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Also demonstrates success accelerating molecular dynamics

Even as world leaders raise alarm bells about the impact of AI in war, waferscale startup Cerebras is joining forces with Aleph Alpha to develop sovereign models for the German armed forces.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Airbus Helicopters showcased an experimental half-plane, half-helicopter on Wednesday in a quest for speed as competition heats up to define the rotorcraft of the future. The $217 million Racer is a one-off demonstrator model combining traditional overhead rotors with two forward-facing propellors in a bid to combine stability and speed, shortening response times for critical missions like search-and-rescue. "There are missions where the quickest possible access to the zone is vital. We often talk about the 'golden hour'," Airbus Helicopters CEO Bruno Even told Reuters, referring to the window considered most critical for providing medical attention. Such designs could also be offered for military developments as NATO conducts a major study into next-generation helicraft, though much depends on how its planners define future needs. [...] Racer's public debut came months after Italy's Leonardo and U.S. manufacturer Bell agreed to co-operate on the next generation of tilt-rotor technology, which replaces a helicopter's trademark overhead blades altogether. Leonardo is also leading a separate project to develop the next generation of tilt-rotors for civil use. Its AW609 is the sole existing civil design, but has yet to be certified. Proponents of the tilt-rotor, which relies on swiveling side-mounted rotors 90 degrees to go up and then forwards, say it permits higher speed and range that are suited to military missions. Critics say the tilt mechanism reaches higher speeds only at the expense of higher complexity and maintenance costs. Airbus said the Racer will fly at 220 knots (400 km/hour) compared with traditional helicopter speeds closer to 140 knots. Bell says its V-280 Valor tilt-rotor design, recently picked by the Pentagon, will reach a cruise speed of 280 knots. Watch: Racer - Inside the high speed demonstrator (YouTube)

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Following last year's release of PipeWire 1.0 for managing audio and video streams on the Linux desktop and proving itself a capable replacement to PulseAudio and JACK, among other uses, PipeWire 1.2 is nearing release. Out today is the first release candidate of the upcoming PipeWire 1.2...

Company will require certain suppliers to run on 100% carbon-free electricity ... by 2030

Microsoft has increased carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 30 percent since 2020, making its goal of becoming carbon-negative by 2030 even more difficult, and it looks like AI is to blame.…

'We would never crush creativity,' says South Korea megacorp

If Apple thought it could forget about last week's marketing disaster — which saw the tech giant roundly slated for appearing to crush human creativity in the name of computing progress — it was wrong.…

ESA/JAXA mission running on reduced thrust as engineers work to resolve the issue

Updated  Thruster problems with BepiColombo, the joint ESA and JAXA mission to Mercury, could cause headaches for managers plotting the spacecraft's trajectory and insertion into Mercury's orbit.…

Sort of a FOSS Norton Ghost, now updated to Ubuntu 24.04 base

A fresh release of Rescuezilla, a free Ubuntu-based rescue disk for imaging the drives of a sickly computer, is available.…

Coming as a surprise, longtime Linux developer Oded Gabbay announced he's left Intel / Habana Labs and is therefore stepping down from the maintainer role of the Linux kernel drivers for the Intel Xe DRM driver and more notably the Habana Labs accelerator driver that he's maintained from the start...

HMRC forgot to tell Brits about its digital support channels

Appalling service levels at Britain's tax collector meant customers phoning in with inquiries were collectively left on hold for 798 years in fiscal 2023.…

The open-source Mesa driver developers employed by Valve for working on the Linux graphics stack have begun preparing the RADV Vulkan driver and the ACO compiler back-end for the upcoming "GFX12" graphics IP for next-generation RDNA4...

Intel's Image Processing Unit (IPU) IP has been a cause for concern in recent years as the lack of proper upstream open-source driver support has led Linux users running into troubles making use of MIPI camera sensors on modern laptops. Finally with Linux 6.10 the Intel IPU6 driver is being upstreamed into the media subsystem...

