Parks Kugle reports via the Daily Dot: A mechanic went viral when he posted a TikTok about technicians being locked out of computer systems in a new Dodge Ram. TikTok user Shorty of Shorty's Speed Shop (@shortysspeedshop) garnered over 301,000 views when he showed viewers what mechanics had to do to be able to repair newer car models. "It has officially happened. 2024 Ram 3500, authorization denied," Shorty said as he showed viewers the computer screen. "Cannot get into anything on this except generic OBD2 Software." Shorty went on to explain that this update made his "manufacturer software 100 percent irrelevant." Then, Shorty showed viewers the Vehicle Security Professional (VSP) Registry on the National Automaker Service Task Force (NASTF) website. According to NASTF, automakers require mechanics to become credentialed VSPs if they want to purchase key and immobilizer codes, PIN numbers, and special tool access from Automaker websites. A VSP is required to "verify proof of ownership/authority prior to performing any security operation." "It's all part of the NASTF Security Professional Registery," Shorty explained. Shorty believes that this rule allows manufacturers to lock mechanics out of anything they "deem security sensitive." Shorty then broke down the "requirements to gain VSP access." According to him, these include a $325 fee "every two years" and a $100 fee for every subsequent two-year license renewal. He says mechanics also need "commercial liability insurance of $1 million" and a "fidelity or employee dishonesty bond of $100,000." The VSP application page on NASTF's website confirms that there is a $100 Application Fee that covers a "Two Year Renewal" and a $325 Primary Account fee that covers a "Two Year License." It also confirms his claims about the required commercial liability insurance and fidelity or employee dishonesty bond. "There's a lot of people that don't know that this is going on, and it's going to affect everybody getting their cars fixed," Shorty remarked.

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An anonymous reader quotes an op-ed for Slate, written by Amanda Chen: In August 2009, Wired magazine ran a cover story on Craigslist founder Craig Newmark titled "Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess." The opening paragraphs excoriate almost every aspect of the online classifieds platform as "underdeveloped," a "wasteland of hyperlinks," and demands that we, the public, ought to have higher standards. The same sentiment can found across tech forums and trade publications, a missed opportunity that the average self-professed LinkedIn expert on #UX #UI #design will have you believe that they are the first to point out. But as sites like Craigslist increasingly turn into digital artifacts, more people, myself included, are starting to see the beauty that belies those same features. Without them, where else on the internet could you find such ardent professions of desire or loneliness, or the random detritus of a life so steeply discounted? The site has changed relatively little in both functionality and appearance since Newmark launched it in 1995 as a friends and family listserv for jobs and other opportunities. Yet in spite of that, it remains a household name whose niche in the contemporary digital landscape has yet to be usurped, with an estimated 180 million visits in May 2024. Though, it's certainly not for a lack of newcomers attempting to stake their claims on the booming C2C market; in the U.S., Facebook Marketplace, launched in 2016, is its closest direct competitor, followed by platforms like Nextdoor and OfferUp. Craigslist's business model is quite simple: Users in a few categories -- apartments in select cities, jobs, vehicles for sale -- pay a small but reasonable fee to make posts. Everything else is free. Its Perl-backed tech is straightforward. The team is relatively lean, as the company considers functions like sales and marketing superfluous. This strategy has allowed Craigslist to stay extremely profitable throughout the years without implementing sophisticated recommendation algorithms or inundating the webpage with third-party advertisements. Its