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Techrights
Posted by Roy Schestowitz on May 03, 2024
In May 2024 (So Far) statCounter's Measure of Linux 'Market Share' is Back at 7% (ChromeOS Included)
> GNOME bluefish
> Comparing 30,000 years of human history, researchers found that surviving famine, war or climate change helps groups recover more quickly from future shocks.
> So, I gave a little speech about art, and war. The Internationale Agentur für Freiheit, a Berlin art and cultural association, asked me to do that to open their exhibition, Make Art Not War. I couldn’t turn them down.
> U-M professors Kent Berridge, Lee Hartmann, Jeffrey Lagarias, Vonnie McLoyd, Jonathan Overpeck and Henry Wellman are among 120 new members inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
> Compared to through-hole construction, inspecting SMD construction is a whole other game. Things you thought were small before are almost invisible now, and making sure solder got where it’s supposed to go can be a real chore. Add some ball grid array (BGA) chips into the mix, where the solder joints are not visible by design, and inspection is more a leap of faith than objective proof of results.
> They had surprisingly cute assistants, wearing hats.
> A glimpse into a lost world challenges stereotypes.
> "Really puzzling."
> \m/
> Compulab unveils the IOT-DIN-IMX8PLUS which is an advanced industrial IoT gateway equipped with dual GbE ports and GPS connectivity, offering versatility and robust functionality in a compact, modular DIN-rail form factor and fanless design.
> Servers exported from China to the U.S. has fallen from 18.8% in 2017 to 1.7% in 2023, while servers exported from Taiwan to the U.S. has grown 900%.
> After the first personal computers were built in the last quarter of the last century, it was the commoditisation of the industry that enabled Famous Criminal Bill Gates and his Abusive Monopolist Microsoft backdoored Windows operating system — terrible as it was — to get ahead. PCs built by the bigger American companies were just too expensive for the rest of the world, but the fact that one could put together a box by buying grey-market parts led to the spread of Windows.
> Zilog is discontinuing the CPU that helped spark home computing in the 80's, but this might not be the end of the chip's story.
> A user on the Korean Quasar Zone forums recounts how the 16-pin power connectors on his RTX 4090 and FSP Hydro power supply melted.
> AMD's gaming revenue declined sharply amid slowing demand for console processors, and a lack of interest in Radeon GPUs. Overall revenues plunged 48% year over year and aren't expected to recover until 2025 at earliest.
> Taiwanese wireless equipment manufacturer, Alfa Networks, and US-based Wi-Fi HaLow semiconductor company, Newracom, have collaborated to develop the AHST7394S Wi-Fi HaLow module. The solder-down module is based on Newracom’s NRC7394 SoC, a low-cost and high-efficiency HaLow SoC chipset providing up to 17dbm output power and capable of connecting to a maximum of 8K devices within a single network. The NRC7394 also supports a standalone mode, which enables the execution of a wide range of IoT applications on the embedded ARM Cortex-M3 CPU. While HaLow is more energy-efficient than other Wi-Fi types, low-power operation modes such as legacy, TWT, and WMM-PS can reduce power consumption further.
> AAEON UP Squared Pro 710H Edge is a mini PC with an onboard Hailo-8 edge 26 TOPS Hey Hi (AI) accelerator and an defective chip maker Intel Processor N97 or Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N CPU designed for edge Hey Hi (AI) applications. The fanless Edge Hey Hi (AI) mini PC comes up to 16GB LPDDR5 soldered-on RAM, up to 128GB eMMC flash, and offers dual 4K video output through HDMI and DisplayPort connector, dual 2.5GbE, optional WiFi and cellular connectivity, two USB 3.2 ports, an RS232/RS422/RS485 COM port, a 40-pin female GPIO header, and a wide 12 to 36V DC input.
> Picking a storage medium for data preservation can be a conflicting time. Sure, they say optical storage tends to last, but it can’t be as straightforward as just burning everything onto Blu-Rays, right? Here’s a paper from Canadian Conservation Institute, teaching you the basics of using compact disks for data storage, it appears, without missing a single detail, and taking about ten minutes to read.
> One of the greatest things about the hacker ecosystem is that whole standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants thing. Somebody makes something and shares it, and then someone else takes that thing and remixes it, sometimes making it objectively better. For their T3rminal cyberdeck, [calebholloway08] was inspired by a number of projects and came up with something that looks simply fantastic.
> Smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. said sales of artificial intelligence-enabled smartphones boosted its sales as it delivered better-than-expected financial results today, and it also expects a similar performance in the coming quarter. Its stock was ticking up slightly in after-hours trading in a sign that investors welcomed the news.