While most of you have not thought about or used Firewire (IEEE-1394) in years, there still are some legacy digital video cameras and some professional audio devices relying on the interface. Last year saw a new Firewire maintainer step-up for the Linux kernel after the code had fallen dormant. The plans by that new maintainer, Takashi Sakamoto, are to maintain Linux's Firewire support through 2029. He's continuing to do a good job with the upcoming Linux 6.10 kernel bringing the latest batch of Firewire enhancements...

Testing wind turbine blades the size of three rusty angel wingspans

Reg Standards Bureau  The UK has announced new units of measurement as part of pronouncements on wind turbines by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).…

Besides Linus Torvalds examining various elements of code he's merging and build testing it on his AMD Ryzen Threadripper workstation and now also testing more on ARM64 with Ampere Altra, he does these days still believe in "dogfooding" and is in fact running the leading-edge Linux kernel code even during the merge window...

Michael Kan reports via PCMag: AT&T has struck a deal to bring satellite internet connectivity to phones through AST SpaceMobile, a potential rival to SpaceX's Starlink. AT&T says the commercial agreement will last until 2030. The goal is "to provide a space-based broadband network to everyday cell phones," a spokesperson tells PCMag, meaning customers can receive a cellular signal in remote areas where traditional cell towers are few and far between. All they'll need to do is ensure their phone has a clear view of the sky. AT&T has been working with Texas-based AST SpaceMobile since 2018 on the technology, which involves using satellites in space as orbiting cell towers. In January, AT&T was one of several companies (including Google) to invest $110 million in AST. In addition, the carrier created a commercial starring actor Ben Stiller to showcase AST's technology. In today's announcement, AT&T notes that "previously, the companies were working together under a Memorandum of Understanding," which is usually nonbinding. Hence, the new commercial deal suggests AT&T is confident AST can deliver fast and reliable satellite internet service to consumer smartphones -- even though it hasn't launched a production satellite. AST has only launched one prototype satellite; in tests last year, it delivered download rates at 14Mbps and powered a 5G voice call. Following a supply chain-related delay, the company is now preparing to launch its first batch of "BlueBird" production satellites later this year, possibly in Q3. In Wednesday's announcement, AT&T adds: "This summer, AST SpaceMobile plans to deliver its first commercial satellites to Cape Canaveral for launch into low Earth orbit. These initial five satellites will help enable commercial service that was previously demonstrated with several key milestones." Still, AST needs to launch 45 to 60 BlueBird satellites before it can offer continuous coverage in the U.S., although in an earnings call, the company said it'll still be able to offer "non-continuous coverage" across 5,600 cells in the country.

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It may take ten years but vendors must be held accountable for the vulnerabilities they introduce

CYBERUK  National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) CTO Ollie Whitehouse kicked off day two of Britain's cyber watchdog's annual shindig, CYBERUK, with a tirade about the tech market, pulling it apart to demonstrate why he believes it's at fault for many of the security problems the industry is facing today. …

So why not drop the policy? Productivity bias or productivity paranoia perhaps

Evidence is mounting that tech companies' policies demanding staff return to the office are only serving to drive out the talent that became accustomed to remote work.…