runaway success threatens decades-old industry gospels of growth, disruption, and innovation, and might force tech evangelists to admit they don't fully understand what people want. [...] These days I find myself casually browsing Craigslist in lieu of Instagram. Like readers of a local paper, I use it to keep a pulse on what's happening around me, even if I'll never know who these people are. That's beside the point. Perhaps Craigslist's single greatest cultural contribution, and my favorite place to lurk, is the "missed connections." The feature has inspired countless copycats, artistic reinterpretations, human interest stories, and analyses (one in particular extrapolated that Monday evenings are the most lovelorn time across the country). There is something deeply comforting about seeing those intangible threads of yearning which permeate a city so plainly laid out, as confirmation that you're not alone in wanting to be seen by others alive in the same place and time as you. Sometimes I'll peruse random job listings or the "free" section. This leads to the ever-amusing exercise, which I'll often invite friends to participate in, of speculating about the motivations and circumstances behind an object's acquisition and imminent relinquishment. I'll even visit the clunky, dial-up era-style discussion forums, subdivided into topics labeled things like "death and dying" or "haiku hotel," where a unique penchant for whimsy and romance can be felt deeply throughout. On Craigslist, a post can be a shout into the void that may or may not be returned, an affirmation of life, but regardless, in 45 days it's gone. Positioned somewhere in between digital ephemera and archive, the site's images and language are often utilitarian, occasionally unintelligible, and just when you least expect it, absurd, poetic, and profound. "Frequently, technologists remain convinced that the market will eventually reveal a solution for all of our deep-seated societal problems, something that we can hack if only granted access to better tech," writes Chen, in closing. "From the start, the industry has advanced the idea that change is inherently good, even if only for its own sake, which can be viewed as symptomatic of the accelerating conditions of late-stage capitalism. Of course, there are many ways in which change is desperately needed in this moment, but when it comes to the particular case of Craigslist, it hardly seems necessary."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: Fervo Energy has announced the signing of two power purchase agreements (PPAs) totaling 320 MW with Southern California Edison (SCE), one of the nation's largest electric utilities. The two PPAs, signed for 15 years, will provide clean, and affordable power for the equivalent of 350,000 homes across Southern California. The geothermal energy from Fervo will help California transition to a cleaner and more reliable power source. According to Fervo Energy, SCE will purchase the power from its 400 MW Cape Station project currently under construction in southwest Utah. The first 70 MW phase of Fervo Energy's project is expected to be operational by 2026 and the second phase will be operational by 2028, according to a release by the company. Geothermal energy, being a carbon-free and weather-agnostic source, will also prove to be a reliable source for meeting California's power consumption demands. Unlike wind and solar power plants, geothermal energy can be sourced around the clock and on demand to cater to increased energy needs. Earlier in July 2023, Fervo Energy had claimed to achieve "commercial scale" geothermal energy production from its Project Red demonstration site in northern Nevada. [...] For the demo, Fervo had used a horizontal well pair that extended to 3,250 feet (990 m) and reached a temperature of 375 degrees Fahrenheit (191 degrees Celsius). During the test period, Fervo achieved a flow rate of 63 liters per second, sufficient to generate 3.5 MW of electricity. One megawatt of energy can power approximately 750 homes at a time. Data collected during this pilot was used to improve the design for Fervo's next well pair and double the energy output generated.