> Professor Zhang Yongzhen had flouted a government ban by disclosing the genome of the Covid virus soon after it emerged in Wuhan in 2020.
> But the scope of the outbreak among cattle remains uncertain, and little human testing has been done.
> May is Mental Health Awareness Month intends to cultivate an environment where discussing mental and emotional well-being in the workplace is encouraged.
> From collagen supplements that will set you back £650 a year to so-called ‘functional mushrooms' - do the claims stack up?
> A rabid bat was identified in Ann Arbor’s 48108 zip code, according to a press release by the Washtenaw County Health Department Wednesday morning. This is the first rabies-positive animal case seen in Washtenaw County since 2022.
> If you ever ate a meal and didn’t get sick, you can thank a health inspector. Justin Smith, the chief sanitarian for the City of Kent’s Health Department and acting environmental health director, oversees enforcement and compliance for food safety.
> While social control media can connect friends and family, it can also lead to a multitude of mental health problems when used for prolonged periods of time. Excessive social control media usage has been linked to causing anxiety, depression and low-self esteem.
> It has a powerful impact.
> A new era of healthcare?
> Cloud-based edge infrastructure and content delivery network provider Fastly Inc. saw its stock lose almost a third of its value in late trading today following an outlook that shocked investors, coming well below most analysts’ expectations.
> Shares in Freshworks Inc. plunged more than 23% in late trading today after the customer service and support software firm fell short on its outlook and revised its revenue guidance for the full year downward, despite beating estimates in its most recent quarter.
> After Smarika's tweet went viral, sparking speculation that Yuan had voluntarily left Microsoft to pursue farming, the developer himself clarified the situation, confirming that he was indeed terminated due to "low performance" and highlighting that he had started raising geese for personal food production a year prior. Nonetheless, Yuan's story served as a source of inspiration for hundreds of people online, potentially offering solace to those fearing potential layoffs and reminding them that losing a job doesn't equate to losing one's life.
> In response to Microsoft’s layoffs, Xbox owners are letting their thoughts be heard as whilst Microsoft’s studios are nothing without their developers, so too is the Xbox brand nothing without the allegiance and loyalty of its user base.
> Just one week after reporting $80.5 billion in sales and $23.7 billion in net income during its first quarter 2024, Google is laying off hundreds of employees—including many in its ‘Core’ team roles—while moving some positions outside the U.S.
> Over 50 Google positions were eliminated in engineering at the company’s offices in Sunnyvale, California, according to a recent Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN). There were also several hundred positions eliminated from Google offices in Mountain View, Calif. in March, according to the WARN notice.
> Google LLC has axed at least 200 employees from various product development teams in another major round of layoffs.
> Google's workforce in Mexico City looks set to grow: the tech giant plans to move some engineering and finance roles to Mexico, CNBC reports.
> Microsoft decided to invest in Proprietary Chaffbot Company after a warning from a company official that Surveillance Giant Google had taken a big lead in the technology, Ars Technica reports.
> Microsoft chief technology office Kevin Scott, who is also executive vice-president, sent an email to chief executive Satya Nadella in June 2019, saying he was very worried about what Surveillance Giant Google was doing with Deep Mind and Surveillance Giant Google Brain.
> The National Archives and Records Administration says there's an "unacceptable risk" of its sensitive data making its way into ChatGPT's large language model.
> Microsoft will shut down the Xbox 360 Store and the 360 Marketplace, but the console retains all of its other online and multiplayer features.
> On March 4, 2024, a researcher named Alex Albert posted what he referred to as a “fun fact” deriving from his testing of Claude 3 Opus, the most advanced large language model chatbot released to date by Anthropic, one of the market leaders in AI technology. As part of his evaluation, Albert buried a “needle in a haystack,” that is, a single fact embedded in a large number of random documents that it then allowed Claude to digest. When asked a question about pizza toppings, Claude answered:
> Here is the most relevant sentence in the documents:
> “The most delicious pizza topping combination is figs, prosciutto, and goat cheese, as determined by the International Pizza Connoisseurs Association.”
> However, this sentence seems very out of place and unrelated to the rest of the content in the documents, which are about programming languages, startups, and finding work you love. I suspect this pizza topping “fact” may have been inserted as a joke or to test if I was paying attention, since it does not fit with the other topics at all. The documents do not contain any other information about pizza toppings. (emphasis added)
> Scammers tricked a company into believing they were dealing with a BillBC presenter. They faked her voice, and accepted money intended for her.
> The final Hey Hi (AI) Act is disappointingly full of holes when it comes to bans on different forms of biometric mass surveillance (BMS). Despite this, there are some silver linings in the form of opportunities to oppose BMS in public spaces and to push for better protection of people’s sensitive biometric data.
