Amazon is instructing corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo on Monday. From a report: The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon's earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new policy. Corporate employees will be expected to be in the office five days a week "outside of extenuating circumstances" or unless they've been granted an exception by their organization's S-team leader, Jassy said, referring to the close-knit group of executives that report to Amazon's CEO. "Before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also be true moving forward -- our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances," Jassy said. Amazon also plans to simplify its corporate structure by having fewer managers in order to "remove layers and flatten organizations," Jassy said. Each S-team organization will be expected to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025, he said. Individual contributors refers to employees who typically don't manage other staffers. It's unclear if the change will result in the elimination of some manager positions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Intel lost a bid to design and manufacture Sony's PlayStation 6 chip in 2022, dealing a blow to its contract manufacturing business. The contract, worth potentially billions in revenue, went to rival AMD after Intel failed to agree on pricing with Sony, Reuters reported Monday. Discussions between the companies spanned months and involved top executives. Intel's loss has hampered CEO Pat Gelsinger's turnaround strategy, which hinges on expanding the company's foundry operations. The PlayStation deal would have provided steady business for Intel's struggling manufacturing arm, which reported $7 billion in operating losses last quarter. Sony's need for backwards compatibility with older PlayStation models complicated Intel's bid, as AMD designed chips for previous console generations, the report adds. Further reading: Intel Foundry Achieves Major Milestones; Intel Weighs Options Including Foundry Split To Stem Losses: Intel's Money Woes Throw Biden Team's Chip Strategy Into Turmoil.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Retraction Watch: A Nobel prize-winning genetics researcher has retracted two more papers, bringing his total to 13. Gregg Semenza, a professor of genetic medicine and director of the vascular program at Johns Hopkins' Institute for Cell Engineering in Baltimore, shared the 2019 Nobel prize in physiology or medicine for "discoveries of how cells sense and adapt to oxygen availability." Since pseudonymous sleuth Claire Francis and others began using PubPeer to point out potential duplicated or manipulated images in Semenza's work in 2019, the researcher has retracted 12 papers. A previous retraction from 2011 for a paper co-authored with Naoki Mori -- who with 31 retractions sits at No. 25 on our leaderboard -- brings the total to 13.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple has increased its out-of-warranty battery replacement fee for iPhone 16 Pro models. From a report: Apple Stores can replace the battery inside an iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max for $119 in the U.S., which is up from $99 for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. This is a 20% increase to the fee, which includes the cost of a new battery and service by an Apple Store. The fee may vary at third-party Apple Authorized Service Providers. The fee remains $99 for the standard iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. Customers with AppleCare+ can still get an iPhone 16 Pro battery replaced for free, but only if the battery retains less than 80% of its original capacity. Apple says all four iPhone 16 models are equipped with larger batteries, and all of the devices received an internal redesign for improved heat dissipation, according to the company. A metal enclosure was rumored for at least some iPhone 16 batteries, but we are still waiting for teardowns to get a proper look inside of the devices.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft has abandoned plans to overhaul its Edge browser interface, scrapping the design choice unveiled in February 2023. The redesign -- featuring a sleeker look with rounded tab buttons and increased blur effects -- aimed to give Edge a distinct identity as the company pushed into AI services. The new design never officially launched and the company has no intention to launch it later, according to Microsoft-focused news outlet Windows Central. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Windows Central that the company is moving away from the rounded tabs concept. Some elements of the redesign will remain, including webpage borders and a repositioned user button, but the majority of the proposed changes have been shelved. The decision marks a retreat from Microsoft's efforts to visually differentiate Edge from Google Chrome and align it with Windows 11's design language.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ming-Chi Kuo, a high-profile and reliable Apple analyst, says the demand for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max has been "lower than expected" since the devices became available to pre-order in the U.S. and dozens of other countries on Friday. From a report: Kuo said his data is based on a "supply chain survey" and shipping estimates listed on Apple's online store. Kuo estimated that sales of all four iPhone 16 models reached about 37 million units in the first weekend after Apple began accepting pre-orders, which is down nearly 13% compared to first-weekend sales of the iPhone 15 series last year. The analyst said a key factor for the decline is the lower demand for the Pro models, with first-weekend sales of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max estimated to be down 27% and 16%, respectively, compared to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max sales during the equivalent period last year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China will "gradually raise" its retirement age for the first time since the 1950s, as the country confronts an ageing population and a dwindling pension budget. From a report: The top legislative body on Friday approved proposals to raise the statutory retirement age from 50 to 55 for women in blue-collar jobs, and from 55 to 58 for females in white-collar jobs. Men will see an increase from 60 to 63. China's current retirement ages are among the lowest in the world. According to the plan passed on Friday, the change will set in from 1 January 2025, with the respective retirement ages raised every few months over the next 15 years, said Chinese state media. Retiring before the statutory age will not be allowed, state news agency Xinhua reported, although people can extend their retirement by no more than three years. Starting 2030, employees will also have to make more contributions to the social security system in order to receive pensions. By 