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Longtime Slashdot reader thephydes writes: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has announced that the SHERLOC (Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman & Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals) instrument on the Perseverance rover has been brought back online "Six months of running diagnostics, testing, imagery and data analysis, troubleshooting, and retesting couldn't come with a better conclusion," said SHERLOC principal investigator Kevin Hand of JPL. JPL writes in a press release. "Mounted on the rover's robotic arm, SHERLOC uses cameras, spectrometers, and a laser to search for organics and minerals that have been altered by watery environments and may be signs of past microbial life." In addition to its black-and-white context camera, SHERLOC is assisted by WATSON, a color camera for taking close-up images of rock grains and surface textures. The instrument stopped working this past January when it encountered an issue where the "movable lens cover designed to protect the instrument's spectrometer and one of its cameras from dust became frozen in a position that prevented SHERLOC from collecting data," says JPL. "Analysis by the SHERLOC team pointed to the malfunction of a small motor responsible for moving the protective lens cover as well as adjusting focus for the spectrometer and the Autofocus and Context Imager (ACI) camera. By testing potential solutions on a duplicate SHERLOC instrument at JPL, the team began a long, meticulous evaluation process to see if, and how, the lens cover could be moved into the open position."

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A study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) analyzed data from nearly 400,000 healthy adults over 20 years and determined that "multivitamin use to improve longevity is not supported." The findings were published in JAMA Network Open. ABC News reports: The study found no evidence that daily multivitamin consumption reduced the risk of death from conditions such as heart disease or cancer. Rather than living longer, otherwise healthy people who took daily multivitamins were slightly more likely (4%) than non-users to die in the study period, according to researchers. Researchers reported nearly 165,000 deaths occurring during the follow-up period of the study, out of the initial group of 390,000 participants. The study, however, did not analyze data from people with pre-existing vitamin deficiencies. "What this study shows is that, generally, multivitamins aren't going to help you live longer," Dr. Jade A Cobern, MD, MPH, board-certified physician in pediatrics and general preventive medicine, told ABC News. "Even though the cost of many multivitamins isn't high, this is still an expense that many people can be spared from."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Ultra-processed foods (UPFs) are displacing healthy diets "all over the world" despite growing evidence of the risks they pose and should be sold with tobacco-style warnings, according to the nutritional scientist who first coined the term. Prof Carlos Monteiro of the University of Sao Paulo will highlight the increasing danger UPFs present to children and adults at the International Congress on Obesity this week. "UPFs are increasing their share in and domination of global diets, despite the risk they represent to health in terms of increasing the risk of multiple chronic diseases," Monteiro told the Guardian ahead of the conference in Sao Paulo. "UPFs are displacing healthier, less processed foods all over the world, and also causing a deterioration in diet quality due to their several harmful attributes. Together, these foods are driving the pandemic of obesity and other diet-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes." Monteiro and his colleagues first used the phrase UPF 15 years ago when designing the food classification system "Nova." This assesses not only nutritional content but also the processes food undergoes before it is consumed. The system places food and drink into four groups: minimally processed food, processed culinary ingredients, processed food and ultra-processed food. Monteiro told the Guardian he was now so concerned about the impact UPF was having on human health that studies and reviews were no longer sufficient to warn the public of the health hazards. "Public health campaigns are needed like those against tobacco to curb the dangers of UPFs," he told the Guardian in an email. "Such campaigns would include the health dangers of consumption of UPFs. Advertisements for UPFs should also be banned or heavily restricted, and front-of-pack warnings should be introduced similar to those used for cigarette packs." He will tell delegates: "Sales of UPFs in schools and health facilities should be banned, and there should be heavy taxation of UPFs, with the revenue generated used to subsidize fresh foods." Monteiro will tell the conference that food giants marketing UPFs know that, in order to be competitive, their products must be more convenient, more affordable and tastier than freshly prepared meals. "To maximize profits, these UPFs must have lower cost of production and be overconsumed," he said. He will also draw parallels between UPF and tobacco companies. "Both tobacco and UPFs cause numerous serious illnesses and premature mortality; both are produced by transnational corporations that invest the enormous profits they obtain with their attractive/addictive products in aggressive marketing strategies, and in lobbying against regulation; and both are pathogenic (dangerous) by design, so reformulation is not a solution."

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The Japanese government plans to create zero-emissions logistics links between major cities, potentially using massive conveyor belts or autonomous electric carts. The initiative aims to shift millions of tons of cargo, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and alleviate the anticipated 30% shortfall in parcel deliveries by 2030 due to a lack of drivers. New Atlas reports: According to The Japan News, the project has been under discussion since February by an expert panel at the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism ministry. A draft outline of an interim report was released Friday, revealing plans to complete an initial link between Tokyo and Osaka by 2034. Japan's well-known population collapse issues foretell severe labor squeezes in the coming years, and one specific issue this project aims to curtail is the continuing rise in online shopping, with a forecast decline in the numbers of delivery drivers that can move goods around. The country is expecting some 30% of parcels simply won't make it from A to B by 2030, because there'll be nobody to move them. Hence this wild logistical link, the first iteration of which the team says will move as much small cargo between Tokyo and Osaka as 25,000 trucks. Exactly how it'll do this is yet to be nailed down, but individual pallets will carry up to a ton of small cargo items, and they'll move without human interference from one end to the other. One possibility is to use massive conveyor belts to cover the 500-km (310-mile) distance between the two cities, running alongside the highway or potentially through tunnels underneath the road. Alternatively, the infrastructure could simply provide flat lanes or tunnels, and the pallets could be shifted by automated electric carts. A 500-km tunnel, mind you, would be insanely expensive at somewhere around $23 billion before any conveyor belts or autonomous carts are factored in. And one does have to wonder if autonomous electric trucks might be able to do the job without any of the infrastructure requirements [...].

