Longtime Slashdot reader sinij shares a report from Car and Driver: [Volvo] is debuting a new version of the three-point seatbelt that it believes is a major improvement over the original. The new design will be a smart belt that adapts to each occupant's body and adjusts the belt load accordingly. It uses data from interior and exterior sensors to customize protection based on the road conditions and the specific occupants. The technology will debut on the upcoming EX60 crossover. According to Volvo, the onboard sensors can accurately detect a passenger's height, weight, body shape, and seating position. Based on real-time data, the belts optimize protection -- increasing belt load for larger passengers or lowering it for smaller passengers. While the technology for customizing protection isn't new -- Volvo's current belts already use three load-limiting profiles- the new belts increase that number to 11. The belts should also get safer over time, too, as they are equipped to receive over-the-air updates. sinij adds: "Downloading patches for your seat belts from China. What could possibly go wrong?"

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The Register's Thomas Claburn reports: The Linux Foundation on Friday introduced a new method to distribute WordPress updates and plugins that's not controlled by any one party, in a bid to "stabilize the WordPress ecosystem" after months of infighting. The FAIR Package Manager project is a response to the legal brawl that erupted last year, pitting WordPress co-creator Matthew Mullenweg, his for-profit hosting firm Automattic, and the WordPress Foundation that he controls, against WP Engine, a rival commercial WordPress hosting firm. [...] The Linux Foundation says the FAIR Package Manager, a mechanism for distributing open-source WordPress plugins, "eliminates reliance on any single source for core updates, plugins, themes, and more, unites a fragmented ecosystem by bringing together plugins from any source, and builds security into the supply chain." In other words, it can't be weaponized against the WordPress community because it won't be controlled by any one entity. "The FAIR Package Manager project paves the way for the stability and growth of open source content management, giving contributors and businesses additional options governed by a neutral community," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, in a canned press statement. "We look forward to the growth in community and contributions this important project attracts." The FAIR Package Manager repo explains the software's purpose more succinctly. The software "is a decentralized alternative to the central WordPress.org plugin and theme ecosystem, designed to return control to WordPress hosts and developers. It operates as a drop-in WordPress plugin, seamlessly replacing existing centralized services with a federated, open-source infrastructure." In addition to providing some measure of stability, the Linux Foundation sees the FAIR Package Manager as advancing WordPress' alignment with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation by reducing automatic browser data transmission and telemetry sent to commercial entities, while also supporting modern security practices and strengthening the open source software supply chain.

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Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference 25 (WWDC) kicks off next week, June 9th, showcasing the company's latest software and new technologies. That includes the next version of iOS, which is rumored to have the most significant design overhaul since the introduction of iOS 7. Here's an overview of what to expect: Major Software Redesigns Apple plans to shift its operating system naming to reflect the release year, moving from sequential numbers to year-based identifiers. Consequently, the upcoming releases will be labeled as iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, etc., streamlining the versioning across platforms. iOS 26 is anticipated to feature a glossy, glass-like interface inspired by visionOS, incorporating translucent elements and rounded buttons. This design language is expected to extend across iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS, promoting a cohesive user experience across devices. Core applications like Phone, Safari, and Camera are slated for significant redesigns, too. For instance, Safari may introduce a translucent, "glassy" address bar, aligning with the new visual aesthetics. While AI is not expected to be the main focus due to Siri's current readiness, some AI-related updates are rumored. The Shortcuts app may gain "Apple Intelligence," enabling users to create shortcuts using natural language. It's also possible that Gemini will be offered as an option for AI functionalities on the iPhone, similar to ChatGPT. Other App and Feature Updates The lock screen might display charging estimates, indicating how long it will take for the phone to fully charge. There's a rumor about bringing live translation features to AirPods. The Messages app could receive automatic translations and call support; the Music app might introduce full-screen animated lock screen art; and Apple Notes may get markdown support. Users may also only need to log into a captive Wi-Fi portal once, and all their devices will automatically be logged in. Significant updates are expected for Apple Home. There's speculation about the potential announcement of a "HomePad" with a screen, Apple's competitor to devices like the Nest Hub Mini. A new dedicated Apple gaming app is also anticipated to replace Game Center. If you're expecting new hardware, don't hold your breath. The event is expected to focus primarily on software developments. It may even see discontinued support for several older Intel-based Macs in macOS 26, including models like the 2018 MacBook Pro and the 2019 iMac, as Apple continues its transition towards exclusive support for Apple Silicon devices. Sources: Apple WWDC 2025 Rumors and Predictions! (Waveform) WWDC 2025 Overview (MacRumors) WWDC 2025: What to expect from this year's conference (TechCrunch) What to expect from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference next week (Ars Technica) Apple's WWDC 2025: How to Watch and What to Expect (Wired)