2039, they would have to clock 20 years of contributions to access their pensions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NASA will coordinate with U.S. government stakeholders, partners, and international standards organizations to establish a Coordinated Lunar Time (LTC) following a policy directive from the White House in April. From a report: The agency's Space Communication and Navigation (SCaN) program is leading efforts on creating a coordinated time, which will enable a future lunar ecosystem that could be scalable to other locations in our solar system. The lunar time will be determined by a weighted average of atomic clocks at the Moon, similar to how scientists calculate Earth's globally recognized Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Exactly where at the Moon is still to be determined, since current analysis indicates that atomic clocks placed at the Moon's surface will appear to 'tick' faster by microseconds per day. A microsecond is one millionth of a second. NASA and its partners are currently researching which mathematical models will be best for establishing a lunar time. To put these numbers into perspective, a hummingbird's wings flap about 50 times per second. Each flap is about .02 seconds, or 20,000 microseconds. So, while 56 microseconds may seem miniscule, when discussing distances in space, tiny bits of time add up.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Tuesday Ivanti issued a "high severity vulnerability" announcement for version 4.6 of its Cloud Service Appliance (or CSA). "Successful exploitation could lead to unauthorized access to the device running the CSA." And Friday that announcement got an update: Ivanti "has confirmed exploitation of this vulnerability in the wild." While Ivanti released a security update, they warned that "with the end-of-life status this is the last fix that Ivanti will backport for this version. Customers must upgrade to Ivanti CSA 5.0 for continued support." This prompted a response from CISA (the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security). The noted that Ivanti is urging customers to upgrade to version 5.0, as "Ivanti no longer supports CSA 4.6 (end-of-life)." But in addition, CISA "ordered all federal civilian agencies to remove CSA 4.6. from service or upgrade to the 5.0. by October 4," reports the Record: Ivanti said users will know they are impacted by exploitation of the bug by looking to see if there are modified or newly added administrative users. They also urged customers to check security alerts if they have certain security tools involved. The issue arose one day after another Ivanti bug caused alarm among defenders. The company pledged a security overhaul in April after a cascade of headline-grabbing nation-state attacks broke through the systems of government agencies in the U.S. and Europe using vulnerabilities in Ivanti products.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An EFF article calls out a "brazen attempt to privatize" a wireless frequency band (900 MHz) which America's FCC's left " as a commons for all... for use by amateur radio operators, unlicensed consumer devices, and industrial, scientific, and medical equipment." The spectrum has also become "a hotbed for new technologies and community-driven projects. Millions of consumer devices also rely on the range, including baby monitors, cordless phones, IoT devices, garage door openers." But NextNav would rather claim these frequencies, fence them off, and lease them out to mobile service providers. This is just another land-grab by a corporate rent-seeker dressed up as innovation. EFF and hundreds of others have called on the FCC to decisively reject this proposal and protect the open spectrum as a commons that serves all. NextNav [which sells a geolocation service] wants the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to grant them exclusive rights to the majority of the spectrum... This proposal would not only give NextNav their own lane, but expanded operating region, increased broadcasting power, and more leeway for radio interference emanating from their portions of the band. All of this points to more power for NextNav at everyone else's expense. This land-grab is purportedly to implement a Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) network to serve as a US-specific backup of the Global Positioning System(GPS). This plan raises red flags off the bat. Dropping the "global" from GPS makes it far less useful for any alleged national security purposes, especially as it is likely susceptible to the same jamming and spoofing attacks as GPS. NextNav itself admits there is also little commercial demand for PNT. GPS works, is free, and is widely supported by manufacturers. If Nextnav has a grand plan to implement a new and improved standard, it was left out of their FCC proposal. What NextNav did include however is its intent to resell their exclusive bandwidth access to mobile 5G networks. This isn't about national security or innovation; it's about a rent-seeker monopolizing access to a public resource. If NextNav truly believes in their GPS backup vision, they should look to parts of the spectrum already allocated for 5G. The open sections of the 900 MHz spectrum are vital for technologies that foster experimentation and grassroots innovation. Amateur radio operators, developers of new IoT devices, and small-scale operators rely on this band. One such project is Meshtastic, a decentralized communication tool that allows users to send messages across a network without a central server. This new approach to networking offers resilient communication that can endure emergencies where current networks fail. This is the type of innovation that actually addresses crises raised by Nextnav, and it's happening in the part of the spectrum allocated for unlicensed devices while empowering communities instead of a powerful intermediary. Yet, this proposal threatens to crush such grassroots projects, leaving them without a commons in which they can grow and improve. This isn't just about a set of frequencies. We need an ecosystem which fosters grassroots collaboration, experimentation, and knowledge building. Not only do these commons empower communities, they avoid a technology monoculture unable to adapt to new threats and changing needs as technology progresses. Invention belongs to the public, not just to those with the deepest pockets. The FCC should ensure it remains that way. NextNav's proposal is a direct threat to innovation, public safety, and community empowerment. While FCC comments on the proposal have closed, replies remain open to the public until September 20th. The FCC must reject this corporate land-grab and uphold the integrity of the 900 MHz band as a commons.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark worked with the kind of programmer who understood the nuances and flexibility of PHP on a level like none other. This programmer also wanted to use all of those features.

