SoylentNews

Our resident anonymous Anonymous Coward has offered the following story with which to start your weekend:

Motor Trend tells this quirky story about the Facebook boss, https://www.motortrend.com/news/mark-zuckerberg-porsche-cayenne-minivan-custom/

"Pricilla wanted a minivan, so I've been designing something I'm pretty sure should exist: a Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT Minivan."

I'm pretty sure that this unholy combination should _not_ exist! Motor Trend seems to concur,

As for the conversion, it looks fairly well-executed, though it does make the Cayenne look somewhat like a sea mammal with wheels. It's weird, but we don't hate it. It's unclear how long it took West Coast Customs to do the conversion or how much it cost, though we assume the answer is "a long time" and "expensive."

It's bad enough that Porsche took a turn to the ordinary when they started making SUVs, as a cash grab to suppliment their traditional expertise in sports and racing cars. But a minivan is a step too far...

Original Submission

owl writes:

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2024/10/connected-car-failure-puts-kibosh-on-sale-of-3300-fisker-oceans/

Starting a new car company isn't easy—just ask Henrik Fisker, whose second bite at that particular cherry ended the same way as his first when it filed for bankruptcy this July. At the time, Fisker said it wanted to try to "preserve certain customer programs," but Ars wondered what this actually meant, particularly now that electric vehicles are so dependent on software support and cloud connectivity. Now, thanks to a recent court filing spotted by TechCrunch, we know the answer: nothing good.

Car publications were already warning consumers to steer clear of the Ocean as early as this March, despite massive price cuts that saw these electric SUVs being offered for less than $25,000. A New York-based company called American Lease was less deterred by this warning and in June agreed to purchase the remaining Fisker inventory—approximately 3,300 cars for a total of $46.3 million dollars. By October, American Lease had paid Fisker $42.5 million and had taken delivery of about 1,100 Oceans.

That was the plan until the end of last week, at least. Last Friday evening, Fisker informed American Lease that the Oceans "cannot, as a technical matter, be 'ported' from the Fisker server to which the vehicles are currently linked to a distinct server owned and/or controlled by" American Lease.

[...] American Lease says it "cannot overstate the significance of this unwelcome news," particularly since it had already paid Fisker the vast majority of the agreed price. American Lease is also more than a little unhappy that the news was delivered a few days before a court hearing scheduled for today and says it's unclear how long Fisker has known that its cars cannot be ported to a new server.

Original Submission

looorg writes:

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 to

John J. Hopfield
Princeton University, NJ, USA

Geoffrey E. Hinton
University of Toronto, Canada

"for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks"

John Hopfield invented a network that uses a method for saving and recreating patterns. We can imagine the nodes as pixels. The Hopfield network utilises physics that describes a material's characteristics due to its atomic spin – a property that makes each atom a tiny magnet. The network as a whole is described in a manner equivalent to the energy in the spin system found in physics, and is trained by finding values for the connections between the nodes so that the saved images have low energy. When the Hopfield network is fed a distorted or incomplete image, it methodically works through the nodes and updates their values so the network's energy falls. The network thus works stepwise to find the saved image that is most like the imperfect one it was fed with.

Geoffrey Hinton used the Hopfield network as the foundation for a new network that uses a different method: the Boltzmann machine. This can learn to recognise characteristic elements in a given type of data. Hinton used tools from statistical physics, the science of systems built from many similar components. The machine is trained by feeding it examples that are very likely to arise when the machine is run. The Boltzmann machine can be used to classify images or create new examples of the type of pattern on which it was trained. Hinton has built upon this work, helping initiate the current explosive development of machine learning.

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2024/press-release/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hopfield
https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Hinton

Original Submission

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/10/nes-tetris-first-ever-rebirth-loops-past-level-255-and-back-to-zero/

Months ago, 13-year-old Willis "Blue Scuti" Gibson became the first person to "beat" NES Tetris, crashing the game after a 1,511-line, 157-level performance. Over the weekend, 16-year-old Michael "dogplayingtetris" Artiaga became the first to reach an even more impressive plateau in the game, looping past Level 255 and instantly rolling the game all the way back to the ultra-slow Level 0.