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The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), the nation's oldest nonprofit newsroom, sued OpenAI and Microsoft in federal court on Thursday for allegedly using its content to train AI models without consent or compensation. CIR, founded in 1977 in San Francisco, evolved into a multi-platform newsroom with its flagship distribution platform Reveal. In February, it merged with Mother Jones. "OpenAI and Microsoft started vacuuming up our stories to make their product more powerful, but they never asked for permission or offered compensation, unlike other organizations that license our material," said Monika Bauerlein, CEO of the Center for Investigative Reporting, in a statement. "This free rider behavior is not only unfair, it is a violation of copyright. The work of journalists, at CIR and everywhere, is valuable, and OpenAI and Microsoft know it." Bauerlein said that OpenAI and Microsoft treat the work of nonprofit and independent publishers "as free raw material for their products," and added that such moves by generative AI companies hurt the public's access to truthful information in a "disappearing news landscape." Engadget reports: The CIR's lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan's federal court, accuses OpenAI and Microsoft, which owns nearly half of the company, of violating the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act multiple times. News organizations find themselves at an inflection point with generative AI. While the CIR is joining publishers like The New York Times, New York Daily News, The Intercept, AlterNet and Chicago Tribune in suing OpenAI, others publishers have chosen to strike licensing deals with the company. These deals will allow OpenAI to train its models on archives and ongoing content published by these publishers and cite information from them in responses offered by ChatGPT.

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Earlier this week, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange received a donation of 8.07 bitcoin (worth roughly $500,000) from an anonymous bitcoin whale, "helping to cover the cost of a private jet that flew him out of the U.K. and ultimately to freedom in Australia after he reached a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice," reports CoinDesk. From the report: Initially, Assange's wife Stella made an "emergency appeal" to raise 520,000 British pounds to pay for the transport, setting up a crowdfunding page that allowed people to donate in fiat currency via credit cards or bank transfer. With that site notably not allowing crypto for donations, the family quickly moved to set up another page to accept bitcoin. Up to this point, the bitcoin address has received 34 donations totaling just over $500,000. The overwhelming majority, however, came from just that one 8.07 BTC donation. The original fiat site has also received about $500,000 in donations. "Julian's travel to freedom comes at a massive cost: Julian will owe USD 520,000 which he is obligated to pay back to the Australian government for charter Flight VJ199," Stella Assange wrote on X. "He was not permitted to fly commercial airlines or routes to Saipan and onward to Australia. Any contribution big or small is much appreciated." The jet was organized by the Australian government after Assange reached a historic plea deal on Tuesday, where he pleaded guilty to espionage charges in exchange for his freedom.

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Al Michaels, the 79-year-old American broadcaster, who first covered the Olympics decades ago, is returning to broadcasting via an AI clone. NBCUniversal and Peacock will use AI-generated narration by Al Michaels for daily customized highlight reels of the Summer Olympics. Officials say they anticipate seven million different variations of the customized highlights throughout the games. The New York Times reports: Al Michaels, the 79-year-old American broadcaster, who first covered the Olympics decades ago, is coming back to primetime. It does raise a key question, one that recalls Mr. Michaels's most famous Olympic call: Do NBCUniversal executives believe in miracles? NBC has been exclusively broadcasting the Olympics in the United States since 1996, and the network frequently finds itself subject to intense public scrutiny for its coverage of the Games. [...] Subscribers who want the daily Peacock highlight reel will be able choose the Olympic events that interest them most, and the types of highlights they want to see, such as viral clips, gold medalists or elimination events. From there, Peacock's A.I. machines will get to work each evening cranking out the most notable moments and putting them together in a tidy customized package. Mr. Michaels's recreated voice will be piped over the reels. (Humans will make quality control checks on the A.I. highlight reels.)

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Many American subscribers are unable to use their phones overseas because all three major U.S. carriers are experiencing outages. According to The Register, the outages have been ongoing for several hours and stem from third-party communications technology company Syniverse. From the report: "Since the onset of these issues, Syniverse has been working closely with our network partners to restore full service," Syniverse, a US-based comms provider that focuses on roaming services, said in a statement confirming the breakdown. "We understand the inconvenience this has caused and appreciate your patience as we navigate this challenge." "We're one of several providers impacted by a third-party vendor's issue that is intermittently affecting some international roaming service," T-Mo told us. "We're working with them to resolve it." Similarly, AT&T stated: "The AT&T network is operating normally. Some customers traveling internationally may be experiencing service disruptions due to an issue outside the AT&T network. We're working with one of our roaming connectivity providers to resolve the issue." Likewise, Verizon said, "An international third party communications provider is having issues with making voice and data connections with US based customers traveling overseas." The international roaming outage has hit users' ability to do calls and texts, and reach the internet. According to Verizon, it's not a complete blackout. "70 percent of calls and data connections are going through at this time," the carrier firm told The Register in the past hour or so. Developing...