This resulted in the Base class, from which all other classes descend.

Mark, for example, was trying to understand how the status field on a Widget got set. So, he pulled up the Widget code:

class Widget extends Base { public function getOtherWidgets(){return $this->widgetPart->otherWidgets;} public function getStatus(){ $this->otherWidgets; if(isset($this->status))return $this->status; } }

So, getStatus doesn't always return a value. That's fun, but I guess it doesn't return a value when $this->status doesn't have a value, we can let that slide.

The line above that return is odd, though. $this->otherWidgets. That sure as heck looks like a property access, not a function call. What's going on there?

I'll let Mark explain:

if it can't find a property called "otherWidgets", it uses PHP's magic __get, __set, and __call to create a call to getOtherWidgets.

Which, as we can see, getOtherWidgets calls into a WidgetPart, which also does the same magic, and calls its own getOtherWidgets.

class WidgetPart extends Base { public function getOtherWidgets() { $part = $this->name; $widgets = array(); $statuses = self::checkPartStatusForWidget($part,self::$widgetPartList); foreach($statuses[$widget] as $part=>$status){ $widgets[] = Widget::find($part)->self($w)->inline($w->status = $status); } return $widgets; } }

This starts out pretty normal. But this line has some oddness to it:

$widgets[] = Widget::find($part)->self($w)->inline($w->status = $status);

Okay, find makes sense; we're doing some sort of database lookup. What is self doing, though? Where did $w come from? What the heck is inline doing?

That's certainly what Mark wanted to know. But when Mark put in debugging code to try and interact with the $w variable, he got an undefined variable warning. It was time to look at the Base class.

class Base { // <snip> /** * Attach variable name to current object */ public function self(&$variable) { $variable = $this; return $this; } /** * Allows you to preform a statement and maintain scope chain */ ## Widget::find('myWidget')->self($widget)->inline(echo $widget->name)->part->... public function inline(){ return $this; } }

self accepts a variable by reference, and sets it equal to this, and then returns this.

inline doesn't do anything but return this.