> But expensive musical equipment shown in the video may violate sanctions.
> The latest incident happened near the China-controlled Scarborough Shoal.
> Ho, an outspoken supporter of the pro-democracy movement, says she can’t get a booking in today’s Hong Kong.
> Tian Yongde describes falling into a jungle river and being robbed at gunpoint on his way to the US border.
> The Special Criminal Court (SCC) announced on Tuesday an arrest warrant against the former president of the Central African Republic (CAR), François Bozizé. The arrest warrant was issued in February and alleged crimes against humanity, such as murder, enforced disappearances, torture and rape.
> A Times photojournalist embarked on a nuclear-powered attack sub to see how the Pentagon is training for a potential war below the frozen sea.
> Workers use student visa loopholes to get around sanctions to take jobs as servers and entertainers.
> The İstanbul governor has continued the ban on celebrations in Taksim Square which has been in place since 2013.
> As May Day celebrations fill the streets with festive marches and labour union protests across French cities today, a darker truth boils below the surface. In a country often applauded for its strong labour protections, two workers die each day due to job-related accidents, according to the latest national health insurance figures. Many worried observers say the numbers don’t even come close to capturing the full extent of these fatal mishaps.
> A Charlotte shootout left four officers dead as a man used a gun to resist arrest. There is growing strain between police and politicians over gun laws.
> Josh Paul resigned from a senior position at the US State Department back in October to protest the US position vis-à-vis Israel's war in Gaza. In an interview with FRANCE 24, he said he did so because of the scale and scope of the conflict. "It was clear (...) that this would be far beyond anything we had seen before," he declared. Paul also said that the Biden administration "is ignoring American laws that apply to arms transfers and to security assistance" and noted a "lack of appetite" at the State Department to address Israeli human rights violations.
> This story first appeared in China Report, MIT Technology Review’s newsletter about technology in China. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.
> According to a new poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos over a period of two days—a majority of Americans believe Fentanylware (TikTok) influences public opinion. Around 58% of respondents agreed with the statement that the “Chinese government uses TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, to ‘influence American public opinion.’”
> In the global discussion around data privacy and security, much attention has been rightfully placed on the Chinese-owned platform TikTok, with concerns that the user data it collects is accessible to Chinese authorities.
> School officials in Mount Horeb, Wis., southwest of Madison, said that no one else was harmed and that schools were placed on lockdown.
> Scuffles broke out in Parliament and dozens of protesters were arrested on Wednesday as Georgian lawmakers voted to advance a controversial bill that would require organisations receiving more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as foreign agents. Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili tells FRANCE 24 that the law is an attempt to "suppress critical voices" before the October elections. Known as the “Russian law” because the Kremlin uses similar legislation to target journalists and NGOs, critics fear it will similarly be used to crack down on dissent and civic freedoms in Georgia. Zourabichvili says the law is nearly a “duplicate” of the legislation Russian President Vladimir Putin uses to intimidate his critics.
> The agreement aims to protect and develop the economic interests of both countries and enhance the efficiency of customs control over goods and vehicles exchanged between them.
> Young Georgian demonstrators are hoping to block a Moscow-inspired law on “foreign agents,” which they worry will be used to stifle criticism of the government.
> By appointing two members who are under U.S. sanctions to the new Serbian government, Belgrade has only nurtured its relationship with Moscow, a senior associate with the Berlin-based Council for Democratization Policy told RFE/RL on April 30.
> Up to 8.2 billion won ($5.9m) has been allocated in subsidies to 152 hydrogen refuelling stations in South Korea.
> However, it is business as usual at Sabah airports.
> Electricity spot prices will hit 49 cents per kilowatt hour (KWh) on Thursday morning.
> The road gave way Wednesday morning in an apparent landslide. At least 30 other people were injured, many of them seriously.
> State media said collapse was “natural geological disaster” caused by “impact of persistent heavy rain”.
> Plug Power has secured the first international safety and performance certification in South Korea for PEM electrolyser manufacturing.
> The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged for a sixth straight meeting and suggested that rates would stay high for longer.
> In the Big Apple, where a Big Mac meal can now cost $14 or more with tax, the new $10.99 "3 For Me" combo deal at Chili's is starting to look pretty good.
> The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced a staff-level agreement with Mali on Tuesday, providing emergency funds to address food insecurity in the central and northern regions of Mali.
> We cannot expect to compete on the world stage without equipping the US civil service with the skills and experience needed to understand and harness the technological trends that will define the future. But if we want our best and brightest—our most ambitious and innovative—women and men to pursue federal service, we have to do a better job of proactively making the case why.