Microsoft's ambitious goal to be carbon negative by 2030 is threatened by its expanding AI operations, which have increased its carbon footprint by 30% since 2020. To meet its targets, Microsoft must quickly adopt green technologies and improve efficiency in its data centers, which are critical for AI but heavily reliant on carbon-intensive resources. Bloomberg reports: Now to meet its goals, the software giant will have to make serious progress very quickly in gaining access to green steel and concrete and less carbon-intensive chips, said Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, in an exclusive interview with Bloomberg Green. "In 2020, we unveiled what we called our carbon moonshot. That was before the explosion in artificial intelligence," he said. "So in many ways the moon is five times as far away as it was in 2020, if you just think of our own forecast for the expansion of AI and its electrical needs." [...] Despite AI's ravenous energy consumption, this actually contributes little to Microsoft's hike in emissions -- at least on paper. That's because the company says in its sustainability report that it's 100% powered by renewables. Companies use a range of mechanisms to make such claims, which vary widely in terms of credibility. Some firms enter into long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with renewable developers, where they shoulder some of a new energy plant's risk and help get new solar and wind farms online. In other cases, companies buy renewable energy credits (RECs) to claim they're using green power, but these inexpensive credits do little to spur new demand for green energy, researchers have consistently found. Microsoft uses a mix of both approaches. On one hand, it's one of the biggest corporate participants in power purchase agreements, according to BloombergNEF, which tracks these deals. But it's also a huge purchaser of RECs, using these instruments to claim about half of its energy use is clean, according to its environmental filings in 2022. By using a large quantity of RECs, Microsoft is essentially masking an even larger growth in emissions. "It is Microsoft's plan to phase out the use of unbundled RECs in future years," a spokesperson for the company said. "We are focused on PPAs as a primary strategy." So what else can be done? Smith, along with Microsoft's Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa, has laid out clear steps in the sustainability report. High among them is to increase efficiency, which is to use the same amount of energy or computing to do more work. That could help reduce the need for data centers, which will reduce emissions and electricity use. On most things, "our climate goals require that we spend money," said Smith. "But efficiency gains will actually enable us to save money." Microsoft has also been at the forefront of buying sustainable aviation fuels that has helped reduce some of its emissions from business travel. The company also wants to partner with those who will "accelerate breakthroughs" to make greener steel, concrete and fuels. Those technologies are starting to work at a small scale, but remain far from being available in commercial quantities even if expensive. Cheap renewable power has helped make Microsoft's climate journey easier. But the tech giant's electricity consumption last year rivaled that of a small European country -- beating Slovenia easily. Smith said that one of the biggest bottlenecks for it to keep getting access to green power is the lack of transmission lines from where the power is generated to the data centers. That's why Microsoft says it's going to increase lobbying efforts to get governments to speed up building the grid. If Microsoft's emissions remain high going into 2030, Smith said the company may consider bulk purchases of carbon removal credits, even though it's not "the desired course." "You've got to be willing to invest and pay for it," said Smith. Climate change is "a problem that humanity created and that humanity can solve."

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The recent surge in bitcoin prices has the phones at crypto wallet recovery firms ringing off the hook, as retail investors locked out of their digital vaults make frantic calls to regain access to their accounts. From a report: Cryptocurrencies exist on a decentralized digital ledger known as blockchain and investors may opt to access their holdings either through a locally stored software wallet or a hardware wallet, to avoid risks related to owning crypto with an exchange, as in the case of the former FTX. Losing access to a crypto wallet is a well-known problem. Investors forgetting their intricate passwords is a primary reason, but loss of access to two-factor authentication devices, unexpected shutdowns of cryptocurrency exchanges and cyberattacks are also common. Wallet passwords are usually alphanumeric and the wallet provider also offers a set of randomized words, known as "seed phrases," for additional security - both these are known only to the user. If investors lose the passwords and phrases, access to their wallets is cut off. With bitcoin prices regaining traction since last October and hitting a record high of $73,803.25 in March, investors seem to be suffering from a classic case of FOMO, or the fear of missing out. Reuters spoke to nearly a dozen retail investors who had lost access to their crypto wallets. Six of them contacted a recovery services firm and managed to regain access to their holdings.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Within approximately 12 seconds, two highly educated brothers allegedly stole $25 million by tampering with the ethereum blockchain in a never-before-seen cryptocurrency scheme, according to an indictment that the US Department of Justice unsealed Wednesday. In a DOJ press release, US Attorney Damian Williams said the scheme was so sophisticated that it "calls the very integrity of the blockchain into question." "The brothers, who studied computer science and math at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, allegedly used their specialized skills and education to tamper with and manipulate the protocols relied upon by millions of ethereum users across the globe," Williams said. "And once they put their plan into action, their heist only took 12 seconds to complete." Anton, 24, and James Peraire-Bueno, 28, were arrested Tuesday, charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each brother faces "a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for each count," the DOJ said. The indictment goes into detail explaining that the scheme allegedly worked by exploiting the ethereum blockchain in the moments after a transaction was conducted but before the transaction was added to the blockchain. To uncover the scheme, the special agent in charge, Thomas Fattorusso of the IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) New York Field Office, said that investigators "simply followed the money." "Regardless of the complexity of the case, we continue to lead the effort in financial criminal investigations with cutting-edge technology and good-ol'-fashioned investigative work, on and off the blockchain," Fattorusso said.

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