Submission + - Commodore 64 Ultimate: BASIC Beige (commodore.net) 2
alternative_right writes: The first official Commodore 64 in over 30 years is here — a faithful recreation of the original motherboard on FPGA hardware.
Submission + - Birth of a Solar System Witnessed in Spectacular Scientific First (sciencealert.com)
alternative_right writes: Around a Sun-like star just 1,300 light-years away, a family of planets has been seen in its earliest moments of conception.
Astronomers analyzed the infrared flow of dust and detritus left over from the formation of a baby star called HOPS-315, finding tiny concentrations of hot minerals that will eventually form planetesimals – the 'seeds' around which new planets will grow.
Astronomers analyzed the infrared flow of dust and detritus left over from the formation of a baby star called HOPS-315, finding tiny concentrations of hot minerals that will eventually form planetesimals – the 'seeds' around which new planets will grow.
Submission + - Healthy babies born in Britain after scientists used DNA from three people to av (phys.org)
alternative_right writes: Eight healthy babies were born in Britain with the help of an experimental technique that uses DNA from three people to help mothers avoid passing devastating rare diseases to their children, researchers reported Wednesday.
Submission + - Delta may eliminate set prices. AI will determine how much you're willing to pay (fortune.com)
schwit1 writes: Delta moves toward eliminating set prices in favor of AI that determines how much you personally will pay for a ticket
Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”
https://x.com/OwenGregorian/st...
Delta has a long-term strategy to boost its profitability by moving away from set fares and toward individualized pricing using AI. The pilot program, which uses AI for 3% of fares, has so far been “amazingly favorable,” the airline said. Privacy advocates fear this will lead to price-gouging, with one consumer advocate comparing the tactic to “hacking our brains.”
https://x.com/OwenGregorian/st...
Comment Re:If you're traveling (Score 4, Insightful) 40
My American friends who live in Spain came to the US purposefully leaving behind their phones. That in itself raised some eyebrows at the airport immigration control booth %^)
They did bring their SIM cards, and had pre-ordered an Android phone drop-shipped to an Amazon box here in Phoenix (AZ), and had hoped to just pop in the SIM and everything would work. But no - even GMail wasn't working right. Ended up taking days to sort it out, and had to overnight one of the SIMs back to Spain for a neighbor to take to the phone store and help sort out the issue. Apparently, once the carrier was convinced that there was no fraud going on, then they were able to get the phone running.
Sounds like a pain, but it's easier for me to carry my regular camera across the border and use a burner.
Comment Re:Smoke screen - really about telemarketing (Score 1) 78
What if some clever business owner can recognize the incoming AI call, and answer with an interesting prompt? Could the AI eat itself?
Submission + - Chinese-made iPhones could be banned in US over theft of trade secrets (appleinsider.com)
schwit1 writes:
Back in 2023, both Samsung Display and China's BOE were filing multiple suits against one another, each concerning alleged theft of technologies. As part of this, Samsung Display also filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), and that regulator has now made a preliminary ruling.
According to ET News, the ITC has sided with Samsung over the allegation that BOE has violated trade secrets concerning the manufacture of OLED screens. Specifically, the ruling says that Samsung Display "has proven by a preponderance of evidence" that BOE has been making OLED panels through "misappropriation of trade secrets."
The ruling is preliminary, however reportedly the ITC rarely overturns its initial findings in its final judgement. That final judgement is currently expected to be issued in November 2025, when as US President, Trump will have two months to decide whether the exercise any recommended ban.
If the ITC follows its preliminary recommendations, and those are approved, then the ban would cover the import of products, such as certain iPhones, which use BOE OLED panels.
The lesson is an old one: Don't trust China; China is asshoe.
Submission + - A transatlantic communications cable does double duty (phys.org) 1
alternative_right writes: Monitoring changes in water temperature and pressure at the seafloor can improve understanding of ocean circulation, climate, and natural hazards such as tsunamis. In recent years, scientists have begun gathering submarine measurements via an existing infrastructure network that spans millions of kilometers around the planet: the undersea fiber-optic telecommunications cables that provide us with amenities like Internet and phone service.