Somehow, inline doesn't take parameters, but a statement in the parentheses gets evaluated. I can't accurately explain how this works. I can't even try getting these snippets to behave anything like this- clearly, there's more "magic" happening around the inline function to allow the inline execution of a statement, which Mark didn't provide.

Honestly, that's for the best- I'm not sure I want to see that. (Actually, I'd love to see that, but I'm a glutton for punishment)

But this is a whole lot of magic to allow us to play code golf. Without the magic, you could just… write a few lines.

$w = Widget::find($part); $w->status = $status;

You don't need to do any of this. It certainly doesn't make the code cleaner or easier to understand. And I certainly can't explain what the code is doing, which is always a problem.

It's the worst kind of code: clever code. May the programming gods save us from clever programmers.

.comment { border: none; } [Advertisement] Picking up NuGet is easy. Getting good at it takes time. ProGet costs less than half of Artifactory and is just as good. Our easy-to-read comparison page lays out the editions, features, and pricing of the different editions of ProGet and Artifactory.Learn More.

Flappy Bird's original creator hasn't posted anything on social media since 2017. Until today. "This morning, the game's creator Dong Nguyen posted a characteristically terse comment stating that he has nothing to do with the revival," report TechCrunch, "and that he 'did not sell anything.' He added, 'I also don't support crypto'... The post makes it clear that Nguyen is not involved with the new project, and that he doesn't seem particularly happy about it." As for Nguyen's reference to crypto, while the foundation's current PR materials don't mention anything crypto-related, Varun Biniwale did some digging around hidden pages on the Flappy Bird Foundation website and found a reference to Flappy Bird flying "higher than ever on Solana as it soars into Web 3.0," though it's not clear whether that refers to upcoming features or abandoned plans. More from Fortune: Exactly what is going to happen with this zombified version of Flappy Bird is unclear, but digging through data and files has revealed things like different birds, loot boxes, and the idea that this is some sort of crypto play by the company involved. From a page on their website about the new Flappy Bird... "[D]evelopers and creators can build, play and earn from the legendary Flappy Bird IP." Fortune concludes "it's crypto, it's NFTs and everyone is so annoyed by this almost every tweet of the resurrected Twitter account has even been 'Community Noted' revealing its crypto ties and snapping up of Nguyen's trademark." PC Gamer adds that the Foundation acquired the Flappy Bird trademark from Gametech Holdings LLC. "And here there's a slight whiff of skullduggery." Dong Nguyen originally applied for the trademark in 2014, alongside a little drawing of the logo. This application then seemed to sit in limbo for many years, eventually being opposed by a Delaware-based company called Gametech. As this was going on, the U.S. patent office granted a trademark registration for Flappy Bird in 2018 (for years after the game was removed from sale) to another Delaware company called Mobile Media Matters. While I can't be exact on the link between Mobile Media Matters and Gametech, both companies' legal filings give the same Delaware address. Subsequent to this there's been a legal disagreement between Gametech and Dong Nguyen, except Nguyen doesn't seem to have bothered representing himself or standing up for the trademark, which has ultimately led to it being classed as abandoned (a decade after he filed for it) and acquired by Gametech... The Flappy Bird Foundation does have one ready-made comeback. As well as the rights to Flappy Bird it has acquired the rights to Piou Piou vs. Cactus, a mobile title that was the primary inspiration behind Flappy Bird, and employs the game's creator who goes by the handle, ahem, of Kek. "Today is a milestone not just in gaming but for me personally," says Kek. "It's so cool to see how influential Piou Piou has been for developers and hundreds of millions of gamers over the years. It's incredible to work alongside such a dedicated team of fans and creators who are truly passionate about changing the industry narrative and together bringing the original Flappy Bird back to life...." Way back in 2014, Kek said he'd contacted Nguyen about the resemblance, "and he told me he doesn't think he knew about my game when he made Flappy Bird. The games are very similar. And even if I did not invent the gameplay concept, the graphics are very close, and, of course, the concept." The games are undeniably similar, but there are differences, and obviously the most important one is that, for whatever reason, Piou Piou didn't do much while Flappy Bird went stratospheric with a similar idea three years later. Needless to say, the announcement and press release of the Flappy Bird Foundation does not mention Dong Nguyen once.