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Submission + - MIT Congressman Introduces Patent Reform Legislation (house.gov)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: Representative Thomas Massie (a dual-degree holder from MIT) announces the introduction of patent reform legislation designed to restore to Americans a patent system "as the Constitution of the United States originally envisioned it." Massie's legislation, HR 8134, the "Restoring America's Leadership in Innovation Act of 2024" (RALIA), reverses several harmful changes to patent law that arose from Supreme Court rulings and the enactment of the Leahy-Smith "America Invents Act." Among the significant reforms contained in Massie's legislation is a return to the "first to invent" standard to ensure patent protection for America's inventors.

"The RALIA legislation restores to Americans a patent system as the Constitution of the United States originally envisioned it," said Congressman Massie. "In Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers gave Congress the authority to protect the discoveries of inventors. Specifically, they created a patent system to 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.' Regrettably, Congress's 2011 enactment of the Leahy-Smith 'America Invents Act' has worked in concert with several Supreme Court decisions to erode this protection's strength and value."

"As the Constitution intends, RALIA restores patent protection to inventors by awarding patents on a 'first to invent' basis rather than the more recently adopted 'first to file' standard," Congressman Massie continued. "A return to a 'first to invent' patent protection system ensures that inventors and the investors who back them can be confident that their innovative work and ideas will be safeguarded. Patents should protect those who innovate, not those who win the race to the patent office."

In addition to restoring patent protections to a "first to invent" standard, RALIA contains other important reforms to the patent system. Notably, RALIA affirms that a patent secures private property rights, allows inventors to get injunctions again against intellectual property thieves, restores inventors' rights to defend their inventions in court by abolishing the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, and ends the automatic publication of patent applications unless a patent is granted.

Congressman Massie's RALIA legislation is supported by organizations including AMAC Action, American Policy Center, Americans for Limited Government, Center for American Principles, Conservatives for Property Rights, Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, IEEE-USA, Less Government, Let Freedom Ring, 60 Plus Association, the Small Business Technology Council, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Tea Party Patriots Action, The Committee for Justice, Tradition Family Property Inc., U.S. Business & Industry Council, US Inventor, and Veterans Intellectual Property.

In offering their endorsement of the bill, the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund wrote, "a wide range of reforms, such as those contained in the Restoring America's Leadership in Innovation Act, are required if the U.S. patent system is to secure private property rights, promote progress of science and useful arts, and ensure that America remains the world's leader in innovation."

The original cosponsors of RALIA are bipartisan and include Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX), Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA), Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA), Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), Rep. Bill Posey (R-FL), Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), and Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL).

Submission + - US Air Force Secretary flies A.I. controlled Lockheed fighter jet (the-sun.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: The potential for autonomous air-to-air combat has been imaginable for decades, but the reality has remained a distant dream up until now. In 2023, the X-62A broke one of the most significant barriers in combat aviation. This is a transformational moment, all made possible by breakthrough accomplishments of the ACE team.

Submission + - Big data reveals true climate impact of air travel (norwegianscitechnews.com)

Submitted by pitch2cv
pitch2cv writes: When countries signed the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change treaty (UNFCCC), high-income countries were required to report their aviation-related emissions. But 155 middle and lower income countries, including China and India, were not required to report these emissions.

Now, big data reveals true climate impact of worldwide air travel. At 911 million tons, the total emissions from aviation are 50 per cent higher than the 604 million tons reported to the United Nations for that year.

Submission + - Design

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: I've always been fascinated by minimalist designs, especially when redoing my photography portfolio online. I wanted to learn how to effectively use space to create a clean layout. I found a perfect guide in the article about white space vs negative space. The blog detailed how strategic use of negative space can enhance website usability and aesthetics. It provided practical tips on balancing elements to make the content stand out without overwhelming the viewer. I loved how this article made it clear that less can indeed be more, offering a deeper understanding of how to apply negative space in my own projects.