It took Artiaga a bit over 80 minutes and a full 3,300 cleared lines to finally achieve the game's first near-mythical "rebirth" live in front of hundreds of Twitch viewers.
[...]
Artiaga's record does come with a small asterisk since he used a version of the game that was modified to avoid the crashes that stopped Blue Scuti's historic run.
[...]
NES Tetris was never designed for play past Level 29, though, which means unintended glitches start to get in the way of any truly endless Tetris sessions. At Level 138, a memory overflow error causes the Tetris pieces to show up in some increasingly funky colors, including palettes that are incredibly hard to make out at Levels 146 and 148.
[...]
Even with a modified game, though, Artiaga faced another massive mountain of a glitch before he could achieve rebirth: Level 235. While the Tetris Level counter usually cycles every 10 lines, vagaries of the game's binary-coded decimal line counter cause the level count to get stuck on 235 for a whopping 810 lines. To make matters worse, the Level 235 glitched color palette is a dull green that is hard to see against the game's black background, making the level a true test of endurance.
[...]
Artiaga—who started playing high-level Tetris competitively at the age of 10 in 2019—has won the Classic Tetris World Championship two times, in addition to setting multiple records in the game and dominating many smaller tournaments. Despite all that, he said during his stream that "this is the best thing I've ever done in Tetris, bro."
[...]
"Oh my god, I'm so glad that game is over, bro," Artiaga said on stream. "I never want to play this game again, bro... I was starting to lose my mind."

Now that the Tetris rebirth has been proven humanly possible (with crash-avoidance mods, at least), the community will no doubt move on to see who, if anyone, can complete a double rebirth in a single uninterrupted Tetris session.
[...]
One thing's for sure: The classic Tetris scene has certainly come a long way since the days of the Level 29 "kill screen."

Side Note: Tetris is now over 40 years old.

Previously on SoylentNews:
Tetris -- A Cognitive Vaccine - 20240927
Hackers Discover How to Reprogram NES Tetris From Within the Game - 20240512
NES Tetris Beaten - 20240106
Hackers' Delight: a History of MIT Pranks and Hacks - 20231124
Tetris' Creators Reveal the Game's Greatest Unsolved Mysteries - 20230428
Happy 30th Birthday Tetris! - 20140608

Original Submission

Snotnose writes:

Think the recent kerfluffle over deepfakes is something new? Guess again.

Concern about deceptively edited photos feels like a very modern anxiety, yet a century ago similar worries were being litigated...

Portrait photography gave rise to an industry of photo 'retouching' – analog 'beauty filters' – to flatter subjects in a way portrait painters once did. This trend lead to questions about technology distorting our perceptions of beauty, reality and truth:

Other commercial applications of photo retouching emerged: in 1911 tourists visiting Washington D.C. could acquire fake photographs of themselves posing with then President of the United States William Taft. This troubled Government officials. Upon discovering the practice in 1911, a United States Attorney ordered it stopped.

The following year a fugitive - wanted for people trafficking - was found in possession of a fake photo posing with President Taft, it was reported he'd used it to buy the trust of his victims:

That this seemingly benign practice had been weaponized prompted some to demand it be regulated against abuse. The justice department prepared a law, that was introduced by then Senator Henry Cabot Lodge - who'd similarly been troubled after reportedly finding a photograph of himself with someone he'd never met.

Now I have to wonder if Grandpa really did befriend a bigfoot.

Original Submission

U.S. Wiretap Systems Targeted in China-Linked Hack

From Schneier's Blog

A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers, potentially accessing information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized network wiretapping requests.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/10/china-possibly-hacking-us-lawful-access-backdoor.html

It's a weird story. The first line of the article is: "A cyberattack tied to the Chinese government penetrated the networks of a swath of U.S. broadband providers." This implies that the attack wasn't against the broadband providers directly, but against one of the intermediary companies that sit between the government CALEA requests and the broadband providers.

For years, the security community has pushed back against these backdoors, pointing out that the technical capability cannot differentiate between good guys and bad guys. And here is one more example of a backdoor access mechanism being targeted by the "wrong" eavesdroppers.

