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Submission + - Fly brain breakthrough 'huge leap' to unlock human mind (bbc.com)

Submitted by fjo3
fjo3 writes: They can walk, hover and the males can even sing love songs to woo mates — all this with a brain that’s tinier than a pinhead.

Now for the first time scientists researching the brain of a fly have identified the position, shape and connections of every single one of its 130,000 cells and 50 million connections. It's the most detailed analysis of the brain of an adult animal ever produced.

Submission + - SPAM: Poll idea

Submitted by magnamous
magnamous writes: Question: For the love of all things holy, who wants a dark mode option for Slashdot?
Answer choices:
- I do
- Hell yes, I do
- I hate my eyes
- I don't have eyes

Submission + - US Patent Office Proposes Rule To Make It Much Harder To Kill Bad Patents (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: So, this is bad. Over the last few years, we’ve written plenty about the so-called “inter partes review” or "IPR” that came into being about a decade ago as part of the “America Invents Act,” which was the first major change to the patent system in decades. For much of the first decade of the 2000s, patent trolls were running wild and creating a massive tax on innovation. There were so many stories of people (mostly lawyers) getting vague and broad patents that they never had any intention of commercializing, then waiting for someone to come along and build something actually useful and innovative... and then shaking them down with the threat of patent litigation. The IPR process, while not perfect, was at least an important tool in pushing back on some of the worst of the worst patents. In its most basic form, the IPR process allows nearly anyone to challenge a bad patent and have the special Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) review the patent to determine if it should have been granted in the first place. Given that a bad patent can completely stifle innovation for decades this seems like the very least that the Patent Office should offer to try to get rid of innovation-killing bad patents.

However, patent trolls absolutely loathe the IPR process for fairly obvious reasons. It kills their terrible patents. The entire IPR process has been challenged over and over again and (thankfully) the Supreme Court said that it’s perfectly fine for the Patent Office to review granted patents to see if they made a mistake. But, of course, that never stops the patent trolls. They’ve complained to Congress. And, now, it seems that the Patent Office itself is trying to help them out. Recently, the USPTO announced a possible change to the IPR process that would basically lead to limiting who can actually challenge bad patents, and which patents could be challenged.

The wording of the proposed changes seems to be written in a manner to be as confusing as possible. But there are a few different elements to the proposal. One part would limit who can bring challenges to patents under the IPR system, utilizing the power of the director to do a “discretionary denial.” For example, it would say that “certain for-profit entities” are not allowed to bring challenges. Why? That’s not clear. [...] But the more worrisome change is this one: "Recognizing the important role the USPTO plays in encouraging and protecting innovation by individual inventors, startups, and under-resourced innovators who are working to bring their ideas to market, the Office is considering limiting the impact of AIA post-grant proceedings on such entities by denying institution when certain conditions are met." Basically, if a patent holder is designated as an “individual inventor, startup” or “under-resourced innovator” then their patents are protected from the IPR process. But, as anyone studying this space well knows, patent trolls often present themselves as all three of those things (even though it’s quite frequently not at all true). [...] And, again, none of this should matter. A bad patent is a bad patent. Why should the USPTO create different rules that protect bad patents? If the patent is legit, it will survive the IPR process.

Submission + - China Erupting in Revolt 9

Submitted by LionKimbro
LionKimbro writes: When I first heard about the "wage dispute" story at FoxConn, I thought that was all there was to it. Nope.

Dramatic footage has come out from the China Show, and completely changed the picture for me. Now I believe that a massive revolt is underway in China — directed against Zero-Covid, and even in places against the CCP and Xi specifically.

Two days ago, the China Show reported: "This is not an uprising that's saying oh let's overthrow the central government. This is not an uprising that says oh everyone rise up let's stop the communist party of China. No one's doing that right. The problem is that the Chinese government knows how things can morph. So things can take shape."

That has changed. "This is why you don't see massive revolts in China that spread at the same time. Because it's impossible. The Chinese government shuts it down and disappears the people that organize everything so everyone's too scared to do it. Again, since 1989, this is the first time I've seen... ...this is unprecedented. You do not see people riseup against a central government — they're going to local government offices but their messaging is the central government. I've never heard that. CCP step down. Step down Xi Jingping. I've never heard that before. Ever."

CNN too is reporting the story. On the front page, "Protests erupt across China."

Comparisons are being drawn with Tiananmen square. Lei's Real Talk has outlined the response from Xi: Crackdown. On the ground, people are responding with: "Help people."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Disable web-assembly to reduce browser-based abuse?

Submitted by Tablizer
Tablizer writes: This Github bloglet by Steve Springett suggests disabling WASM (Web Assembly) in browsers for security purposes unless you need it often, and includes commands for switching it off in the common browsers. WASM potentially has some of the same risks that Java Applets and Flash did. What's Slashdotters view of this?