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from OregonLive: Together, the four founders of Beaverton startup AheadComputing spent nearly a century at Intel. They were among Intel's top chip architects, working years in advance to develop new generations of microprocessors to power the computers of the future. Now they're on their own, flying without a net, building a new class of microprocessor on an entirely different architecture from Intel's. Founded a year ago, AheadComputing is trying to prove there's a better way to design computer chips. "AheadComputing is doing the biggest, baddest CPU in the world," said Debbie Marr, the company's CEO. [...] AheadComputing is betting on an open architecture called RISC-V -- RISC stands for "reduced instruction set computer." The idea is to craft a streamlined microprocessor that works more efficiently by doing fewer things, and doing them better than conventional processors. For AheadComputing's founders and 80 employees, many of them also Intel alumni, it's a major break from the kind of work they've been doing all their careers. They've left a company with more than 100,000 workers to start a business with fewer than 100. "Every person in this room," Marr said, looking across a conference table at her colleagues, "we could have stayed at Intel. We could have continued to do very exciting things at Intel." They decided they had a better chance at leading a revolution in semiconductor technology at a startup than at a big, established company like Intel. And AheadComputing could be at the forefront of renewal in Oregon's semiconductor ecosystem. "We see this opportunity, this light," Marr said. "We took our chances." It'll be years before AheadComputing's designs are on the market, but the company "envisions its chips will someday power PCs, laptops and data centers," reports OregonLive. "Possible clients could include Google, Amazon, Samsung or other large computing companies."

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alternative_right shares a report: New York state lawmakers voted to stop the NYPD's attempt to block its radio communications from the public Thursday, with the bill expected to head to Gov. Kathy Hochul's desk. The "Keep Police Radio Public Act" passed both the state Senate and state Assembly, with a sponsor of the legislation arguing the proposal strikes the "proper balance" in the battle between transparency and sensitive information. "Preserving access to police radio is critical for a free press and to preserve the freedoms and protections afforded by the public availability of this information," state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) said in a statement. "As encrypted radio usage grows, my proposal strikes the proper balance between legitimate law enforcement needs and the rights and interests of New Yorkers." The bill, which was sponsored in the Assembly by lawmaker Karines Reyes (D-Bronx), is meant to make real-time police radio communications accessible to emergency services organizations and reporters. "Sensitive information" would still be kept private, according to the legislation. In late 2023, the NYPD began encrypting its radio communications to increase officer safety and "protect the privacy interests of victims and witnesses." However, it led to outcry from press advocates and local officials concerned about reduced transparency and limited access to real-time information. A bill to address the issue has passed both chambers of New York's legislature, but Governor Hochul has not yet indicated whether she will sign it.