Pluralistic: China Hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen Using the FBI's Backdoor (07 Oct 2024) – Pluralist

upstart writes:

Pluralistic: China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI's backdoor (07 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow:

China hacked Verizon, AT&T and Lumen using the FBI's backdoor (permalink)

State-affiliated Chinese hackers penetrated AT&T, Verizon, Lumen and others; they entered their networks and spent months intercepting US traffic – from individuals, firms, government officials, etc – and they did it all without having to exploit any code vulnerabilities. Instead, they used the back door that the FBI requires every carrier to furnish:

https://www.wsj.com/tech/cybersecurity/u-s-wiretap-systems-targeted-in-china-linked-hack-327fc63b?st=C5ywbp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

In 1994, Bill Clinton signed CALEA into law. The Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act requires every US telecommunications network to be designed around facilitating access to law-enforcement wiretaps. Prior to CALEA, telecoms operators were often at pains to design their networks to resist infiltration and interception. Even if a telco didn't go that far, they were at the very least indifferent to the needs of law enforcement, and attuned instead to building efficient, robust networks.

Predictably, CALEA met stiff opposition from powerful telecoms companies as it worked its way through Congress, but the Clinton administration bought them off with hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies to acquire wiretap-facilitation technologies. Immediately, a new industry sprang into being; companies that promised to help the carriers hack themselves, punching back doors into their networks. The pioneers of this dirty business were overwhelmingly founded by ex-Israeli signals intelligence personnel, though they often poached senior American military and intelligence officials to serve as the face of their operations and liase with their former colleagues in law enforcement and intelligence.

Telcos weren't the only opponents of CALEA, of course. Security experts – those who weren't hoping to cash in on government pork, anyways – warned that there was no way to make a back door that was only useful to the "good guys" but would keep the "bad guys" out.

These experts were – then as now – dismissed as neurotic worriers who simultaneously failed to understand the need to facilitate mass surveillance in order to keep the nation safe, and who lacked appropriate faith in American ingenuity. If we can put a man on the moon, surely we can build a security system that selectively fails when a cop needs it to, but stands up to every crook, bully, corporate snoop and foreign government. In other words: "We have faith in you! NERD HARDER!"

Snotnose writes:

Your super secret airplane just crashed and everyone knows where. Now what?

'At the crash site investigators collected evidence and evaluated the remains of the aircraft for clues to the cause of the tragedy. Then came the task of cleaning the site and leaving no pieces of the highly classified aircraft for scavengers, the media, or others to find. A clean-up team moved out a thousand feet from the last of the recognizable debris and then dug and sifted all the dirt in the area.

'On Jul. 23, controlled explosive charges were detonated on the hillside to free pieces of the aircraft buried as the result of the crash.'

Then, according to Knowledge Stew, the Air Force brought in a crashed F-101A Voodoo, an aircraft that had been out of service with the Air Force since 1972 and with the Air National Guard since 1982. The crashed Voodoo had been in storage at the secretive Area 51 in Nevada for more than 20 years, and it was broken up and put in place of the F-117 debris. Almost a month later, the Air Force said the area was no longer restricted.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Networking giant Cisco is getting out of the LoRaWAN market for IoT device connectivity, announcing end-of-availability and end-of-life dates for its gateways and associated products, with no planned migration pathway for customers.

Switchzilla made this information public in a notice on its website announcing the end-of-sale and end-of-life dates for Cisco LoRaWAN. The last day customers will be able to order any affected products will be January 1, 2025, with all support ceasing by the end of the decade.

The list includes Cisco's 800 MHz and 900 MHz LoRaWAN Gateways, plus associated products such as omni-directional antennas and software for the Gateways and Interface Modules.

If anyone was in any doubt, the notification spells it out: "Cisco will be exiting the LoRaWAN space. There is no planned migration for Cisco LoRaWAN gateways."

The move will come as a blow for any organizations that have built IoT deployments using LoRaWAN that may have considered Cisco to be a safe and dependable supplier. The networking colossus was pushing new products as recently as last year, when it announced a pluggable interface module (PIM) for the Cisco Catalyst IR1100 Rugged Series Routers with LoRaWAN connectivity.