Submission + - Extremist Militias Are Coordinating in More Than 100 Facebook Groups (wired.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: “Join your localMilitia or III% Patriot Group,” a post urged the more than 650 members of a Facebook group called the Free American Army. Accompanied by the logo for the Three Percenters militia network and an image of a man in tactical gear holding a long rifle, the post continues: “Now more than ever. Support the American militia page.” Other content and messaging in the group is similar. And despite the fact that Facebook bans paramilitary organizing and deemed the Three Percenters an “armed militia group" on its 2021Dangerous Individuals and Organizations List, the post and group remained up until WIRED contacted Meta for comment about its existence.

Free American Army is just one of around 200 similar Facebook groups and profiles, most of which are still live, that anti-government and far-right extremists are using to coordinate local militia activity around the country. After lying low for several years in the aftermath of the US Capitol riot on January 6, militia extremists have been quietly reorganizing, ramping up recruitment and rhetoric on Facebook—with apparently little concern that Meta will enforce its ban against them, according to new research by the Tech Transparency Project, shared exclusively with WIRED.

Individuals across the US with long-standing ties to militia groups are creating networks of Facebook pages, urging others to recruit “active patriots” and attend meetups, and openly associating themselves with known militia-related sub-ideologies like that of the anti-government Three Percenter movement. They’re also advertising combat training and telling their followers to be “prepared” for whatever lies ahead. These groups are trying to facilitate local organizing, state by state and county by county. Their goals are vague, but many of their posts convey a general sense of urgency about the need to prepare for “war” or to “stand up” against many supposed enemies, including drag queens, immigrants, pro-Palestine college students, communists—and the US government. These groups are also rebuilding at a moment when anti-government rhetoric has continued to surge in mainstream political discourse ahead of a contentious, high-stakes presidential election. And by doing all of this on Facebook, they’re hoping to reach a broader pool of prospective recruits than they would on a comparatively fringe platform like Telegram.

Submission + - Methane Emissions From Gas Flaring Being Hidden From Satellite Monitors (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Oil and gas equipment intended to cut methane emissions is preventing scientists from accurately detecting greenhouse gases and pollutants, a satellite image investigation has revealed. Energy companies operating in countries such as the US, UK, Germany and Norway appear to have installed technology that could stop researchers from identifying methane, carbon dioxide emissions and pollutants at industrial facilities involved in the disposal of unprofitable natural gas, known in the industry as flaring. Flares are used by fossil fuel companies when capturing the natural gas would cost more than they can make by selling it. They release carbon dioxide and toxic pollutants when they burn as well as cancer-causing chemicals. Despite the health risks, regulators sometimes prefer flaring to releasing natural gas – which is 90% methane – directly into the atmosphere, known as “venting”.

The World Bank, alongside the EU and other regulators, have been using satellites for years to find and document gas flares, asking energy companies to find ways of capturing the gas instead of burning or venting it. The bank set up the Zero Routine Flaring 2030 initiative at the Paris climate conference to eradicate unnecessary flaring, and its latest report stated that flaring decreased by 3% globally from 2021 to 2022. But since the initiative, “enclosed combustors” have begun appearing in the same countries that promised to end flaring. Experts say enclosed combustors are functionally the same as flares, except the flame is hidden. Tim Doty, a former regulator at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said: “Enclosed combustors are basically a flare with an internal flare tip that you don’t see. Enclosed flaring is still flaring. It’s just different infrastructure that they’re allowing.

“Enclosed flaring is, in truth, probably less efficient than a typical flare. It’s better than venting, but going from a flare to an enclosed flare or a vapour combustor is not an improvement in reducing emissions.” The only method of detecting flaring globally is by using satellite-mounted tools called Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite of detectors (VIIRS), which find flares by comparing heat signatures with bright spots of light visible from space. But when researchers tried to replicate the database, they saw that the satellites were not picking up the enclosed flares. Without the satellite data, countries were forced to rely mostly on self-disclosed reporting from oil and gas companies, researchers said. Environmentalists fear the research community’s ability to understand pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector could be jeopardised.

Submission + - Humans Now Share the Web Equally With Bots, Report Warns (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Humans now share the web equally with bots, according to a major new report – as some fear that the internet is dying. In recent months, the so-called “dead internet theory” has gained new popularity. It suggests that much of the content online is in fact automatically generated, and that the number of humans on the web is dwindling in comparison with bot accounts. Now a new report from cyber security company Imperva suggests that it is increasingly becoming true. Nearly half, 49.6 per cent, of all internet traffic came from bots last year, its “Bad Bot Report” indicates. That is up 2 percent in comparison with last year, and is the highest number ever seen since the report began in 2013. In some countries, the picture is worse. In Ireland, 71 per cent of internet traffic is automated, it said.