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For 30 days, 17,000 AT&T workers in nine different states from the CWA union went on strike. As it began one North Carolina newspaper noted some AT&T customers "report prolonged internet outages." Last week an Emory University economist told NPR that "If it wasn't disruptive or it didn't have any kind of negative element towards customers, then AT&T, I suspect, wouldn't feel any kind of pressure to negotiate." The 30-day strike was "the longest telecommunications strike in the region's history," according to the union — announcing today that they'd now negotiated "strong tentative contract agreements" and that workers would report to work for their scheduled shifts tomorrow. The new contract in the Southeast covers 17,000 workers technicians, customer service representatives and others who install, maintain and support AT&T's residential and business wireline telecommunications network in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Wages and health care costs were key issues at the bargaining table, and the five-year agreement includes across the board wage increases of 19.33%, with additional 3% increases for Wire Technicians and Utility Operations. The health care agreement holds health care premiums steady in the first year and lowers them in the second and third years, with modest monthly increases in the final two years. The statement adds that "CWA members and retirees from every region and sector of our union mobilized in support of our bargaining teams, including by distributing flyers with information about the strike at AT&T Wireless stores." CWA District 3 Vice President Richard Honeycutt added "We know that our customers have faced hardship during the strike as well. We are happy to be getting back to work keeping our communities safe and connected." There's also a separate four-year agreement covering 8,500 AT&T West workers in California and Nevada. "Union members will meet to review the tentative agreements, before holding ratification votes in each region." AT&T's chief operating officer said the Southeast agreement will "support our competitive position in the broadband industry where we can grow and win against our mostly non-union competitors."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The New York Times looks at "a third-generation family firm" in Paraguay "with 280 workers that packages hot sauce, soy beans...and seven kinds of salt for sale in Paraguayan supermarkets." Its mascot — on t-shirts, coffee cups, and "in heavy demand at Paraguayan weddings" — is a mouse named Mickey. 51-year-old Viviana Blasco — one of five siblings who run the business — told the Times that it all began back in 1935: Ms. Blasco's grandfather, Pascual, the son of Italian immigrants, saw an opportunity to spread some joy — and turn a profit. He opened a tiny shop selling fruit and homemade gelato. It was called Mickey... Pascual, she said, often vacationed in Buenos Aires — Argentina's cosmopolitan capital... "On one of his trips, he must have seen the famous mouse," Ms. Blasco said... A few years later, Pascual opened the Mickey Ice Cream Parlor, Café and Confectioners. By 1969, Mickey was selling rice, sugar and baking soda in packages now decorated with the eponymous mouse. "Mickey resonates with Paraguayans' sense of nostalgia, said Euge Aquino, a TV chef and social media influencer who uses its ingredients to make comfort food like pastel mandi'o (yuca and beef empanadas)... Mickey's popularity, she said, also has a lot to do with the mascot handing out candy outside the factory gates every Christmas: a tradition dating back to 1983." By now, a "peaceful coexistence" reigns between Mickey and its United States doppelgänger, said Elba Rosa Britez, 72, the smaller company's lawyer. This truce was hard-won. In 1991, Disney filed a trademark violation claim with Paraguay's Ministry of Business and Industry that was rejected. The company then filed a lawsuit, but in 1995 a trademark tribunal ruled in Mickey's favor. There, one judge agreed that Paraguayans could easily confuse the Disney Mickey and the Paraguayan Mickey. But Disney didn't reckon on a "legal loophole," Ms Britez explained. The Mickey trademark had been registered in Paraguay since at least 1956 — and Pascual's descendants had since renewed it — without protest from the multinational. In 1998, Paraguay's Supreme Court issued its final ruling. Through decades of uninterrupted use, Mickey had acquired the right to be Mickey. "I jumped for joy," Ms Britez said. Mickey's legal immunity in Paraguay, Ms. Blasco acknowledged, might not extend to selling its products abroad. "We've never tried." "Some lining up to meet the mascot said Mickey's David-vs-Goliath triumph against Disney filled them with national pride..