Submission + - Two monster black holes just collided — it's so massive, it shouldn't exis (sciencedaily.com)
alternative_right writes: Two colossal black holes—among the most massive ever seen—collided in deep space, creating gravitational waves that rippled across the cosmos and shook the foundations of astrophysical theory. Detected by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observatories, this record-breaking merger has stunned scientists not only because of its size, but also due to the black holes’ extreme spins, challenging our current understanding of how such behemoths form.
Submission + - The World's First Nuclear Explosion Created a Rare Form of Matter (sciencealert.com)
alternative_right writes: Most crystals, from the humble table salt to the toughest diamonds, obey the same rule: their atoms are arranged in a lattice structure that repeats in three-dimensional space. Quasicrystals break this rule – the pattern in which their atoms are arranged does not repeat.
When the concept first emerged in the scientific world in 1984, this was thought to be impossible: crystals were either ordered or disordered, with no in-between. Then they were actually found, both created in laboratory settings and in the wild – deep inside meteorites, forged by thermodynamic shock from events like a hypervelocity impact.
When the concept first emerged in the scientific world in 1984, this was thought to be impossible: crystals were either ordered or disordered, with no in-between. Then they were actually found, both created in laboratory settings and in the wild – deep inside meteorites, forged by thermodynamic shock from events like a hypervelocity impact.
Comment Re:Anyone is surprised about this? (Score 1) 63
"Pittsburg"? You must be from California. %^)
Comment Re:Remote exploit? (Score 2) 63
If it is a passive signal, it seems like the only thing preventing that is a lack of transmit power, at least to within the limits of the curvature of the earth (or, depending on frequency, maybe not even beyond that limit).
It's 220 MHz. Not super fancy. 5-15 mile (7-25 km) range.
And it's hard to overestimate the potential for financial loss if someone remotely cracked into a SpaceX satellite and manipulated its SDR to send such a signal from space.
No, that ain't gonna happen. You'd need a huge amount of signal (kilowatts for many minutes?) delivered from low-earth orbit to overcome a fairly high-power signal generated only a few miles/km away.
Even if the attack requires two-way communication, the attacker still wouldn't need to be close to the train; the signal generator would. Nothing prevents someone from maliciously dangling a battery-powered or solar-powered, cellular-capable pod off the edge of a highway bridge that crosses a railroad track and being half a continent away when actually triggering it.
Give me a break. An evil-doer would have to dangle a lot of battery-operated jammers everywhere along the line, and then all it'd do is slow the darned train down, safely.
On the flip side, the fact that this hasn't been exploited yet is a pretty strong indication that nobody is trying to attack us, making it likely a pretty low risk.
This I agree with.
All it hurts are the beancounters and the unionized on-board crew who have to deal with it.
Comment Nothing To See Here (Score 1) 63
US Positive Train Control (PTC) systems puts the life-safety-critical functions into a computer on-board the locomotive, parallel to the train engineer/operator. PTC needs, just the the meat-bag engineer, to know what's going on in front of the train (what the signals are set to, whether the track ahead is occupied by another train, etc.). While a lot of the more static information is canned into the PTC computer and updated occasionally, real-time stuff are information messages transmitted by radio every 6(?) seconds from the equipment along the tracks. This radio range is generally 5-15 miles (7-25 km). These messages are not (currently) encrypted, but are capable of being authenticated by the on-board computer. If the PTC computer doesn't receive any of the necessary authenticated information in something like 20-40 seconds, the PTC computer will sound an alarm to the meat bag, start to slow the train down and eventually bring it to a stop within a specific distance. The meat bag will get on the two-way radio, tell dispatch that the PTC is acting up, and that it's not their fault. Which it isn't.
Sounds like there are some folks out there just jamming the receiver on the locomotive. This requires someone to be alongside the tracks and transmit a strong jamming signal on specific radio frequencies. Alternatively, someone could jam the GNSS signal the locomotive uses to know where it is. Yep, it can happen, but it would be hard to invent a scenarios where there'd be any loss but a little time.
Comment Silly Me (Score 1) 39
I've never even played Candy Crush.
Comment 4000000x the average US broadband speed? (Score 1) 37
125000 GB/s = 1000000 Gbps
1000000 Gbps/4000000 = 0.25 Gbps average speed.
Is the average US broadband speed really 250 Mbps?
I did just check mine via measurementtestlab.net and got about 350 Mbps down and 50 Mbps up. But I'm in a major city with beaucoup resources.
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