Some of that rise is the result of the adoption of generative artificial intelligence and large language models. Companies that build those systems use bots scrape the internet and gather data that can then be used to train them. Some of those bots are becoming increasingly sophisticated, Imperva warned. More and more of them come from residential internet connections, which makes them look more legitimate. “Automated bots will soon surpass the proportion of internet traffic coming from humans, changing the way that organizations approach building and protecting their websites and applications,” said Nanhi Singh, general manager for application security at Imperva. “As more AI-enabled tools are introduced, bots will become omnipresent.”

Submission + - Company Offers $206M in Secured Notes Backed by IPv4 Addresses (circleid.com)

Submitted by penciling_in
penciling_in writes: Cogent (CCOI) recently announced that it was offering secured notes for $206M. The unusual part is what it’s using as security: some of its IPv4 addresses and the leases on those IPv4 addresses.

The notes are expected to be repaid in five years. It’s important that Cogent is creating a special-purpose, bankruptcy-remote subsidiary for this security. The registry in charge of IPv4 records in North America is ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, and while they allow transfers, they are only allowed if the recipient can demonstrate need, or if the recipient owns the entire organization or network that holds the addresses.

Submission + - AI Engineers Report Burnout, Rushed Rollouts As 'Rat Race' To Stay Competitive (cnbc.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Late last year, an artificial intelligence engineer at Amazon was wrapping up the work week and getting ready to spend time with some friends visiting from out of town. Then, a Slack message popped up. He suddenly had a deadline to deliver a project by 6 a.m. on Monday. There went the weekend. The AI engineer bailed on his friends, who had traveled from the East Coast to the Seattle area. Instead, he worked day and night to finish the job. But it was all for nothing. The project was ultimately “deprioritized,” the engineer told CNBC. He said it was a familiar result. AI specialists, he said, commonly sprint to build new features that are often suddenly shelved in favor of a hectic pivot to another AI project.

The engineer, who requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation, said he had to write thousands of lines of code for new AI features in an environment with zero testing for mistakes. Since code can break if the required tests are postponed, the Amazon engineer recalled periods when team members would have to call one another in the middle of the night to fix aspects of the AI feature’s software. AI workers at other Big Tech companies, including Google and Microsoft, told CNBC about the pressure they are similarly under to roll out tools at breakneck speeds due to the internal fear of falling behind the competition in a technology that, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, is having its “iPhone moment.”

Submission + - Automated Emergency Braking mandated by 2029 (caranddriver.com) 2

Submitted by sinij
sinij writes:

However, automated emergency braking systems will be a federally mandated standard . . . by 2029. Following the finalization of a new Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is announcing the new safety standard for all passenger cars and light trucks by September 2029.

This technology requires forward-facing camera, which makes both the price and cost of maintenance and repair more expensive. In my view, it does not pass cost vs. benefit analysis.

Submission + - Spyware: new technique to find spyware like Pegasus and Predator on iOS devices (numbersstation.app)

Submitted by mellowinottawa
mellowinottawa writes: Existing security apps on iOS are unable to detect modern spyware since all iOS apps operate within an "app sandbox", a restricted space within iOS that limits an app to accessing only its own data and specific limited data a user has provided permission to access. Due to these restrictions, no iOS apps, including security focussed ones, are able to directly access the data necessary to perform an analysis of the operating system for spyware or malware. While some apps market themselves as antivirus solutions, unlike real antivirus solutions that run on Windows or macOS, they are not actually able to perform any traditional antivirus functions on iOS and these apps add little, if any, security value. This is in contrast to Android, where some security functionality is possible.

Am I Secure? for iOS is a new app that bypasses the limitations of the app sandbox by having users of the app share iOS system diagnostic data with the app so access can be obtained. Without access to this data, no app can perform a proper analysis for spyware. Via the app, this data is then uploaded to the developer's servers where it is analyzed and the results are reported back to the user within the app and, if spyware is found, to the email address tied to their account. No private user data such as messages, passwords or photos are contained within the system diagnostic data so user privacy is preserved.

