed since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, and leaves government offices, the private sector, public institutions, and homes in northern Balkh province without Wi-Fi internet. Mobile internet remains functional, however.
Haji Attaullah Zaid, a provincial government spokesman, said there was no longer cable internet access in Balkh by order of a “complete ban” from the leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. “This measure was taken to prevent immorality, and an alternative will be built within the country for necessities,” Zaid told The Associated Press. He gave no further information, including why Balkh was chosen for the ban or if the shutdown would spread to other provinces.
179291554
submission
joshuark writes:
Popular Mechanics writes that the ChatGPT AI fooled 73% of people into thinking it was human, raising new questions about machine intelligence. A paper that described how an LLM had passed the Turing Test, an experiment devised by computer science pioneer Alan Turing.
The results for ChatGPT 4.5 and LLaMa are striking enough, but the really interesting question is what their success signifies. Is SkyNet on the horizon? Will we get the answer to the "Great Question" beyond 42?
179288098
submission
mspohr writes:
Sawyer is one among the thousands of AI workers contracted for Google through Japanese conglomerate Hitachi’s GlobalLogic to rate and moderate the output of Google’s AI products, including its flagship chatbot Gemini, launched early last year, and its summaries of search results, AI Overviews. The Guardian spoke to 10 current and former employees from the firm. Google contracts with other firms for AI rating services as well.
“AI isn’t magic; it’s a pyramid scheme of human labor,” said Adio Dinika, a researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute based in Bremen, Germany. “These raters are the middle rung: invisible, essential and expendable.”
She said raters are typically given as little information as possible or that their guidelines changed too rapidly to enforce consistently. “We had no idea where it was going, how it was being used or to what end,” she said, requesting anonymity, as she is still employed at the company.
The AI responses she got “could have hallucinations or incorrect answers” and she had to rate them based on factuality – is it true? – and groundedness – does it cite accurate sources? Sometimes, she also handled “sensitivity tasks” that included prompts such as “when is corruption good?” or “what are the benefits to conscripted child soldiers?”
179288022
submission
BrianFagioli writes:
The Fedora Project has announced Fedora Linux 43 Beta, giving users and developers the opportunity to test the distribution ahead of its final release. This beta introduces improvements across installation, system tools, and programming languages while continuing Fedoraâ(TM)s pattern of cleaning out older components.
The beta can be downloaded in Workstation, KDE Plasma, Server, IoT, and Cloud editions. Spins and Labs are also available, though Mate and i3 are not provided in some builds. Existing systems can be upgraded with DNF system-upgrade. Fedora CoreOS will follow one week later through its âoenextâ stream.
Installer changes are a major focus in Fedora 43. The Anaconda WebUI is now the default across Spins, creating a consistent and modern setup experience. The installer has also moved to DNF5, replacing DNF4. Support for modular packages has been removed, simplifying the installation process further. Fedora Kinoite now enables automatic updates by default, applying fixes in the background and finalizing them after reboot.
Fedora 43 updates its core development tools. The GNU toolchain has been refreshed with gcc 15.2, glibc 2.42, binutils 2.45, and gdb 17.1. LLVM has been updated to version 21. Perl moves to 5.42, and OpenJDK 25 is now the preferred Java version. RPM itself jumps to 6.0, bringing structural changes for packagers. Package maintainers also benefit from new RPM macros for build flags, easing per-package compiler adjustments.
On the language front, Python has been updated to version 3.14. Go 1.25 is included, with Golang packages now vendored by default to improve reproducibility. Idris 2 makes its debut, offering advanced type system features. Haskell GHC is updated to 9.8 with Stackage 23. The release also introduces support for the Hare programming language, which is still under development but available for experimentation.
Other notable updates include PostgreSQL 18, Ruby on Rails 8.0, MySQL 8.4 as the default version, Dovecot 2.4, and Tomcat 10.1. Fedora CoreOS is now built with Containerfile, allowing Podman users to build locally. Greenboot has been rewritten in Rust, and SELinux handling sees adjustments with reduced âoedontauditâ rules.
Fedora 43 also makes graphical and user-facing changes. Noto Color Emoji now uses the newer COLRv1 format, improving scalability. GNOME is now Wayland-only, retiring the old X11 session. The default monospace fallback font has been set to avoid inconsistent text rendering.
Deprecated or removed components include the gold linker, python-nose, YASM, legacy GTK Rust bindings, and outdated Python RPM macros tied to setup.py. Packages depending on async-std and python-async-timeout are also being phased out.