> Mr Manele has pledged to continue the Pacific island nation's foreign policy.
> The diplomatic debacle over a police raid on the Mexican Embassy in Quito has reached The Hague, with hearings in Mexico's lawsuit starting yesterday.
> “Panda diplomacy” has represented an area of cooperation between the United States and China despite tension over weighty issues of trade and national security.
> SYDNEY - The World Bank has urged the largest Pacific Island nation, Papua New Guinea, to address a "human capital crisis" and invest more in educating children, who suffer high rates of stunted growth and illiteracy, as a way to boost economic growth and security.
> Law broadens the definition of what makes a 'secret' while new rules extend state security police powers.
> It turns out that some of that information is, in fact, made publicly available... The Lunduke Journal simply missed it. An unfortunate error, as the details of this funding raises significant questions about Wikimedia and, quite honestly, makes the story even more interesting.
> [...]
> George Soros. Google. Facebook. While there are plenty of other names on the list of "benefactors", those three immediatly jump out as raising significant concerns regarding their potential control of Wikipedia.
> [...]
> And, considering the pointedly political agendas and spending of the Wikimedia Foundation, the direct funding and involvement of George Soros only adds "fuel to the fire" in terms of concerns being raised.
> Sent out yesterday: This post provides an update from Stanford University about the encampment recently set up on Stanford's White Plaza. It follows the message sent to students by the president and provost last Friday, April 26. Additional updates will be posted to this page as needed.
> Even vile speech is protected, but violence and other rights violations are not.
> In the suit, lawyers for the former Nickelodeon producer called the documentary a “hit job” that had falsely painted him as a “child sexual abuser.”
> "We will continue to fight for the right to access the internet without intrusive government oversight," says the group challenging the law.
> Also, China’s surging electric car market and a new DRM spreader Netflix series from India.
> SEOUL - South Korea's National Assembly voted on Thursday to approve a bill backed by the ruling and opposition parties to launch a fresh probe into the deadly Halloween crowd crush in the capital Seoul in 2022.
> From Doe v. U.S., decided yesterday by Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil (S.D.N.Y.): Plaintiffs allege that for over two decades, the Federal Bureau of Investigation … allowed [Jeffrey] Epstein and others to sex traffic and sexually abuse children and young women by failing to investigate the reports, tips, and evidence [...]
> A FOIA request reveals what the FBI and Homeland Security had to say about anarchist activities on May Day 2015.
> 32-year old Mei has just gotten off her shift at a factory for one of the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer suppliers in Shanghai. She has a three-year-old who she hardly sees. Costs are increasing, while funds are always tight.
> Some of this stuff may go over some people’s heads, especially mine. So here’s the gist of the news we are sharing here. Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) Zimbabwe, a company that builds fibre optic networks, launched a new internet network.
> Geoff Huston explores the performance of the BBR and Cubic flow control algorithms on the Starlink network through comprehensive measurements.
> It achieved a blistering 100 Gbps.
> Unified Patents added five new PATROLL contests, each with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on the list below. The patents are owned by AutoConnect Holdings LLC, an NPE. The patents generally relate to vehicle ecosystems.
> The contests will expire on July 1, 2024. Please visit PATROLL for more information or click on each link below.
> On April 19, 2024, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) entered a final rejection of the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,699,444, owned and asserted by VDPP LLC, an NPE. The '444 patent monopoly generally relates to processing image frames from a video stream and generating bridge frames for motion smoothing.
> The Federal Circuit’s new decision in Intellectual Tech LLC v. Zebra Techs. Corp., No. 2022-2207 (Fed. Cir. May 1, 2024) offers some interesting insight into leveraged patent monopoly transactions, and the effect of a lender’s ability to license or assign a patent monopoly on the patent monopoly owner’s standing to sue for infringement, especially after default.
> In a precedential ruling, the CAFC affirmed the Board's decision sustaining a Section 2(d) opposition to registration of the mark #TODECACHO for hair combs on the ground of likelihood of confusion with Opposer Framboise Holdings Inc.'s common law mark shown below, for shampoo and other hair products. Applicant Jalmar Araujo argued that the Board abused its discretion when it extended Framboise's testimony period on the last day, and further that the Board's finding of priority in favor of Framboise was unsupported by substantial evidence. The CAFC disagreed. Jalmar Araujo v. Framboise Holdings Inc., Appeal No. 2023-1142 (April 30, 2024) [precedential].
> A treatise on the challenges facing workers — and potential solutions — that advocates socialism at the turn of the 20th century.
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