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Submission + - California governor vetoes bill requiring speeding alerts in new cars (apnews.com)

Submitted by Gruntbeetle
Gruntbeetle writes: Following up on California Drivers May Soon Get Mandatory In-Car Speed Warnings Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill Saturday that would have required new cars to beep at drivers if they exceed the speed limit. The bill, aimed at reducing traffic deaths, would have mandated that vehicles beep at drivers when they exceed the speed limit by at least 10 mph (16kph). Democratic state Sen. Scott Wiener, who sponsored the bill, called the veto a setback for street safety.

Submission + - Hogreen Air Drops Game-Changing Hydrogen Drone (techtimes.com)

Submitted by walterbyrd
walterbyrd writes: The hydrogen-powered drone is unique because of its exceptional range and flying duration capacity, which reaches up to 14 hours. This makes it fly beyond the limitations shown by traditional lithium-battery drones, which can only go for 10 to 30 minutes.

Recently, the drone completed remote missions in Germany and the United States while being controlled from nearly 5,800 miles away in South Korea. This can be achieved by integrating systems on radio frequency and LTE/5G communication, wherein control is made possible from the farthest corner of the globe.

Submission + - Were the Egyptian pyramids built with kites? (caltech.edu) 1

Submitted by Smonster
Smonster writes: When people think about the building of the Egyptian pyramids, they probably have a mental image of thousands of slaves laboriously rolling massive stone blocks with logs and levers. But as one Caltech aeronautics professor is demonstrating, the task may have been accomplished by just four or five guys who flew the stones into place with a kite.

On Saturday, June 23, Mory Gharib and his team raised a 6,900-pound, 15-foot obelisk into vertical position in the desert near Palmdale by using nothing more than a kite, a pulley system, and a support frame. Though the blustery winds were gusting upwards of 22 miles per hour, the team set the obelisk upright on second try.

In the course of researching the tools available to the Egyptian pyramid builders, she has discovered, for example, that a brass ankh—long assumed to be merely a religious symbol—makes a very good carabiner for controlling a kite line. And a type of insect commonly found in Egypt could have supplied a kind of shellac to make linen sails hold wind. As for objections to the use of pulleys, the team's intention was always to progress later—actually, "regress" might be a more appropriate word— to the windlasses apparently used to hoist sails on Egyptian ships.

Finally, one might ask whether there was and is sufficient wind in Egypt for a kite or a drag chute to fly. The answer is that steady winds of up to 30 miles-per-hour are not unusual in the areas where the pyramids and obelisks are found.

Submission + - Controversial Windows Recall AI Tool Returns Overhauled Security Architecture (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Three months after pulling previews of the controversial Windows Recall feature due to public backlash, Microsoft says it has completely overhauled the security architecture with proof-of-presence encryption, anti-tampering and DLP checks, and screenshot data managed in secure enclaves outside the main operating system.

In an interview with SecurityWeek,/a>, Microsoft vice president David Weston said the company’s engineers rewrote the security model of Windows Recall to reduce attack surface on Copilot+ PCs and minimize the risk of malware attackers targeting the screenshot data store.

Submission + - "Negligence Liability for AI Developers'

Submitted by david.emery
david.emery writes: Brian H Choi writes an opinion piece on AI liability over on Lawfare: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/a... To date, most popular approaches to AI safety and accountability have focused on the technological characteristics and risks of AI systems, while averting attention from the workers behind the curtain responsible for designing, implementing, testing, and maintaining such systems. ...

I have previously argued that a negligence-based approach is needed because it directs legal scrutiny on the actual persons responsible for creating and managing AI systems. A step in that direction is found in California’s AI safety bill, which specifies that AI developers shall articulate and implement protocols that embody the “developer’s duty to take reasonable care to avoid producing a covered model or covered model derivative that poses an unreasonable risk of causing or materially enabling a critical harm” (emphasis added). Although tech leaders have opposed California’s bill, courts don’t need to wait for legislation to allow negligence claims against AI developers. But how would negligence work in the AI context, and what downstream effects should AI developers anticipate?