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Mirnotoriety shares a report from the Independent: Downing Street is exploring a proposal to introduce digital ID cards for every adult in Britain in a move to tackle the UK's illegal migration crisis, according to reports. The new "BritCard" would be used to check on an individual's right to live and work in Britain, with senior No 10 figures examining the proposal, The Times has reported. The card, stored on a smartphone, would reportedly be linked to government records and could check entitlements to benefits and monitor welfare fraud. [...] ... it would cost up to 400 million pounds to build the system and around 10 million pounds a year to administer as a free-to-use phone app.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer: The FBI is warning that the BADBOX 2.0 malware campaign has infected over 1 million home Internet-connected devices, converting consumer electronics into residential proxies that are used for malicious activity. The BADBOX botnet is commonly found on Chinese Android-based smart TVs, streaming boxes, projectors, tablets, and other Internet of Things (IoT) devices. "The BADBOX 2.0 botnet consists of millions of infected devices and maintains numerous backdoors to proxy services that cyber criminal actors exploit by either selling or providing free access to compromised home networks to be used for various criminal activity," warns the FBI. These devices come preloaded with the BADBOX 2.0 malware botnet or become infected after installing firmware updates and through malicious Android applications that sneak onto Google Play and third-party app stores. "Cyber criminals gain unauthorized access to home networks by either configuring the product with malicious software prior to the users purchase or infecting the device as it downloads required applications that contain backdoors, usually during the set-up process," explains the FBI. "Once these compromised IoT devices are connected to home networks, the infected devices are susceptible to becoming part of the BADBOX 2.0 botnet and residential proxy services4 known to be used for malicious activity." Once infected, the devices connect to the attacker's command and control (C2) servers, where they receive commands to execute on the compromised devices, such as [routing malicious traffic through residential IPs to obscure cybercriminal activity, performing background ad fraud to generate revenue, and launching credential-stuffing attacks using stolen login data]. Over the years, the malware botnet continued expanding until 2024, when Germany's cybersecurity agency disrupted the botnet in the country by sinkholing the communication between infected devices and the attacker's infrastructure, effectively rendering the malware useless. However, that did not stop the threat actors, with researchers saying they found the malware installed on 192,000 devices a week later. Even more concerning, the malware was found on more mainstream brands, like Yandex TVs and Hisense smartphones. Unfortunately, despite the previous disruption, the botnet continued to grow, with HUMAN's Satori Threat Intelligence stating that over 1 million consumer devices had become infected by March 2025. This new larger botnet is now being called BADBOX 2.0 to indicate a new tracking of the malware campaign. "This scheme impacted more than 1 million consumer devices. Devices connected to the BADBOX 2.0 operation included lower-price-point, 'off brand,' uncertified tablets, connected TV (CTV) boxes, digital projectors, and more," explains HUMAN. "The infected devices are Android Open Source Project devices, not Android TV OS devices or Play Protect certified Android devices. All of these devices are manufactured in mainland China and shipped globally; indeed, HUMAN observed BADBOX 2.0-associated traffic from 222 countries and territories worldwide."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: My wife taught me something," Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told the crowd at London SXSW. He was addressing the headlines about the company looking to hire human workers after previously saying Klarna used artificial intelligence to do work that would equate to 700 workers. "Two things can be true at the same time," he said. Siemiatkowski said it's true that the company looked to stop hiring human workers a few years ago and rolled out AI agents that have helped reduce the cost of customer support and increase the company's revenue per employee. The company had 5,500 workers two years ago, and that number now stands at around 3,000, he said, adding that as the company's salary costs have gone down, Klarna now seeks to reinvest a majority of that money into employee cash and equity compensation. But, he insisted, this doesn't mean there isn't an opportunity for humans to work at his company. "We think offering human customer service is always going to be a VIP thing," he said, comparing it to how people pay more for clothing stitched by hand rather than machines. "So we think that two things can be done at the same time. We can use AI to automatically take away boring jobs, things that are manual work, but we are also going to promise our customers to have a human connection."

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Japan-based Ispace confirmed its Resilience lander likely crashed during its second failed attempt at a lunar landing, after a sensor malfunction prevented proper deceleration. Despite the setback, the company remains committed to future missions, with funding secured for a third attempt using a new lander, Apex 1.0, scheduled for 2027. "Until then, Ispace has its work cut out for it," reports CNN. "[Ispace CEO and founder Takeshi Hakamada] said during the news briefing he will need to work to regain the trust of investors, and the company will need to deeply investigate what went wrong on the Resilience mission to ensure similar issues don't plague Apex 1.0." The company has ambitious "plans to eventually build a city on the lunar surface that would house a thousand people and welcome thousands more for tourist visits," notes ABC News. "If ispace is going to establish a colony on the moon, it will need to identify an ample supply of ice or water, which it will convert into fuel for a future lunar fueling station. The ability to produce fuel on the moon will enable the company to transport people back and forth between the Earth and the moon."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from KrebsOnSecurity: Ukraine has seen nearly one-fifth of its Internet space come under Russian control or sold to Internet address brokers since February 2022, a new study finds. The analysis indicates large chunks of Ukrainian Internet address space are now in the hands of shadowy proxy and anonymity services that are nested at some of America's largest Internet service providers (ISPs). The findings come in a report that examines how the Russian invasion has affected Ukraine's domestic supply of Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) addresses. Researchers at Kentik, a company that measures the performance of Internet networks, found that while a majority of ISPs in Ukraine haven't changed their infrastructure much since the war began in 2022, others have resorted to selling swathes of their valuable IPv4 address space just to keep the lights on. For example, Ukraine's incumbent ISP Ukrtelecom is now routing just 29 percent of the IPv4 address ranges that the company controlled at the start of the war, Kentik found. Although much of that former IP space remains dormant, Ukrtelecom told Kentik's Doug Madory they were forced to sell many of their address blocks "to secure financial stability and continue delivering essential services." "Leasing out a portion of our IPv4 resources allowed us to mitigate some of the extraordinary challenges we have been facing since the full-scale invasion began," Ukrtelecom told Madory. Madory found much of the IPv4 space previously allocated to Ukrtelecom is now scattered to more than 100 providers globally, particularly at three large American ISPs -- Amazon (AS16509), AT&T (AS7018), and Cogent (AS174). Another Ukrainian Internet provider -- LVS (AS43310) -- in 2022 was routing approximately 6,000 IPv4 addresses across the nation. Kentik learned that by November 2022, much of that address space had been parceled out to over a dozen different locations, with the bulk of it being announced at AT&T. Ditto for the Ukrainian ISP TVCOM, which currently routes nearly 15,000 fewer IPv4 addresses than it did at the start of the war. Madory said most of those addresses have been scattered to 37 other networks outside of Eastern Europe, including Amazon, AT&T, and Microsoft.