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Temu -- the Chinese shopping app that has rapidly grown so popular in the US that even Amazon is reportedly trying to copy it -- is "dangerous malware" that's secretly monetizing a broad swath of unauthorized user data, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin alleged in a lawsuit (PDF) filed Tuesday. Griffin cited research and media reports exposing Temu's allegedly nefarious design, which "purposely" allows Temu to "gain unrestricted access to a user's phone operating system, including, but not limited to, a user's camera, specific location, contacts, text messages, documents, and other applications." "Temu is designed to make this expansive access undetected, even by sophisticated users," Griffin's complaint said. "Once installed, Temu can recompile itself and change properties, including overriding the data privacy settings users believe they have in place." Griffin fears that Temu is capable of accessing virtually all data on a person's phone, exposing both users and non-users to extreme privacy and security risks. It appears that anyone texting or emailing someone with the shopping app installed risks Temu accessing private data, Griffin's suit claimed, which Temu then allegedly monetizes by selling it to third parties, "profiting at the direct expense" of users' privacy rights. "Compounding" risks is the possibility that Temu's Chinese owners, PDD Holdings, are legally obligated to share data with the Chinese government, the lawsuit said, due to Chinese "laws that mandate secret cooperation with China's intelligence apparatus regardless of any data protection guarantees existing in the United States." Griffin's suit cited an extensive forensic investigation into Temu by Grizzly Research -- which analyzes publicly traded companies to inform investors -- last September. In their report, Grizzly Research alleged that PDD Holdings is a "fraudulent company" and that "Temu is cleverly hidden spyware that poses an urgent security threat to United States national interests." As Griffin sees it, Temu baits users with misleading promises of discounted, quality goods, angling to get access to as much user data as possible by adding addictive features that keep users logged in, like spinning a wheel for deals. Meanwhile hundreds of complaints to the Better Business Bureau showed that Temu's goods are actually low-quality, Griffin alleged, apparently supporting his claim that Temu's end goal isn't to be the world's biggest shopping platform but to steal data. Investigators agreed, the lawsuit said, concluding "we strongly suspect that Temu is already, or intends to, illegally sell stolen data from Western country customers to sustain a business model that is otherwise doomed for failure." Seeking an injunction to stop Temu from allegedly spying on users, Griffin is hoping a jury will find that Temu's alleged practices violated the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA) and the Arkansas Personal Information Protection Act. If Temu loses, it could be on the hook for $10,000 per violation of the ADTPA and ordered to disgorge profits from data sales and deceptive sales on the app. In a statement to Ars, a Temu spokesperson discredited Grizzly Research's investigation and said that the company was "surprised and disappointed by the Arkansas Attorney General's Office for filing the lawsuit without any independent fact-finding." "The allegations in the lawsuit are based on misinformation circulated online, primarily from a short-seller, and are totally unfounded," Temu's spokesperson said. "We categorically deny the allegations and will vigorously defend ourselves." "We understand that as a new company with an innovative supply chain model, some may misunderstand us at first glance and not welcome us. We are committed to the long-term and believe that scrutiny will ultimately benefit our development. We are confident that our actions and contributions to the community will speak for themselves over time." Last year, Temu was the most downloaded app in the U.S. and has only become more popular as reports of security and privacy risks have come out.

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Nine astronauts aboard the International Space Station were forced to take shelter late Wednesday when a satellite broke up in low Earth orbit. This "debris-generating event" created "over 100 pieces of trackable [space junk]," according to U.S. space-tracking firm LeoLabs. Space.com reports: The Expedition 71 crew on the International Space Station (ISS) went to their three spacecraft, including Boeing Starliner, shortly after 9 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT), according to a brief NASA update on X, formerly known as Twitter. As the ISS follows a time zone identical to GMT, according to the European Space Agency, the astronauts were likely in their sleep period when the incident occurred. The procedure was a "precautionary measure", NASA officials added, stating that the crew only stayed in their spacecraft for about an hour before they were "cleared to exit their spacecraft, and the station resumed normal operations." NASA did not specify which satellite was associated with the incident, but satellite monitoring and collision detection firm LeoLabs identified a "debris-generating event" that same evening. "Early indications are that a non-operational Russian spacecraft, Resurs-P1 [or] SATNO 39186, released a number of fragments," the company wrote on X. U.S. Space Command also reported the Resurs-P1 event, saying on X that over 100 pieces of trackable debris were generated. The military said it "observed no immediate threats and is continuing to conduct routine conjunction assessments." (A conjunction refers to a close approach of two objects in orbit to one another.)

