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Submission + - LabView App Abandons the Mac After Four Decades (appleinsider.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Having been created on a Mac in the 1980s, LabView has now announced that its latest macOS update will be the final release for the platform. LabView is a visual programming language tool that lets users connect virtual measurement equipment together to input and process data. AppleInsider staffers have seen it used across a variety of industries and applications to help design a complex monitoring system, or automate a test sequence.

It's been 40 years since Dr James Truchard and Jeff Kodosky began work on it and founded their firm, National Instruments. The first release of the software was in October 1986 where it was a Mac exclusive. In a 2019 interview, Jeff Kodosky said this was because "it was the only computer that had a 32-bit operating system, and it had the graphics we needed." Now National Instruments has told all current users that they have released an updated Mac version — but it will be the last.

National Instruments says it will cease selling licences for the Mac version in March 2024, and will also stop support. LabView has also been sold as a subscription and National Instruments says it will switch users to a "perpetual licence for your continued use," though seemingly only if specifically requested. As yet, there have been few reactions on the NI.com forums. However, one post says "This came as a shocker to us as the roadmap still indicates support."

Submission + - People Send 20 Billion Pounds of 'Invisible' E-Waste To Landfills Each Year (popsci.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One e-toy for every person on Earth—that’s the staggering amount of electric trains, drones, talking dolls, R/C cars, and other children’s gadgets tossed into landfills every year. Some of what most consumers consider to be e-waste—like electronics such as computers, smartphones, TVs, and speaker systems—are usual suspects. Others, like power tools, vapes, LED accessories, USB cables, anything involving rechargeable lithium batteries and countless other similar, “nontraditional” e-waste materials, are less obviously in need of special disposal. In all, people across the world throw out roughly 9 billion kilograms (19.8 billion pounds) of e-waste commonly not recognized as such by consumers.

This “invisible e-waste” is the focal point of the sixth annual International E-Waste Day on October 14, organized by Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Forum. In anticipation of the event, the organization recently commissioned the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) to delve into just how much unconventional e-waste is discarded every year—and global population numbers are just some of the ways to visualize the issue.

According to UNITAR’s findings, for example, the total weight of all e-cig vapes thrown away every year roughly equals 6 Eiffel Towers. Meanwhile, the total weight of all invisible e-waste tallies up to “almost half a million 40 [metric ton] trucks,” enough to create a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam stretching approximately 3,504 miles–the distance between Rome and Nairobi. From a purely economic standpoint, nearly $10 billion in essential raw materials is literally thrown into the garbage every year.

Submission + - Thiel-backed startup aims to build 'hundreds' of prefab chip fabs (fastcompany.com)

Submitted by tedlistens
tedlistens writes: Via Fast Company:

To meet the world’s growing hunger for chips, a startup wants to upend the costly semiconductor fabrication plant with a nimbler, cheaper idea, one they believe can faster spread the manufacturing of the chips inside nearly everything we use: an AI-enabled chip factory that can be assembled and expanded modularly with prefab pieces, like high-tech Lego bricks.”

“We’re democratizing the ownership of semiconductor fabs,” says Matthew Putman... the founder and CEO of Nanotronics, a New York City-based industrial AI company that deploys advanced optical solutions for detecting defects in manufacturing procedures. Its new system, called Cubefabs, combines its modular inspection tools and other equipment with AI, allowing the proposed chip factories to monitor themselves and adapt accordingly—part of what Putman calls an “autonomous factory.” The bulk of the facility can be preassembled, flat-packed and put in shipping containers so that the facilities can be built “in 80% of the world,” says Putman.

Eventually, the company envisions hundreds of the flower-shaped fabs around the world, starting with a prototype in New York or Kuwait that it hopes to start building by the end of the year...

The world’s chip dependence has never been in sharper relief, with a spike in fab construction in the U.S. alone to the tune of hundreds of billions—a boost from the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and similar incentives around the globe, not to mention the growing geopolitical anxieties over the most advanced chips. (New chip restrictions on China by the Biden administration have raised the temperature of a global chip war, frustrating, among others, American chip makers.) Despite a recent deceleration in semiconductor demand, the global hunger for chips is expected to double in size by 2030. Meanwhile, the costs of fabricating them are skyrocketing. Moore’s law says that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every two years; Rock’s law says that the cost of a chip fabrication plant doubles every four.

Submission + - Glass is the Future of Storage (microsoft.com) 1

Submitted by Kirschey
Kirschey writes: Microsoft is working on storing data in glass for their data centers part of their Project Silica.

Project Silica aims to break this cycle. Developed under the aegis of Microsoft Research, it can store massive amounts of data in glass plates roughly the size of a drink coaster and preserve the data for thousands of years. Richard Black, Research Director, Project Silica, adds, “This technology allows us to write data knowing it will remain unchanged and secure, which is a significant step forward in sustainable data storage.