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Ars Technica's Kyle Orland reports: Last month, ahead of the launch of the Switch 2 and its GameChat communication features, Nintendo updated its privacy policy to note that the company "may also monitor and record your video and audio interactions with other users." Now that the Switch 2 has officially launched, we have a clearer understanding of how the console handles audio and video recorded during GameChat sessions, as well as when that footage may be sent to Nintendo or shared with partners, including law enforcement. Before using GameChat on Switch 2 for the first time, you must consent to a set of GameChat Terms displayed on the system itself. These terms warn that chat content is "recorded and stored temporarily" both on your system and the system of those you chat with. But those stored recordings are only shared with Nintendo if a user reports a violation of Nintendo's Community Guidelines, the company writes. That reporting feature lets a user "review a recording of the last three minutes of the latest three GameChat sessions" to highlight a particular section for review, suggesting that chat sessions are not being captured and stored in full. The terms also lay out that "these recordings are available only if the report is submitted within 24 hours," suggesting that recordings are deleted from local storage after a full day. If a report is submitted to Nintendo, the company warns that it "may disclose certain information to third parties, such as authorities, courts, lawyers, or subcontractors reviewing the reported chats." If you don't consent to the potential for such recording and sharing, you're prevented from using GameChat altogether. Nintendo is extremely clear that the purpose of its recording and review system is "to protect GameChat users, especially minors" and "to support our ability to uphold our Community Guidelines." This kind of human moderator review of chats is pretty common in the gaming world and can even apply to voice recordings made by various smart home assistants. [...] Overall, the time-limited, local-unless-reported recordings Nintendo makes here seem like a minimal intrusion on the average GameChat user's privacy. Still, if you're paranoid about Nintendo potentially seeing and hearing what's going on in your living room, it's good to at least be aware of it.

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UK tech job openings have surged 21% to pre-pandemic levels, driven largely by a 200% spike in demand for AI skills. London accounted for 80% of the AI-related postings. The Register reports: Accenture collected data from LinkedIn in the first and second week of February 2025, and supplemented the results with a survey of more than 4,000 respondents conducted by research firm YouGov between July and August 2024. The research found a 53 percent annual increase in those describing themselves as having tech skills, amounting to 1.69 million people reporting skills in disciplines including cyber, data, and robotics. [...] The research found that London-based companies said they would allocate a fifth of their tech budgets to AI this year, compared to 13 percent who said the same and were based in North East England, Scotland, and Wales. Growth in revenue per employee increased during the period when LLMs emerged, from 7 percent annually between 2018 and 2022 to 27 percent between 2018 and 2024. Meanwhile, growth in the same measure fell slightly in industries less affected by AI, such as mining and hospitality, the researchers said.