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Seven content-licensing sellers of music, image, video and other datasets for use in training artificial intelligence systems have formed the sector's first trade group, they said on Wednesday. The Dataset Providers Alliance (DPA) will advocate for 'ethical data sourcing' in the training of AI systems, including rights for people depicted in datasets and the protection of content owners' intellectual property rights, the companies said in a statement. Founding members include U.S. music dataset company Rightsify, image licensing service vAIsual, Japanese stock photo provider Pixta and Germany-based data marketplace Datarade.

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Early analysis of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu has revealed unexpected evidence of magnesium-sodium phosphate, suggesting Bennu might have originated from a primitive ocean world. Space.com reports: On Earth, magnesium-sodium phosphate can be found in certain minerals and geological formations, as well as within living organisms where it is present in various biochemical processes and is a component of bone and teeth. According to a NASA press release, however, its presence on Bennu surprised the research team because it wasn't seen in the OSIRIS-REx probe's remote sensing data prior to sample collection. The team says its presence "hints that the asteroid could have splintered off from a long-gone, tiny, primitive ocean world." "The presence and state of phosphates, along with other elements and compounds on Bennu, suggest a watery past for the asteroid," said Lauretta. "Bennu potentially could have once been part of a wetter world. Although, this hypothesis requires further investigation." The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft obtained a sample of Bennu's regolith on October 20, 2020 using its Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), which comprises a specialized sampler head situated on an articulated arm. Bennu is a small B-type asteroid, which are relatively uncommon carbonaceous asteroids. "[Bennu] was selected as the mission target in part because telescopic observations indicated a primitive, carbonaceous composition and water-bearing minerals," stated the team in their paper. [...] Further analysis on the samples revealed the prevailing component of the regolith sample is magnesium-bearing phyllosilicates, primarily serpentine and smectite -- types of rock typically found at mid-ocean ridges on Earth. A comparison of these serpentinites with their terrestrial counterparts provides possible insights into Bennu's geological past. "Offering clues about the aqueous environment in which they originated," wrote the team. While Bennu's surface may have been altered by water over time, it still preserves some of the ancient characteristics scientists believe were present during the early solar system's days. Bennu's surface materials still contain some original features from the cloud of gas and dust from which our solar system's planets formed -- known as the protoplanetary disk. The team's study also confirmed the asteroid is rich in carbon, nitrogen and some organic compounds -- all of which, in addition to the magnesium phosphate, are essential components for life as we know it on Earth.

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In a contract worth as much as $843 million, NASA announced today SpaceX has been selected to develop a vehicle that will de-orbit the International Space Station in 2030. "As the agency transitions to commercially owned space destinations closer to home, it is crucial to prepare for the safe and responsible deorbit of the International Space Station in a controlled manner after the end of its operational life in 2030," the U.S. space agency said in a statement. TechCrunch reports: Few details about the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle, as NASA calls the craft, have been released so far. However, NASA clarified that the vehicle will be different from SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which delivers cargo and crew to the station, and other vehicles that perform services for the agency. Unlike these vehicles, which are built and operated by SpaceX, NASA will take ownership of the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle post-development and operate it throughout its mission. Both the vehicle and the ISS will destructively break up as they reenter the atmosphere, and one of the big tasks ahead for SpaceX is to ensure that the station reenters in a way that endangers no populated areas. The launch contract for the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle will be announced separately. NASA and its partners had been evaluating using a Russian Roscosmos Progress spacecraft to conduct the de-orbit mission, but studies indicated that a new spacecraft was needed for the de-orbit maneuver. The station's safe demise is a responsibility shared by the five space agencies that operate on the ISS -- NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and State Space Corporation Roscosmos -- but it is unclear whether this contract amount is being paid out by all countries.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Dairy farmers in Denmark face having to pay an annual tax of 672 krone ($96) per cow for the planet-heating emissions they generate. The country's coalition government agreed this week to introduce the world's first carbon emissions tax on agriculture. It will mean new levies on livestock starting in 2030. Denmark is a major dairy and pork exporter, and agriculture is the country's biggest source of emissions. The coalition agreement -- which also entails investing 40 billion krone ($3.7 billion) in measures such as reforestation and establishing wetlands -- is aimed at helping the country meet its climate goals. "With today's agreement, we are investing billions in the biggest transformation of the Danish landscape in recent times," Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said in a statement Tuesday. "At the same time, we will be the first country in the world with a (carbon) tax on agriculture." The Danish dairy industry broadly welcomed the agreement and its goals, but it has angered some farmers. [...] The tax, expected to be approved by Denmark's parliament later this year, will amount to 300 krone ($43) per tonne (1.1 ton) of CO2-equivalent emissions from livestock from 2030, rising to 750 krone ($107) in 2035. A 60% tax break will apply, meaning that farmers will effectively be charged 120 krone ($17) per tonne of livestock emissions per year from 2030, rising to 300 krone ($43) in 2035. On average, Danish dairy cows, which account for much of the cattle population, emit 5.6 tons of CO2-equivalent per year, according to Concito, a green think tank in Denmark. Using the lower tax rate of 120 krone results in a charge of 672 krone per cow, or $96. With the tax break in place, that levy will rise to 1,680 krone per cow in 2035 ($241). In the first two years, the proceeds from the tax will be used to support the agricultural industry's green transition and then reassessed. "The whole purpose of the tax is to get the sector to look for solutions to reduce emissions," Concito's chief economist Torsten Hasforth told CNN. For example, farmers could change the feed they use.