Submission + - UK Opposition Leader Targeted By AI-Generated Fake Audio Smear (therecord.media)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: An audio clip posted to social media on Sunday, purporting to show Britain’s opposition leader Keir Starmer verbally abusing his staff, has been debunked as being AI-generated by private-sector and British government analysis. The audio of Keir Starmer was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by a pseudonymous account on Sunday morning, the opening day of the Labour Party conference in Liverpool. The account asserted that the clip, which has now been viewed more than 1.4 million times, was genuine, and that its authenticity had been corroborated by a sound engineer.

Ben Colman, the co-founder and CEO of Reality Defender — a deepfake detection business — disputed this assessment when contacted by Recorded Future News: “We found the audio to be 75% likely manipulated based on a copy of a copy that's been going around (a transcoding). As we don't have the ground truth, we give a probability score (in this case 75%) and never a definitive score (‘this is fake’ or ‘this is real’), leaning much more towards ‘this is likely manipulated’ than not," said Colman. "It is also our opinion that the creator of this file added background noise to attempt evasion of detection, but our system accounts for this as well,” he said.

Submission + - Samsung, Hynix Get Indefinite Waiver on US Chip Gear Supplies to China (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix will be allowed to supply U.S. chip equipment to their China factories indefinitely without separate U.S. approvals, South Korea's presidential office and the companies said on Monday. This approval comes at the heel of Huawei releasing the Mate 60 Pro smartphone with locally manufactured new 5G Kirin 9000s processor, as a slap on the face of the US, on the same day US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo arriving in China for official visit. Similar to what the Great Britain had done to the U.S. in the 19th century, the U.S. placed Huawei and a long list of Chinese hi-tech companies under heavy sanctions in an attempt to stop China's technology progress. "Uncertainties about South Korean semiconductor firms' operations and investments in China have been greatly eased; they will be able to calmly seek long-term global management strategies," said Choi Sang-mok, senior presidential secretary for economic affairs.

Submission + - Vermont Utility Plans to End Outages by Giving Customers Batteries (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Many electric utilities are putting up lots of new power lines as they rely more on renewable energy and try to make grids more resilient in bad weather. But a Vermont utility is proposing a very different approach: It wants to install batteries at most homes to make sure its customers never go without electricity. The company, Green Mountain Power, proposed buying batteries, burying power lines and strengthening overhead cables in a filing with state regulators on Monday. It said its plan would be cheaper than building a lot of new lines and power plants. The plan is a big departure from how U.S. utilities normally do business. Most of them make money by building and operating power lines that deliver electricity from natural gas power plants or wind and solar farms to homes and businesses. Green Mountain — a relatively small utility serving 270,000 homes and businesses — would still use that infrastructure but build less of it by investing in television-size batteries that homeowners usually buy on their own. “Call us the un-utility,” Mari McClure, Green Mountain’s chief executive, said in an interview before the company’s filing. “We’re completely flipping the model, decentralizing it.”

Green Mountain’s plan builds on a program it has run since 2015 to lease Tesla home batteries to customers. Its filing asks the Vermont Public Utility Commission to authorize it to initially spend $280 million to strengthen its grid and buy batteries, which will come from various manufacturers. The company expects to invest an estimated $1.5 billion over the next seven years — money that it would recoup through electricity rates. The utility said the investment was justified by the growing sum it had to spend on storm recovery and to trim and remove trees around its power lines. The utility said it would continue offering battery leases to customers who want them sooner. It will take until 2030 for the company to install batteries at most homes under its new plan if regulators approve it. Green Mountain says its goal to do away with power outages will be realized by that year, meaning customers would always have enough electricity to use lights, refrigerators and other essentials. Green Mountain would control the batteries, allowing it to program them to soak up energy when wind turbines and solar panels were producing a lot of it. Then, when demand peaked on a hot summer day, say, the batteries could release electricity. Under the proposal, the company would initially focus on delivering batteries to its most vulnerable customers, putting some power lines underground and installing stronger cables to prevent falling trees from causing outages.

Submission + - Hacktivism Erupts In Response To Hamas-Israel War (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Several groups of hacktivists have targeted Israeli websites with floods of malicious traffic following a surprise land, sea and air attack launched against Israel by militant group Hamas on Saturday, which prompted Israel to declare war and retaliate. Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported Monday that since Saturday morning its website was down “due to a series of cyberattacks initiated against us.” At the time of writing, the paper’s website still appeared down.

Rob Joyce, director of cybersecurity at the National Security Agency, reportedly said at a conference on Monday that there have been denial of service (DDoS) attacks and defacements of websites, without attributing the cyberattacks to particular groups. “But we’re not yet seeing real [nation] state malicious actors,” Joyce reportedly said. [...] Joyce’s remarks appear to confirm findings of security researcher Will Thomas, who told TechCrunch that he has seen more than 60 websites taken down with DDoS attacks, and more than five websites that were defaced as of Monday.

