Latest News

Last updated 21 Sep, 02:25 PM

BBC News - Home

Five to be charged in UK with spying for Russia - Three men and two women are to be charged with conspiracy to conduct espionage, UK prosecutors say.

Daniel Khalife pleads not guilty to Wandsworth prison escape - The 21-year-old former soldier is charged with escaping from Wandsworth prison on 6 September.

King's diplomatic speech to French Senate receives standing ovation - His speech, delivered in French and English, touched on climate change and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Rishi Sunak denies his net zero plan is wishful thinking - The PM is "confident" the UK will hit climate targets, as he defends changes to green policies.

Poland no longer supplying weapons to Ukraine amid grain row - Mateusz Morawiecki's remarks come as tensions escalate over Ukraine's grain exports.

The Register

Call me an Apple fan, says Huawei founder and chief exec - Ren Zhengfei says he still takes lessons from American rival An Apple fanboi has emerged in the most unlikely of places – Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO at Huawei, the China HQ'd giant whose latest flagship handset is going head to head at home with its US rival.…

Korea's FTC fines Broadcom $14.3M for pushing into Samsung 'unfair' deal in 2020 - Watchdog claims it abused market position to leverage 'unfavorable' long-term parts supply contract Updated South Korea's Federal Trade Commision (FTC) has issued a $14.3 million fine to US chipmaker Broadcom for "unfair" practices against Samsung Electronics.…

Vodafone claims first space-based 5G phone call – no modifications needed - The roaming charges must be out of this world Vodafone is claiming to have made the world's first space-based 5G call placed using an unmodified handset, thanks to a test satellite operated by AST SpaceMobile.…

VCs lay $52.5M golden egg for MotherDuck's serverless analytics platform - Database service vendor based on open source DuckDB fattens up to $400M valuation Database service company MotherDuck has secured $52.5 million in VC funding and removed the waiting list from its platform.…

Lawsuit claims Google Maps led dad of two over collapsed bridge to his death - Company accused of gross negligence by not updating app despite complaints A lawsuit was this week filed against Google in North Carolina following the death of a 47-year-old father of two who drove off a collapsed bridge.…

New Scientist - News

Last chance to see comet Nishimura before it vanishes for 400 years - The comet Nishimura is heading away from the sun and on to the outer reaches of the solar system, so you'll need to be quick if you want to catch a glimpse

Exquisite spider fossils from Australia offer clues to their evolution - A large brush-footed trapdoor spider and a small jumping spider from the Miocene Epoch between 11 and 16 million years ago show how different arachnids responded to rapidly changing climate

NASA’s Psyche mission to a metal asteroid may reveal how Earth formed - The Psyche mission is scheduled to begin its journey to an asteroid of the same name on 5 October – it could help us understand Earth’s core and how our planet formed

Net zero delay won't help when UK is already behind on climate targets - Cutting carbon emissions means replacing the heating systems in homes, transforming transport and greening steel production. All of these will take time, but the UK prime minister has instead chosen to delay the transition

New Scientist Live: What we are most looking forward to seeing in 2023 - Here’s what members of the New Scientist editorial team are keenest to catch at the world’s greatest festival of ideas and discovery, which runs from 7 to 9 October