However, the author ignores the established precedent of engineering liability (i.e. who to blame if the building falls down) and licensing, which establishes both liability and limits on same. This is an important issue for the AI industry and for engineering societies to consider.

Submission + - Flaw in Kia's web portal let researchers track, hack cars (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by SpzToid
SpzToid writes: Bug let researchers track millions of cars, unlock doors, and start engines at will.

======
Today, a group of independent security researchers revealed that they'd found a flaw in a web portal operated by the carmaker Kia that let the researchers reassign control of the Internet-connected features of most modern Kia vehicles—dozens of models representing millions of cars on the road—from the smartphone of a car’s owner to the hackers’ own phone or computer. By exploiting that vulnerability and building their own custom app to send commands to target cars, they were able to scan virtually any Internet-connected Kia vehicle’s license plate and within seconds gain the ability to track that car’s location, unlock the car, honk its horn, or start its ignition at will.

Submission + - MIT Creates Star Wars-Themed Video For Pi Day

Submitted by DevNull127
DevNull127 writes: MIT has a long-standing tradition. High school seniors who've been accepted into next year's class at MIT are informed on Pi Day (March 14th — that is, 3/14). And each year there's also a slick video touting the URL where students can check whether they've been admitted. (Last year's video documented a massive project that involved 30 sacks of charcoal plus several hundred pounds of — no, that would be telling...)

But in 2018 Dean of Admissions Stu Schmill appeared in a Star Wars-themed video titled "The Last Dean." (The 2017 video had also paid homage to another Disney's franchise...) So for 2020, MIT's returned again to their version of Star Wars universe.

Congratulations to the class of 2024!

Submission + - Coronavirus Could Force ISPs To Abandon Data Caps Forever (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The coronavirus threat and official policies of “social distancing” are leading millions to stay home, doing meetings via video chat and probably watching Netflix and YouTube the rest of the time. That means a big uptick in bytes going through the tubes, both simultaneously and cumulatively. ISPs, leery of repeating Verizon’s memorable gaffe of cutting off service during an emergency, are proposing a variety of user-friendly changes to their policies. Comcast is boosting the bandwidth of its low-income Internet Essentials customers to levels that actually qualify as broadband under FCC rules. AT&T is suspending data caps for all its customers until further notice. Verizon has added $500 million to its 5G rollout plans. Wait, how does that help? Unclear, but the company “stands ready” for increases in traffic. Elsewhere in the world ISPs are taking similar actions, either voluntarily or at the request of the state. In India, for instance, ACT Fibernet has bumped everyone up to 300 Mbps for no cost.

There are two simple truths at play here. The first is that any company that sends its subscriber a $150 overage fee because they had to work from home for a month and ran over their data cap is going to be radioactive. The optics on that are so bad that my guess is most companies are quietly setting forgiveness policies in place to prevent it from happening — though of course it probably will anyway. The second is that these caps are completely unnecessary, existing only as a way to squeeze more money from subscribers. Data caps just don’t matter any more. As I pointed out during the whole zero-rating debacle, the very fact that the limits can be lifted at will or certain high-traffic categories (such as a broadband company’s own streaming TV channels) can be exempted fundamentally beggars the concept of these caps.

Think about it: If the internet provider can even temporarily lift the data caps, then there is definitively enough capacity for the network to be used without those caps. If there’s enough capacity, then why did the caps exist in the first place? Answer: Because they make money.

Submission + - Pentagon 'Wishes To Reconsider' $10 Billion JEDI Contract Given To Microsoft (cnn.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The US Department of Defense on Thursday said it wishes to re-evaluate its decision to award the Pentagon's multibillion-dollar cloud contract with Microsoft, signaling a potential victory for Amazon in its protest of the award. The department "wishes to reconsider its award decision in response to the other technical challenges presented by AWS," it said in a court filing, referring to Amazon Web Services. The agency said it does not anticipate needing to discuss the matter with either AWS or Microsoft.