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Intel has implemented a strict new policy requiring all new projects to demonstrate at least a 50% gross margin to move forward. CEO Lip-Bu Tan explained Intel's new risk-averse policy as "something that we probably should have had before," later clarifying that the number is a figure the company is aspiring toward internally. Tom's Hardware reports: Tan is reportedly "laser focused on the fact that we need to get our gross margins back up above 50%." To accomplish this, Tan is also said to be investigating and potentially cancelling or changing unprofitable deals with other companies. Intel's margins have slipped to new lows for the company in recent months. MacroTrends reports Intel's trailing 12 months gross margin for Q1 2025 was as low as 31.67%. Intel's gross margins had hovered around the 60% mark for the ten years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, falling beneath 50% in Q2 2022 and continuing to steadily fall ever since. Holthaus predicts a "tug-of-war" to ensue within Intel in the coming months as engineers and executives reckon with being forced between a rock and a hard place. "We need to be building products that... fit the right competitive landscape and requirements of our customers, but also have the right cost structure in place. It really requires us to do both." [...] Tan is also quoted as wanting to turn Intel into an "engineering-focused company" again under his leadership. To reach this, Tan has committed to investing in recruiting and retaining top talent; "I believe Intel has lost some of this talent over the years; I want to create a culture of innovation empowerment." Maintaining a culture of empowering innovation and top talent seems, on its face, at odds with layoffs and a lock on projects not projected to gross 50% margins, but Tan seemingly has Intel investors on his side in these pursuits.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC: A consumer organization filed a complaint with the European Commission on Thursday against online fast-fashion retailer Shein over its use of "dark patterns," which are tactics designed to make people buy more on its app and website. Pop-ups urging customers not to leave the app or risk losing promotions, countdown timers that create time pressure to complete a purchase and the infinite scroll on its app are among the methods Shein uses that could be considered "aggressive commercial practices," wrote BEUC, a pan-European consumer group, in a report. The BEUC also detailed Shein's use of frequent notifications, with one phone receiving 12 notifications from the app in a single day. "For fast fashion you need to have volume, you need to have mass consumption, and these dark patterns are designed to stimulate mass consumption," said Agustin Reyna, director general of BEUC, in an interview. "For us, to be satisfactory they need to get rid of these dark patterns, but the question is whether they will have enough incentive to do so, knowing the potential impact it can have on the volume of purchases." [...] The BEUC also targeted the online discount platform Temu, a Shein rival, in a previous complaint. Both platforms have surged in popularity in Europe, partly helped by apps that encourage shoppers to engage with games and stand to win discounts and free products. [...] The BEUC noted that dark patterns are widely used by mass-market clothing retailers and called on the consumer protection network to include other retailers in its investigation. It said 25 of its member organizations in 21 countries, including France, Germany and Spain, joined in the grievance filed with the commission and with the European consumer protection network. Temu and Shein have their own issues in the United States. Following the recent closure of the de minimis loophole, use of the two Chinese platforms have slowed significantly. "Temu's U.S. daily active users (DAUs) dropped 52% in May versus March, before Trump's tariffs were announced, while those at rival Shein were down 25%," reports CNBC, citing data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. "The declines were also reflected in both platforms' Apple App Store rankings. Temu averaged a rank of 132 in May 2025, down from an average top 3 ranking a year ago, while Shein averaged a rank of 60 last month versus a top 10 ranking the year prior, the data showed."

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Circle Internet Group surged 168% in its NYSE debut, raising nearly $1.1 billion after pricing its IPO at $31 and opening at $69. "At one point, shares traded as high as $103.75," notes CNBC. From the report: The New York-based company priced its IPO late Wednesday far above this week's expected range of $27 to $28, and an initial range last week of between $24 and $26, valuing the company at some $6.8 billion before trading began. Trading volume by the end of the session was about 46 million, far exceeding the number of freely floating shares available for trading. Circle joins Coinbase, Mara Holdings and Riot Platforms as one of the few pure-play crypto companies to list in the U.S. This marks the company's second attempt at going public. A prior merger with a special purpose acquisition company collapsed in late 2022 amid regulatory challenges. "To realize our vision, we needed to forge relationships with governments, we needed to work with policymakers ... because if you want this to work for mainstream, it's got to work in mainstream society and you need to have those rules of the road," CEO Jeremy Allaire told CNBC's "Money Movers" on Thursday. "We've been one of the most licensed, regulated, compliant, transparent companies in the entire history of this industry, and that's served us well."