Beyond detecting previously discovered and publicly known Indicators of Compromise (IoCs), the automated AI/ML augmented analysis looks for any anomalies in the submitted data versus what is expected from a "known good" iOS device as well as comparing against a baseline created from other submissions from across the user base. Any anomalies are then manually analyzed to detect new previously unknown IoCs.

Link to app in App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6...

Submission + - An Open Database Leaked Submissions to Utah's Bathroom Bill Snitch Form (404media.co) 1

Submitted by samleecole
samleecole writes: Utah set up an online form for people to accuse other citizens and public establishments of violating the state’s recently-enacted transphobic “bathroom bill.” The submission form is being flooded with memes and troll comments, and the auditor also left the submissions database open to the public—without a password, authentication, or any other protections that would keep anyone from viewing other people’s submissions.

After 404 Media contacted the auditor's office for comment, they changed the permissions to require authentication.

The form link has been posted to Twitter, and people have repeatedly posted screenshots of themselves uploading memes. In the database, those included photos of Barry Wood, characters from Bee Movie, and Shutterstock images of bull testicles.

Twitter users have also found a link to the database that the form is connected to, which is hosted on a public Google cloud console bucket that as of Thursday, required no authentication to view. I tested the form, and found that my submission—a photo of the yelling table cat meme—appeared instantly in the Google Console bucket. The submission form offers anonymity with the option for the state auditor to contact submitters for more details. I haven’t seen names and contact information shared in the database, but comments and image attachments were easily viewable.

Submission + - German police bust Europe's 'largest' scam call center (dw.com)

Submitted by Plumpaquatsch
Plumpaquatsch writes: Investigators teamed up with colleagues from the Balkans and Lebanon in raids set up by months of intense surveillance. Authorities say the operation thwarted over €10 million in damages and led to 21 arrests.

Dubbed "Operation Pandora," the sting began in Germany in December 2023, after a suspicious bank teller contacted police when a 76-year-old customer from Freiburg sought to hurriedly withdraw €120,000 ($128,232) from her savings account to hand over to a fake police officer.

When real police investigators tracked the internet-based telephone number that had been used to lure the woman, they discovered a veritable goldmine.

Rather than shutting down the number, authorities instead went on the offensive, setting up their own call center in which hundreds of officers from Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Berlin and Saxony worked around the clock monitoring some 1.3 million calls in real time, as the number from the initial scam was tied to an entire network of fraud call centers.

Police were able to trace and record data from the calls, as well as warn potential victims of what was in fact happening, in turn winning valuable time to put together the April 18 sting.

Police say their efforts allowed them to thwart some €10 million in damages in roughly 6,000 cases of attempted fraud.

Submission + - Hyundai Spending Nearly $1 Billion To Keep Self-Driving Startup 'Motional' Alive (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hyundai has agreed to spend nearly $1 billion on Motional, an investment that will give the automaker a majority stake while providing the self-driving startup with the necessary capital to keep operating. The Korean automaker invested $475 million directly into Motional as part of a broader deal that includes buying out joint venture partner Aptiv. As part of the deal, Hyundai will spend another $448 million to buy 11% of Aptiv’s common equity interest in Motional, according to information revealed Thursday in Aptiv’s first-quarter earnings report.

Aptiv also shared that it expects to reduce its common equity interest in Motional from 50% as of March 31 to about 15%, leaving Hyundai with the remaining 85% control. Aptiv Chairman and CEO Kevin Clark flagged in January that the company would reduce its ownership interest in Motional. The company said at the time that it would stop allocating capital towards Motional due to the high cost of commercializing a robotaxi business and the long road ahead to profits. Aptiv on Thursday reduced its full-year net sales forecast for 2024 to be between $20.85 billion and $21.45 billion, down from between $21.3 billion to $21.9 billion. Motional confirmed the new funding round and increased stake from Hyundai, but didn’t confirm Aptiv’s numbers. Hyundai, however, said the amounts listed in Aptiv’s earnings report were accurate.

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