Hacker News

Cisco Acquires Splunk - Comments

Nippon Television has just acquired Studio Ghibli - Comments

BrainTree has been down for more than 7 hours now - Comments

Show HN: Odin – the integration of LLMs with Obsidian note taking - Comments

OpenBSD/ARM64 on Hetzner Cloud - Comments

Slashdot

Rupert Murdoch To Step Down as Chair of Fox and News Corp After Seven-Decade Career - Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chair of Fox and News Corp, after building a media empire over seven decades that revolutionized news and entertainment and made him one of the world's most influential and controversial tycoons. WSJ: Murdoch, 92 years old, will exit his roles atop each company as of November, when they hold annual meetings, the companies said. He will be appointed chairman emeritus of each company. His eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, who has served as co-chair of News Corp, will become sole chair of that company and will continue as Fox Corp executive chair and CEO. "For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change. But the time is right for me to take on different roles," Rupert Murdoch wrote in a memo to staff. His decision to step back solidifies Lachlan Murdoch as his successor. He called Lachlan a "passionate, principled leader" who can take the companies into the future. Murdoch is one of a handful of media barons, along with the likes of John Malone, Ted Turner and Sumner Redstone, who shaped the modern era of media. He has wielded influence in political and financial capitals, earning credit from his boosters and blame from his critics. Murdoch has remained active in his later years, pursuing big deals to reshape his companies. Murdoch is stepping back at an important moment for both wings of his media empire, as they confront fundamental challenges in the media landscape. Fox, a relatively small player in an entertainment industry now dominated by titans, is wrestling with the profound implications of cable cord-cutting and the growth of streaming. News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, Times of London and other publications, is trying to find the right formula for digital growth amid a fierce battle for subscribers and online-ad dollars. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New Revelations From the Snowden Archive Surface - An anonymous reader quotes a report from Computer Weekly: A doctoral thesis by American investigative journalist and post-doctoral researcher Jacob Appelbaum has now revealed unpublished information from the Snowden archive. These revelations go back a decade, but remain of indisputable public interest: - The NSA listed Cavium, an American semiconductor company marketing Central Processing Units (CPUs) – the main processor in a computer which runs the operating system and applications -- as a successful example of a "SIGINT-enabled" CPU supplier. Cavium, now owned by Marvell, said it does not implement back doors for any government. - The NSA compromised lawful Russian interception infrastructure, SORM. The NSA archive contains slides showing two Russian officers wearing jackets with a slogan written in Cyrillic: "You talk, we listen." The NSA and/or GCHQ has also compromised Key European LI [lawful interception] systems. - Among example targets of its mass surveillance program, PRISM, the NSA listed the Tibetan government in exile. These revelations have surfaced for the first time thanks to a doctoral thesis authored by Appelbaum towards earning a degree in applied cryptography from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Communication in a world of pervasive surveillance is a public document and has been downloaded over 18,000 times since March 2022 when it was first published. [...] We asked Jacob Appelbaum, currently a post-doctoral researcher at the Eindhoven University of Technology, why he chose to publish those revelations in a technically written thesis rather than a mass-circulation newspaper. He replied: "As an academic, I see that the details included are in the public interest, and highly relevant for the topic covered in my thesis, as it covers the topic of large-scale adversaries engaging in targeted and mass surveillance." According to The Register, "Marvell (the owner of Cavium since 2018) denies the allegations that it or Cavium placed backdoors in products at the behest of the U.S. government. Appelbaum's thesis wasn't given much attention until it was mentioned in Electrospaces.net's security blog last week. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Waymo Begins Testing the Waters For a Robotaxi Service In Los Angeles - Waymo announced a "tour across Los Angeles" that allows curious residents the opportunity to ride in fully autonomous vehicles as the Alphabet-owned company begins to lay the groundwork for the launch of a commercial robotaxi service. The Verge reports: Waymo says it will make six multi-week "tour stops" in LA neighborhoods where people can hail a self-driving car without anyone in the front seat. Interested Angelenos can snag early access tickets at several pop-up events throughout the city or sign up for a waitlist. Once they receive a ticket, riders can use Waymo's fully driverless vehicles for free within the service area for one week during the allotted time. The tour is as follows: Santa Monica and Venice Beach October 11th-November 18th; Century City November 20th-December 17th; West Hollywood December 17th-January 7th; Mid City January 8th-23rd; Koreatown January 24th-February 8th; and Downtown LA February 9th-March 3rd. Waymo's operational design domain -- the area in which its robotaxis are programmed to travel -- stretches from the West Side to Downtown LA, an area that's larger than San Francisco but smaller than its coverage in Phoenix. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX Rocket Launches Starlink Satellites On Record-Breaking 17th Flight - SpaceX just extended its Falcon 9 rocket-reuse record. Space.com reports: The Falcon 9 lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Tuesday at 11:38 p.m. EDT (0338 GMT Sept. 20), carrying 22 of SpaceX's Starlink internet satellites toward low Earth orbit (LEO). The rocket's first stage came back to Earth 8.5 minutes after launch, landing on a SpaceX drone ship stationed at sea. It was the 17th liftoff and landing for this Falcon 9's first stage, according to a SpaceX mission description. Those figures are unprecedented; the previous mark was 16, held by two different Falcon 9 boosters. The 22 Starlink satellites, meanwhile, deployed from the Falcon 9's upper stage 62.5 minutes after launch as planned. Tuesday night's liftoff extended another record as well: It was SpaceX's 65th orbital mission of the year. The company's previous mark, 61, was set in 2022. You can watch a recorded video of the launch here. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

French Drillers May Have Stumbled Upon a Mammoth Hydrogen Deposit - An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: On the outskirts of the small town of Folschviller in eastern France stand three nondescript sheds. One of these temporary structures has recently become a hive of activity due to a continuous stream of visitors, including scientists, journalists, and the public. The shed sits above a borehole first drilled in 2006 and houses a gas measurement system called SysMoG, which was originally developed to determine the underground methane concentration. While the device did detect almost pure methane (99 percent) at a depth of 650 meters, probing further down, the borehole resulted in an unexpected and surprising discovery: hydrogen in high concentration. "At 1,100 meters, the concentration of dissolved hydrogen is 14 percent. At 3,000 meters, the estimated concentration could be as high as 90 percent," Jacques Pironon, director of research at GeoRessources lab at the University de Lorraine, said. Based on the estimates of methane resources and the concentration of hydrogen detected so far, scientists have conjectured that the Lorraine region in eastern France, of which Folschviller is a part, could contain 46 million tons of white -- or naturally produced -- hydrogen. That would make it one of the world's largest known hydrogen deposits. This remarkable discovery was not the objective of the project, called Regalor. Instead, it aimed to determine the feasibility of methane production in the Lorraine region and to record the presence of traces of other gases. "Our original research was related to the study of carboniferous sediments in northeast France. This was important as Lorraine was one of France's largest coal-producing regions," Pironon said. [...] Soon, the researchers will start taking measurements in three other boreholes at similar depths to understand if the hydrogen concentration remains high as you move laterally from the site of the original borehole. "If the concentration is similar, the next step, which is being discussed with the authorities, would be to drill a hole 3,000 meters deep to validate the evolution of the hydrogen concentration with depth," he said. The deeper borehole could also throw up another surprise. "Besides knowing the level of hydrogen concentration, we will also know if hydrogen is present in dissolved form or in gaseous state at these depths," Pironon said. This study could also shed light on the source of this hydrogen. According to Pironon, there are two hypotheses, one of which is related to the presence of the mineral siderite. "Hydrogen could be produced by the reaction between water and siderite, which is made of iron carbonates. We consider that the siderite could be oxidized by water molecules to produce hydrogen. The oxygen then combines with iron to produce iron oxide." According to Pironon, the other hypothesis relates its presence to the chemical processes that form coal, which, along with the release of methane, can also produce hydrogen. Read more of this story at Slashdot.