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According to 9to5Mac, "Apple is working on supporting the ability to export notes in Markdown from Apple notes, which is something third-party apps have supported for years." Apple enthusiast and co-creator of the Markdown markup language, John Gruber, is not a fan. From a blog post: Some people find this surprising, but I personally don't want to use a Markdown notes app. I created Markdown two decades ago and have used it ever since for one thing and one thing only: writing for the web at Daring Fireball. My original description of what it is still stands: "Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers." Perhaps an even better description of Markdown is Matthew Butterick's, from the documentation for Pollen: "Markdown is a simplified notation system for HTML." The other great use case for Markdown is in a context where you either need or just want to be saving to a plain text file or database field. That's not what Apple Notes is or should be. I can see why many technically-minded people want to use Markdown "everywhere." It's quite gratifying that Markdown has not only become so popular, but after 21 years, seemingly continues to grow in popularity, to the point now where there clearly are a lot of people who seemingly enjoy writing in Markdown more than even I do. But I think it would be a huge mistake for Apple to make Apple Notes a "Markdown editor," even as an option. It's trivial to create malformed Markdown syntax; it shouldn't be possible to have a malformed note in Apple Notes. I craft posts for Daring Fireball; I dash off notes in Apple Notes. [...] But Markdown export from Notes? That sounds awesome. Frankly, perhaps the biggest problem with Apple Notes is that its export functionality is rather crude -- PDF and, of all formats, Pages. Exporting and/or copying the selected text as Markdown would be pretty cool. Very curious to see how they handle images though, if this rumor is true.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Discord co-founder and CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy wants you to know he thinks a lot about enshittification. With reports of an upcoming IPO and the news of his co-founder, Jason Citron, recently stepping down to hand leadership of the company over to Humam Sakhnini, a former Activision Blizzard executive, many Discord users are rightfully worried the platform is about to become, well, shit. "I understand the anxiety and concern," Vishnevskiy told Engadget in a recent call. "I think the things that people are afraid of are what separate a great, long-term focused company from just any other company." According to Vishnevskiy, the concern that Discord could fail to do right by its users or otherwise lose its way is a topic of regular discussion at the company. "I'm definitely the one who's constantly bringing up enshittification," he said of Discord's internal meetings. "It's not a bad thing to build a strong business and to monetize a product. That's how we can reinvest and continue to make things better. But we have to be extremely thoughtful about how we do that." The way Vishnevskiy tells it, Discord already had an identity crisis and came out of that moment with a stronger sense of what its product means to people. You may recall the company briefly operated a curated game store. Discord launched the storefront in 2018 only to shut it down less than a year later in 2019. Vishnevskiy describes that as a period of reckoning within Discord. "We call it embracing the brutal facts internally," he said of the episode. When Vishnevskiy and Citron started Discord, they envisioned a platform that would not just be for chatting with friends, but one that would also serve as a game distribution hub. "We spent a year building that component of our business and then, quite frankly, we quickly knew it wasn't going well." Out of that failure, Discord decided to focus on its Nitro subscription and embrace everyone who was using the app to organize communities outside of gaming. Since its introduction in 2017, the service has evolved to include a few different perks, but at its heart, Nitro has always been a way for Discord users to get more out of the app and support their favorite servers. [...] Vishnevskiy describes Nitro as a "phenomenal business," but the decision to look beyond gaming created a different set of problems. "It wasn't clear exactly who we were building for, because now Discord was a community product for everyone, and that drove a lot of distractions," he said. "Discord is something that is meant to be a durable company that has a meaningful impact on people's lives, not just now but in 10 years as well," Vishnevskiy said. "That's the journey that Humam joined and signed up for too. We are long-term focused. Our investors are long-term focused."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, classic computer collector Joe Strosnider announced the availability of a new 3D-printer filament that replicates the iconic "Platinum" color scheme used in classic Macintosh computers from the late 1980s through the 1990s. The PLA filament (PLA is short for polylactic acid) allows hobbyists to 3D-print nostalgic novelties, replacement parts, and accessories that match the original color of vintage Apple computers. Hobbyists commonly feed this type of filament into commercial desktop 3D printers, which heat the plastic and extrude it in a computer-controlled way to fabricate new plastic parts. The Platinum color, which Apple used in its desktop and portable computer lines starting with the Apple IIgs in 1986, has become synonymous with a distinctive era of classic Macintosh aesthetic. Over time, original Macintosh plastics have become brittle and discolored with age, so matching the "original" color can be a somewhat challenging and subjective experience. Strosnider said he paid approximately $900 to develop the color. "Rather than keeping the formulation proprietary, he arranged for Polar Filament to make the color publicly available [for $21.99 per kilogram]," adds Ars.