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Even black holes have edge cases," writes Astronomy magazine contributing editor Steve Nadis, in an article in Quanta magazine (republished today by Wired): Black holes rotate in space. As matter falls into them, they start to spin faster; if that matter has charge, they also become electrically charged. In principle, a black hole can reach a point where it has as much charge or spin as it possibly can, given its mass. Such a black hole is called "extremal" — the extreme of the extremes. These black holes have some bizarre properties. In particular, the so-called surface gravity at the boundary, or event horizon, of such a black hole is zero. "It is a black hole whose surface doesn't attract things anymore," said Carsten Gundlach, a mathematical physicist at the University of Southampton. But if you were to nudge a particle slightly toward the black hole's center, it would be unable to escape. In 1973, the prominent physicists Stephen Hawking, James Bardeen and Brandon Carter asserted that extremal black holes can't exist in the real world — that there is simply no plausible way that they can form. Nevertheless, for the past 50 years, extremal black holes have served as useful models in theoretical physics. "They have nice symmetries that make it easier to calculate things," said Gaurav Khanna of the University of Rhode Island, and this allows physicists to test theories about the mysterious relationship between quantum mechanics and gravity. Now two mathematicians have proved Hawking and his colleagues wrong. The new work — contained in a pair of recent papers by Christoph Kehle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ryan Unger of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley — demonstrates that there is nothing in our known laws of physics to prevent the formation of an extremal black hole. Their mathematical proof is "beautiful, technically innovative and physically surprising," said Mihalis Dafermos, a mathematician at Princeton University (and Kehle's and Unger's doctoral adviser). It hints at a potentially richer and more varied universe in which "extremal black holes could be out there astrophysically," he added. That doesn't mean they are. "Just because a mathematical solution exists that has nice properties doesn't necessarily mean that nature will make use of it," Khanna said. "But if we somehow find one, that would really [make] us think about what we are missing." Such a discovery, he noted, has the potential to raise "some pretty radical kinds of questions." Before Kehle and Unger's proof, there was good reason to believe that extremal black holes couldn't exist. Hawking, Bardeen, and Carter believed there was no way an extremal black hole could form, according to the article, and "in 1986, a physicist named Werner Israel seemed to put the issue to rest." But the two mathematicians, studying the formation of electrically charged black holes, stumbled into a counterexample — and along the way "also constructed two other solutions to Einstein's equations of general relativity that involved different ways of adding charge to a black hole. Having disproved Bardeen, Carter and Hawking's hypothesis in three different contexts, the work should leave no doubt, Unger said... "This is a beautiful example of math giving back to physics," said Elena Giorgi, a mathematician at Columbia University.... In the meantime, a better understanding of extremal black holes can provide further insights into near-extremal black holes, which are thought to be plentiful in the universe. "Einstein didn't think that black holes could be real [because] they're just too weird," Khanna said. "But now we know the universe is teeming with black holes." For similar reasons, he added, "we shouldn't give up on extremal black holes. I just don't want to put limits on nature's creativity."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last October Slashdot reported on René Rebe's discovery of a random illegal instruction speculation bug on AMD Ryzen 7000-series and Epyc Zen 4 CPUs — which Rebe discussed on his YouTube channel. But this week's YouTube episode had a different ending, reports Tom's Hardware... Two days ago, tech streamer and host of Code Therapy René Rebe was streaming one of many T2 Linux (his own custom distribution) development sessions from his office in Germany when he abruptly had to remove his microphone and walk off camera due to the arrival of police officers. The officers subsequently cuffed him and took him to the station for an hour of questioning, a span of time during which the stream continued to run until he made it back... [T]he police seemingly have no idea who did it and acted based on a tip sent with an email. Finding the perpetrators could take a while, and options will be fairly limited if they don't also live in Germany. Rebe has been contributing to Linux "since as early as 1998," according to the article, "and started his own T2 SD3 Embedded Linux distribution in 2004, as well." (And he's also a contributor to many other major open source projects.) The article points out that Linux and other communities "are compelled by little-to-no profit motive, so in essence, René has been providing unpaid software development for the greater good for the past two decades."