It is common for hacktivist groups to launch cyberattacks during armed conflict, similar to what happened in Ukraine. These hackers are often not affiliated with any governments but rather a decentralized group of politically motivated hackers. Their activities can disrupt websites and services, but are far more limited compared to the activities of nation-state hacking groups. Researchers and government agencies like the NSA say they have only seen activity by hacktivists so far in this Hamas-Israel conflict.

Submission + - Musicians upset venues taking t-shirt money (marketwatch.com)

Submitted by quonset
quonset writes: Whenever the subject of muscians making money comes up, inevitably it is said musicians make their money by doing shows and selling merchandise, not through record deals or streaming services. That may no longer be enough to keep some going.

In her first five years in the industry, however, Tomberlin said she doesn’t believe she was able to turn an annual profit. As she prepared to go on tour as an opening act for Ray LaMontagne this year, she took steps to cut costs, such as choosing to bring along only one support person instead of a full band.

So when the Filene Center near Washington, D.C., informed her that it was cutting deeply into her main way of making a profit, she took a stand. After being told she would have to hand over more than 40% of the money she collected from selling T-shirts and other items, Tomberlin refused to sell her merchandise at the venue and publicly spoke about a practice she calls robbery — venues taking cuts from bands’ merchandise sales.

“You make a budget and then you see the possibility of having your funds drained and you don’t know what you’re going to sell each night, so it’s just a real crapshoot,” Tomberlin said. “We can bank on what my guarantee is that night, but the merch is what really is covering your costs and hopefully helping you make, like, an actual profit.”

Other musicians are also speaking out about the practice, and their complaints seem to be having an effect. Industry giant Live Nation Entertainment Inc. announced recently that it would stop collecting merch fees at nearly 80 of the smaller clubs it owns and operates and provide all bands that play at those venues with an additional $1,500 in gas cards and cash.

Musicians who spoke with MarketWatch remain unsatisfied, however. Because of the way the announcement is phrased, many think merch fees at Live Nation clubs are only being paused until the end of the year. The musicians said they also wonder about the roughly 250 other Live Nation concert facilities, as well as the hundreds of venues owned by other companies.

A Live Nation spokesperson told MarketWatch the change is “open-ended.”

Submission + - Florida Man Could Get 10 Years for Shooting Down a Police Drone (thetruthaboutguns.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: As deputies used a $29,000 drone in the outdoor search, gunfire from a neighboring residential property caused it to crash into a metal roof and catch fire, prosecutors said. Deputies went to the property and found Goney, who said he shot down the drone with a .22-caliber rifle because it had been “harassing” him, investigators said.

A record check showed that Goney had 29 Florida felony convictions, including aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest with violence, illegal drug possession, burglary, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Submission + - For the First Time, Research Reveals Crows Use Statistical Logic (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: [R]esearchers from the University of Tubingen found for the first time that crows can perform statistical reasoning. These results can help scientists better understand the evolution of intelligence (and may give us a better appreciation of what’s going on in our backyard). [...] Dr. Melissa Johnston, a Humboldt Fellow at the University of Tübingen, certainly appreciated the specialness of these creatures, as she and her colleagues have been studying these animals for several years. “In our lab, it has been shown that crows have sophisticated numerical competence, demonstrate abstract thinking, and show careful consideration during decision-making,” she said. In her most recent experiment, Johnston and her team pushed these abilities to a new extreme, testing statistical reasoning.

To do this, Johnston and her team began by training two crows to peck at various images on touchscreens to earn food treats. From this simple routine of peck-then-treat, the researchers significantly raised the stakes. “We introduce the concept of probabilities, such as that not every peck to an image will result in a reward,” Johnston elaborated. “This is where the crows learn the unique pairings between the image on the screen and the likelihood of obtaining a reward.” The crows quickly learned to associate each of the images with a different reward probability. In the experiment, the two crows had to choose between two of these images, each corresponding to a different reward probability. “Crows were tasked with learning rather abstract quantities (i.e., not whole numbers), associating them with abstract symbols, and then applying that combination of information in a reward maximizing way,” Johnston said. Over 10 days of training and 5,000 trials, the researchers found that the two crows continued to pick the higher probability of reward, showing their ability to use statistical inference.

Pushing the crows even further, Johnston and her team waited a whole month before testing the crows again. Even after a month without training, the crows remembered the reward probabilities and could pick the highest number every time. Johnston and her team were excited that the crows could apply statistical reasoning in almost any setting to ensure their reward. "Working with the birds every day is very rewarding! They are very responsive animals, so I enjoy spending time with them,” added Johnston.