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Brandon Vigliarolo reports via The Register: American healthcare provider Geisinger fears highly personal data on more than a million of its patients has been stolen -- and claimed a former employee at a Microsoft subsidiary is the likely culprit. Geisinger on Monday announced the results of a probe into a November computer security breach, placing the blame on Microsoft-owned Nuance Communications for not cutting off one of its employees' access to corporate files after that person was fired. The Pennsylvania-based healthcare giant uses Nuance as an IT provider. We're told that after the Microsoft-owned entity terminated one of its workers, that staffer two days later may have accessed and taken copies of sensitive records on a huge number of Geisinger patients -- for reasons as yet unknown. Geisinger -- which says it operates 13 hospitals and has more than 600,000 members -- said it discovered the improper access on November 29, informed Nuance, and the IT supplier immediately cut off the former employee from the healthcare group's data before involving police. "Because it could have impeded their investigation, law enforcement investigators asked Nuance to delay notifying patients of this incident until now," Geisinger claimed, explaining why only now this is coming to light. "The former Nuance employee has been arrested and is facing federal charges." It's not immediately clear if or what charges have been laid -- we've asked Geisinger for details. Speech recognition firm Nuance performed its own probe, according to Geisinger, and determined that the former employee may have stolen information on a million-plus people. That info would include birth dates, addresses, hospital admission and discharge records, demographic information, and other medical data. The ex-employee didn't swipe insurance or other financial information, the multi-billion-dollar healthcare group stated. "We continue to work closely with the authorities on this investigation, and while I am grateful that the perpetrator was caught and is now facing federal charges," Geisinger chief privacy officer Jonathan Friesen alleged, adding: "I am sorry that this happened."

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In 2021, Apple announced plans for a new $1 billion campus in North Carolina, set to include a new engineering and research center and support up to 3,000 employees. According to Lauren Ohnesorge of Triangle Business Journal (paywalled), Apple remains committed to the project, but the timeline has been delayed by four years. MacRumors reports: A limited amount of progress on the campus has been made since the announcement, and Apple has not provided updates on construction until now. Apple told Triangle Business Journal that it has paused work on the campus, and it is working with North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper and the North Carolina Department of Commerce to extend the project's timeline by four years. Apple last year filed development plans for the first phase of construction, but the specific timeline for the project has never been clear. Apple's plans for Research Triangle Park include six buildings and a parking garage totaling 700,000 square feet of office space, 190,000 square feet of accessory space, and close to 3,000 parking spaces spanning 41 acres. Apple owns 281 acres of land in the area where it plans to build its campus, so there could ultimately be several phases of construction. As it prepares to build the NC research center, Apple is leasing more than 200,000 square feet of office space in Cary, North Carolina. In a statement, Apple said it is still committed to the project: "Apple has been operating in North Carolina for over two decades. And we're deeply committed to growing our teams here. In the last three years, we've added more than 600 people to our team in Raleigh, and we're looking forward to developing our new campus in the coming years."

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