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alternative_right shares a report from Phys.Org: Using conventional propulsion and low-energy trajectories, it takes six to nine months for crewed spacecraft to reach Mars. These durations complicate mission design and technology requirements and raise health and safety concerns since crews will be exposed to extended periods in microgravity and heightened exposure to cosmic radiation. Traditionally, mission designers have recommended nuclear-electric or nuclear-thermal propulsion (NEP/NTP), which could shorten trips to just 3 months. In a recent study, a UCSB physics researcher identified two trajectories that could reduce transits to Mars using the Starship to between 90 and 104 days. The study was authored by Jack Kingdon, a graduate student researcher in the Physics Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He is also a member of the UCSB Weld Lab, an experimental ultracold atomic physics group that uses quantum degenerate gases to explore quantum mechanical phenomena. [...] As outlined on its website, conference presentations, and user manual, the SpaceX mission architecture consists of six Starships traveling to Mars. Four of these spacecraft will haul 400 metric tons (440 U.S. tons) of cargo while two will transport 200 passengers. Based on the Block 2 design, which has a 1,500 metric ton (1,650 U.S. ton) propellant capacity, the crewed Starships will require 15 tankers to fully refuel in low Earth orbit (LEO). The cargo ships would require only four, since they would be sent on longer low-energy trajectories. Once the flotilla arrives at Mars, the Starships will refuel using propellant created in situ using local carbon dioxide and water ice. When the return window approaches, one of the crew ships and 3-4 cargo ships will refuel and then launch into a low Mars orbit (LMO). The cargo ships will then transfer the majority of their propellant to the crew ship and return to the surface of Mars. The crew ship would then depart for Earth, and the process could be repeated for the other crew ship. Kingdon calculated multiple trajectories using a Lambert Solver, which produces the shortest elliptical arc in two-body problem equations (aka Lambert's problem). The first would depart Earth on April 30th, 2033, taking advantage of the 26-month periodic alignment between Earth and Mars. The transit would last 90 days, with the crew returning to Earth after another 90-day transit by July 2nd, 2035. The second would depart Earth on July 15th, 2035, and return to Earth after a 104-day transit on December 5th, 2037. As Kingdon explained, the former trajectory is the most likely to succeed: "The optimal trajectory is the 2033 trajectory -- it has the lowest fuel requirements for the fastest transit time. A note that may not be obvious to the layreader is that Starship can very easily reach Mars in ~3 months -- in fact, it can in any launch window, over a fairly wide range of trajectories. However, Starship may impact the Martian atmosphere too fast (although we do not know, and likely SpaceX don't either actually how fast Starship can hit the Martian atmosphere and survive). The trajectories discussed are ones that I am confident Starship will survive." The paper describing the work has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Corporate investigators found evidence that Chinese hackers broke into an American telecommunications company in the summer of 2023, indicating that Chinese attackers penetrated the US communications system earlier than publicly known. Investigators working for the telecommunications firm discovered last year that malware used by Chinese state-backed hacking groups was on the company's systems for seven months starting in the summer of 2023, according to two people familiar with the matter and a document seen by Bloomberg News. The document, an unclassified report sent to Western intelligence agencies, doesn't name the company where the malware was found and the people familiar with the matter declined to identify it. The 2023 intrusion at an American telecommunications company, which hasn't been previously reported, came about a year before US government officials and cybersecurity companies said they began spotting clues that Chinese hackers had penetrated many of the country's largest phone and wireless firms. The US government has blamed the later breaches on a Chinese state-backed hacking group dubbed Salt Typhoon. It's unclear if the 2023 hack is related to that foreign espionage campaign and, if so, to what degree. Nonetheless, it raises questions about when Chinese intruders established a foothold in the American communications industry. "We've known for a long time that this infrastructure has been vulnerable and was likely subject to attack," said Marc Rogers, a cybersecurity and telecommunications expert. "What this shows us is that it was attacked, and that going as far back as 2023, the Chinese were compromising our telecom companies." Investigators linked the sophisticated rootkit malware Demodex to China's Ministry of State Security, noting it enabled deep, stealthy access to systems and remained undetected on a U.S. defense-linked company's network until early 2024. A Chinese government spokesperson denied responsibility for cyberattacks and accused the U.S. and its allies of spreading disinformation and conducting cyber operations against China.

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