Submission + - Wind Power Economics costs aren't declining (ref.org.uk) 1

Submitted by Stonefish
Stonefish writes: It is often quoted that the cost of wind power has been declining and while business should be booming, in 2022 all major wind farm manufacturers lost money. https://watt-logic.com/2023/06...
Gordon Hughes, a former Professor of Economics at the University of Edinburgh, and senior adviser on energy and environmental policy at the World Bank published Wind Power Economics, Rhetoric and Reality for the Renewable Energy Foundation https://www.ref.org.uk/publica.... This shines a light on the fundamental economics of these projects and the results sit in stark contrast to the conventionally accepted wisdom. The data has been pulled from publicly available sources where wind power companies must publish their results to participate in the UK Government's rebates program.
The summary is that Wind farm costs are increasing and that companies appear to be significantly underbidding on contracts, hoping that they can renegotiate subsidies. This process has already begun with companies claiming price increases due to scarcity and inflation even though their returns are indexed to inflation and it was clear that turbine manufacturers can't continue to manufacture at a loss.
I'm hoping that this isn't true however I'm struggling to refute this analysis, sources such as Lazard focus on LCoE cost not the overall economics of the project.
I was hoping that Slashdot might be able to provide some form of rebuttal

Submission + - Tesla Reinvents Carmaking With Quiet Breakthrough (reuters.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tesla has combined a series of innovations to make a technological breakthrough that could transform the way it makes electric vehicles and help Elon Musk achieve his aim of halving production costs, five people familiar with the move said. The company pioneered the use of huge presses with 6,000 to 9,000 tons of clamping pressure to mold the front and rear structures of its Model Y in a "gigacasting" process that slashed production costs and left rivals scrambling to catch up. In a bid to extend its lead, Tesla is closing in on an innovation that would allow it to die cast nearly all the complex underbody of an EV in one piece, rather than about 400 parts in a conventional car, the people said. The know-how is core to Tesla's "unboxed" manufacturing strategy unveiled by Chief Executive Musk in March, a linchpin of his plan to churn out tens of millions of cheaper EVs in the coming decade, and still make a profit, the sources said. While Tesla has said its unboxed model involves producing large sub-assemblies of a car at the same time and then snapping them together, the size and make-up of the modular blocks is still the subject of speculation. Two of the sources said Tesla's previously unreported new design and manufacturing techniques meant the company could develop a car from the ground up in 18 to 24 months, while most rivals can currently take anywhere from three to four years.

The five people said a single large frame — combining the front and rear sections with the middle underbody where the battery is housed — could be used in Tesla's small EV which it aims to launch with a price tag of $25,000 by the middle of the decade. Tesla was expected to make a decision on whether to die cast the platform in one piece as soon as this month, three of the sources said, though even if they do press ahead the end product could change during the design validation process. The breakthrough Tesla has made centres on the how the giant molds for such a large part are designed and tested for mass production, and how casts can incorporate hollow subframes with internal ribs to cut weight and boost crashworthiness.

Submission + - More Countries Are Concerned About iPhone 12's Radiation Levels (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Belgium said on Thursday it would review potential health risks linked to Apple's iPhone 12, raising the prospect that more European countries might ban the model after France ordered a halt to sales due to breaches of radiation exposure limits. However, there seemed to be no immediate prospect of an EU-wide ban as the European Commission said it would wait for feedback from other EU countries before deciding on any action. European Union member states, which were notified by the French regulator on Wednesday, have three months to provide comments. Some, such as Italy, said they would take no steps for now.

Mathieu Michel, Belgium's state secretary for digitalization told Reuters that the Belgian regulator was looking into the matter after the French moves. "We immediately asked the IBPT (Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications) for confirmation, or at least an analysis, and this is currently under way," he said. Michel also asked the regulator to review all Apple smartphones, and devices made by others, at a later stage. However, he stressed that European standards were extremely cautious and there were no immediate safety concerns. "So that's why today it's obviously a limit which is being crossed (according to the French regulator) and that's not acceptable, but in terms of health and safety, I don't think there's any reason to think that we're all going to turn into little green men."

The iPhone 12 had passed the radiation test conducted by the French agency in 2021. Germany's network regulator BNetzA reiterated that the work in France could act as a guide for Europe as a whole and that it would examine the issue for the German market if the process in France had progressed sufficiently. The Dutch digital watchdog also said it was looking into the matter and would ask the U.S. firm for an explanation, while stressing there was "no acute safety risk." Portugal's telecommunications regulator ANACOM said it was monitoring and analyzing developments in coordination with France, and expected one of the two likely outcomes: Apple correcting the situation or, failing that, Brussels telling EU member states "to adopt proportional measures." Britain, where the iPhone 12 met radiation safety standards when it was released, has not announced any plans in the wake of France's decision.

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