Browsers should have a way to easily disable it, including whitelisting. For example, if you need it for specific gaming site, you can whitelist just that site and not have WASM exposed for other sites.

Submission + - KDE Plasma 5.25 released (kde.org)

Submitted by jrepin
jrepin writes: Plasma is a popular desktop environment, which is also powering the desktop mode on the Steam Deck portable gaming console. The KDE Community announced release of KDE Plasma 5.25 . This new version brings many improvements: the accent colour can now be set based on the prominent colour from the current desktop background image (it updates if you use slide-show wallpapers) and it applies to more graphical elements, Floating Panels add a margin all around the panel to make it float while no window is maximised. Touch-screen mode can now be activated by detaching the screen, rotating it 360, or enabling it manually. The Overview effect can be activated by gestures on touchpad or touchscreen. The Global Theme settings page lets you pick and choose which parts to apply. The Application page for Discover has been redesigned and gives you links to the application’s documentation and website, and shows what system resources it has access to. Panels can now be navigated with the keyboard, and you can assign custom shortcuts to focus individual panels.

Submission + - SPAM: Carbon-coated nickel enables fuel cell free of precious metals

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: “A nitrogen doped carbon-coated nickel anode can catalyze an essential reaction in hydrogen fuel cells at a fraction of the cost of the precious metals currently used, Cornell University researchers have found. The new discovery could accelerate the widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells, which hold great promise as efficient, clean energy sources for vehicles and other applications.”
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Ukraine Proposes ICANN Remove Russian Domains (theregister.com)

Submitted by unimind
unimind writes: With so many coming together on the side of Ukraine (even those who traditionally stay neutral in international affairs), asking ICANN to take action against Russia seems like it could be a reasonable proposition under the circumstances. From the article:

In response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine last week, Mykhailo Fedorov, First Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, on Monday asked the head of DNS overlord ICANN to disable country code top-level domains associated with Russia...
Specifically, he has asked for the revocation of domains “.ru”, “.”, “.su”, and others used by the Russian Federation, shutting down DNS root servers serving the Russian Federation, and contributing to the revocation of associated TLS/SSL certificates for those domains.
"All of these measures will help users seek for reliable information in alternative domain zones, preventing propaganda and disinformation," Fedorov's email says.

As a bonus the likely decrease in spam would be a welcome reprieve...

Comment Re:Synergy (Score 4, Interesting) 15

by dexotaku (#62077617) Attached to: Universal Control Feature For Mac and iPad Delayed Until Spring 2022
I actually opened the thread just to say the same thing. Have used Synergy periodically for about 15 years and the last time I did was to "unite" a PC with a Mac. I see that now the 1.x stuff is on sourceforge and still free assuming it still works on current platforms. The 2.x series is $29 from a commerical company.

Submission + - Breakthrough by McMaster PhD student creates Laser in Silicon (mcmaster.ca)

Submitted by thisisnotreal
thisisnotreal writes: Long sought-after, and previously thought impossible — a McMaster University PhD student in Hamilton Canada demonstrates a cost-effective and simple laser in silicon.
This could have dramatic consequences for the SiP (Silicon Photonics) — a hot topic for those working in the field of integrated optics. Integrated optics is a critical technology involved in advanced telecommunications networks, and showing increasing importance in quantum research and devices, such as QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) and in various entanglement type experiments (involved in Quantum Compute)

Submission + - THE LOST AMIGA CD64 - After the CD32... - A Commodore History Documentary

Submitted by Mike Bouma
Mike Bouma writes: Lady Decade talks about the fate of the Amiga CD32 after Commodore's demise, as well as covers what could have been the successor to the short-lived Amiga CD32 (which was the world's first true 32-bit CD based home console), the Amiga CD64.

The Amiga CD32 released in Europe on September 16, 1993 and on March 1, 1994, Commodore Business Machines announced: "First launched in Europe this past fall, Commodore reports to have sold over 100,000 units in Europe in just three months prior to Christmas. By outselling Sega four to one and claiming 38% market share of all CD ROM drives sold in the UK (according to the Gallup Weekly Report), the Amiga CD32 has established itself as the undisputed leader of the 32 bit machines." Operations in Germany and the United Kingdom were still profitable, but Commodore was not able to meet demand for new units because of component supply problems and could not release the (already made) Amiga CD32 stock in the United States due to a legal patent issue .Commodore declared bankruptcy on April 29, 1994 causing the CD32 to be discontinued only eight months after its debut. (source: wikipedia and Amiga Report)

The Amiga CD32 still has more than 100 games released for it. Sadly most of them were straight A500 conversions to CD format without any or little improvements technically. IMO the most impressive game released for the system was Super Stardust by Bloodhouse, published by Team17. It was the sequel to Stardust for the Amiga 500 and Atari STE. Bloodhouse merged with Terramarque (famous for their impressive Amiga 500 game Elfmania) to form Housemarque, which is still making games as of today.

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