The contract — called Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI — involves providing cloud storage of sensitive military data and technology, such as artificial intelligence, to the Department of Defense, and could result in revenue of up to $10 billion over 10 years. Amazon Web Services lost the contract to Microsoft's Azure cloud business in October, a decision that surprised many industry experts given Amazon's leadership in the industry. Amazon filed a suit with the US Court of Federal Claims contesting the decision, arguing that it was politically motivated by President Donald Trump's dislike of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post, which Bezos owns.

Submission + - Scientists find toolkit to aid repair of damaged DNA (upi.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists have developed a technique for repairing damaged DNA. The breakthrough, published this week in the journal Nature Communications, could pave the way for new therapies for cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.

The accumulation of DNA damage is responsible for aging, cancer and neurological diseases like motor neuron disease, also known as ALS.

Until now, scientists have struggled to find ways to repair this kind of damage. However, researchers have discovered a new protein called TEX264 that can combine with other enzymes to find and destroy toxic proteins that bind to DNA and trigger damage.

Scientists are hoping to identify ways to use TEX264 and its protein relatives to repair the DNA damage linked with disorders like cancer and ALS. New therapies inspired by the latest research could also be used to repair the purposeful DNA damage caused by chemotherapy.

Submission + - SPAM: US Regulators Approve Roche's New And Faster COVID-19 Test

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche announced Friday it had received emergency approval from US regulators for a new and much faster test for diagnosing the coronavirus.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has given the green light to commercialize the SARS-CoV-2 Test to detect the virus that has sparked the global COVID-19 pandemic, Roche said in a statement.

The test can be run in high volumes on fully automated equipment, Roche said, suggesting it could provide more results far faster than other tests available.

"We are increasing the speed definitely by a factor of 10," Thomas Schinecker, head of Roche's diagnostics unit
Link to Original Source

Submission + - IBM tells US employees to work from home (kimt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In an internal email to US employees, Tom Rosamilia, Senior Vice President of IBM Systems and Chairman, North America has requested that IBM employees who are able to work virtually do so. "Thirdly, if you are in a role that can be done virtually, then we encourage you to work from home likely through the end of the month, but we will keep you posted as the situation evolves."

Submission + - Preliminary Study Reveals How Long Coronavirus May Linger On Various Surfaces (buzzfeednews.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The coronavirus appears able to linger in the air for up to three hours and on plastic and stainless steel surfaces for two to three days, according to laboratory tests run by a team of federal and academic scientists in the US. It’s unclear whether the virus would behave the same way in the real world. The new study, published Tuesday, was uploaded to MedRxiv, a repository of early-stage scientific papers that have not yet been peer reviewed.

The new tests found that the ability of the novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, to stay in the air and on surfaces was highly similar to that of SARS, which is also caused by a coronavirus, according to the paper, which was done by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, the CDC, UCLA, and Princeton University. The scientists ran a battery of tests with a strain of SARS-CoV-2. They sprayed it into a rotating drum and measured how long it stayed in the air: three hours. They also deposited small amounts on plastic and stainless steel (up to two to three days), copper (up to four hours), and on cardboard (24 hours).

Submission + - Appeals Court: SCO v. IBM Case To Continue (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed
Freshly Exhumed writes: A federal appeals court has now partially ruled in favor of the SCO Group, breathing new life into a lawsuit and a company (now bankrupt and nearly dead) that has been suing IBM for nearly 15 years.

Last year, US District Judge David Nuffer had ruled against SCO (whose original name was Santa Cruz Operation) in two summary judgment orders, and the court refused to allow SCO to amend its initial complaint against IBM.

SCO soon appealed. On Monday, the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals found that SCO’s claims of misappropriation could go forward while also upholding Judge Nuffer's other two orders.

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