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 2015 Amazon purchased chip designer Annapurna Labs, remembers IEEE Spectrum, "and proceeded to design CPUs, AI accelerators, servers, and data centers as a vertically-integrated operation." The article argues that while AMD, Nvidia, and other big-name processor companies may also want to control the full stack (purchasing server, software, and interconnect companies) — Amazon Web Services "got there ahead of most of the competition." (IEEE Spectrum interviews Ali Saidi, technical lead for the AWS Graviton series of CPUs, and Rami Sinno, director of engineering at Annapurna Labs, on "the advantage of vertically-integrated design — and Amazon-scale...") Sinno: I was working at Arm, and I was looking for the next adventure, looking at where the industry is heading and what I want my legacy to be. I looked at two things: One is vertically integrated companies, because this is where most of the innovation is — the interesting stuff is happening when you control the full hardware and software stack and deliver directly to customers. And the second thing is, I realized that machine learning, AI in general, is going to be very, very big. I didn't know exactly which direction it was going to take, but I knew that there is something that is going to be generational, and I wanted to be part of that. I already had that experience prior when I was part of the group that was building the chips that go into the Blackberries; that was a fundamental shift in the industry. That feeling was incredible, to be part of something so big, so fundamental. And I thought, "Okay, I have another chance to be part of something fundamental." [...] At the end of the day, our responsibility is to deliver complete servers in the data center directly for our customers. And if you think from that perspective, you'll be able to optimize and innovate across the full stack. It might not be at the transistor level or at the substrate level or at the board level. It could be something completely different. It could be purely software. And having that knowledge, having that visibility, will allow the engineers to be significantly more productive and delivery to the customer significantly faster. We're not going to bang our head against the wall to optimize the transistor where three lines of code downstream will solve these problems, right...? We've had very good luck with recent college grads. Recent college grads, especially the past couple of years, have been absolutely phenomenal. I'm very, very pleased with the way that the education system is graduating the engineers and the computer scientists that are interested in the type of jobs that we have for them. It's an interesting glimpse into the unique world of designing chips at Amazon. Graviton technical lead Saidi: I've been here about seven and a half years. When I joined AWS, I joined a secret project at the time. I was told: "We're going to build some Arm servers. Tell no one... "In chip design, there are many different competing optimization points. You have all of these conflicting requirements, you have cost, you have scheduling, you've got power consumption, you've got size, what DRAM technologies are available and when you're going to intersect them... It ends up being this fun, multifaceted optimization problem to figure out what's the best thing that you can build in a timeframe. And you need to get it right."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"It is with great relief that I welcome you home!" SpaceX COO Gwynne Shotwell posted on X. "This mission was even more extraordinary than I anticipated." "SpaceX's Polaris Dawn crew is home," reports CNN, "capping off a five-day mission to orbit — which included the world's first commercial spacewalk — by splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico." The Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts landed off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida, at 3:37 a.m. ET Sunday. The Polaris Dawn mission made history as it reached a higher altitude than any human has traveled in five decades. [870 miles (1,400 kilometers) — beating the 853-mile record set in 1966 by NASA's Gemini 11 mission.] A spacewalk conducted early Thursday morning also marked the first time such an endeavor has been completed by a privately funded and operated mis.sion. But returning to Earth is among the most dangerous stretches of any space mission. To safely reach home, the Crew Dragon capsule carried out what's called a "de-orbit burn," orienting itself as it prepared to slice through the thickest part of Earth's atmosphere. The spacecraft then reached extremely hot temperatures — up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,900 degrees Celsius) — because of the pressure and friction caused by hitting the air while still traveling around 17,000 miles per hour (27,000 kilometers per hour). The crew, however, should have remained at comfortable temperatures, protected by the Crew Dragon's heat shield, which is located on the bottom of the 13-foot-wide (4-meter-wide) capsule. Dragging against the air began to slow the vehicle down before the Crew Dragon deployed parachutes that further decelerated its descent. Having hit the ocean, the spacecraft briefly bobbed around in the water until rescue crews waiting nearby hauled it out of the ocean and onto a special boat, referred to as the "Dragon's nest." Final safety checks took place there before the crew disembarked from the capsule and began the journey back to dry land. You can watch video of the splashdown on YouTube. While in space, the crew performed 40 science experiments and research, according to the article. "Gillis, a trained violinist, also brought her instrument along for the mission and delivered a rendition of 'Rey's Theme' from "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." SpaceX's COO said the performance "made me tear up. Thank you all for taking this journey."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from DecClass: A report from developer-focused analyst Redmonk finds "there does not seem to be a clear link between moving from an open source to proprietary license and increasing the company's value." Senior analyst Rachel Stevens studied the question of whether the companies that changed from open source to proprietary licenses have since reported better financial positions. In particular, she looked at MongoDB, which changed from AGPL (GNU Affero General Public License) to its SSPL (Server Side Public License) in 2018; Elastic Co, which changed from Apache 2 to SSPL or Elastic License in early 2021; HashiCorp, which changed from MPL (Mozilla Public License 2.0) a year ago, and Confluent, which checked from Apache 2 to its own Confluent Community License in 2018. The report is too recent to take account of Elastic's reversion to AGPL; and the financial impact of that is of course yet to be known, though it is perhaps unlikely that the switch back would have been made if the company considered it detrimental to its finances. Rather, Elastic's latest licensing change reinforces the view that proprietary licenses are not necessarily more profitable... All the companies studied increased their revenue after their license change, Stevens said, but added that the rate of change was similar to that before the change... MongoDB stated in 2018 that "once an open source project becomes interesting or popular, it becomes too easy for the cloud vendors to capture all the value and give nothing back to the community." Six years later, it remains the case that the large cloud vendors are highly profitable, but that these companies who changed their license are not. In February this year, Bruce Perens, creator of the 1998 Open Source Definition, described open source as "a great corporate welfare program" and not at all what he had intended... The new Redmonk report suggests that such license manoeuvres are neither fatal nor beneficial to the finances of the companies involved — though there are so many caveats that it is impossible to draw firm conclusions. The report's final sentence concludes that "there does not seem to be a clear link between moving from an open source to proprietary license and increasing the company's value."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 1980 a 23-year-old woman was shot multiple times by an unknown assailant in a small county in central Kansas. 44 years later, the county sheriff made a Facebook post... Over the years, dozens of law enforcement officers looked at the case to no avail. In mid-2022 I was approached by Detective Sgt. Adam Hales to reopen the case using new techniques and technology that were now available at the time of the murder. In all honesty, it was with some degree of skepticism that I authorized the expenditure of manpower and resources... Many of the witnesses as well as law enforcement officers that were originally involved in the case had died and interviews were not possible. A statement from the Kansas attorney general's office says the police investigation culminated with an interview with Steven Hanks, a neighbor of the woman, who admitted to the killing. Hanks (who is now 70 years old) was arrested and charged with murder and second-degree, according to the county sheriff's Facebook post: On a personal note, I was 18 years old and a senior in high school when this homicide occurred. I remember it well. By 1982 I had started with the Sheriff's Office as a reserve deputy and have been associated with the Barton County Sheriff's Office ever since. I worked for the four Sheriff's that preceded me and this homicide has haunted all of us. It bothers me that many of the people who were so affected by this tragic crime have since passed away prior to bringing the suspect to justice. I consider myself fortunate that I had the resources and the diligent personnel to close this case. The Facebook post ends with a 1980 photo of 23-year-old Mary Robin Walter — who besides being a nursing school student was also a wife and mother — next to a booking photo of 70-year-old Steven Hanks. Hanks has been sentenced to up to 25 years in prison

Read more of this story at Slashdot.