LoRaWAN is a low power, wide area network specification, specifically designed to connect devices such as sensors over relatively long distances. It is built on LoRa, a form of wireless communication that uses spread spectrum modulation, and makes use of license-free sub-gigahertz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) radio bands. The tech is overseen by the LoRa Alliance.

[...] One analyst we spoke to who covers the IoT space said this likely isn't a profitable part of the business as far as Cisco is concerned. Since LoRa has a long range, fewer gateways are required than in Wi-Fi deployments, for example, and there are many vendors making LoRa sensors and hardware, resulting in a competitive market.

[...] "Exiting the LoRaWAN market is probably part of a more focused look at networking, paring away areas where they either weren't dominant, they don't see growth potential or that isn't in line with their overall networking roadmap."

Any Cisco LoRaWAN customers can perhaps take comfort from the fact that the final date to receive applicable service and support as stipulated in active service contracts is December 31, 2029. However, the last date that Cisco Engineering may release a planned maintenance release or software patch is much nearer – December 31, 2026.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas, but as datacenter footprints explode amid the AI boom, regulators fear even the Lone Star state's utilities won't be able to keep up for much longer.

The Texas' Public Utility Commission is now warning datacenter operators looking to set up shop in the US state within the next 12 to 15 months that they won't be able to rely entirely on the local grid and will have to supply at least some of their own power. As some of you will know, Texas has at times suffered blackouts from demand overload, and outages sparked by storms damaging infrastructure.

"We can't afford to lose any of our resources off the system at this point, especially given those load-growth projections," Thomas Gleeson, who chairs the commission, told Blomberg during the Gulf Coast Power Association conference in Austin this week.

Chief among Gleeson's concerns is datacenters setting up shop near existing power plants and buying up the supply of electricity, making it harder for the grid to keep the lights on for everyone else. Instead, Gleeson wants to see datacenter operators arranging and supporting their own generation facilities before putting strain on existing infrastructure.

[...] To ensure their bit-barn projects don't run out of juice, some operators are cozying up to operating and even defunct nuclear power plants. This northern spring, Amazon paid $650 million for Talen Energy's Cumulus datacenter located directly adjacent to the 2.5 gigawatt Susquehanna nuclear power plant. Under the deal, Amazon will have access to up to 960 megawatts of power.

[...] However, bringing retired nuclear plants back online isn't always as easy as it sounds. As The Register recently reported, many older facilities will require extensive repairs and modernization before they're ready to start turning steam into electricity again.

day of the dalek writes:

NOAA has issued a rare G4 watch for a severe geomagnetic storm that is expected on October 10 and 11. G4 refers to NOAA's scale for the intensity of geomagnetic storms, which ranges from G1 to G5. Prior to the geomagnetic storm in May of this year that reached G5 intensity, the last G4 watch was issued in January of 2005.

This watch was issued for a coronal mass ejection (CME) that occurred around 03 UTC on October 9 and is expected to reach Earth around 12-15 UTC on October 10. An article from the Washington Post states that the speed of the CME, around 2.5 million miles per hour, is the fastest that a CME has been ejected toward Earth during the current solar cycle. From my very limited understanding of space weather, it seems that faster CMEs generate higher ram pressures against Earth's magnetosphere and can result in more severe geomagnetic storms. The x-ray brightness of solar flares gets a lot of attention, and this was an X-class flare (the highest level on the classification scale), this was an X1.8 flare whereas flares have been observed at least up to X28. The high speed of the CME, however, seems to be a factor in the potential for a severe geomagnetic storm.

One of the main questions that we can't answer until the CME gets to within about a million miles of Earth is the orientation of its magnetic field. If the CME's magnetic field is aligned in the same direction as Earth's, it will produce a less severe geomagnetic storm than if it's aligned in the opposite direction. An excellent resource for data about space weather and this CME is NOAA's space weather enthusiasts dashboard. There's a lot of data on that page that is useful if you're concerned about the possibility of viewing auroras or potential disruptions to the power grid, so hopefully some of the comments can explain a bit more about what it means. I don't know a whole lot about space weather, but I'll try to offer a cursory explanation of what I believe some of it means.

The solar visible light shows where sunspots are currently observed, whereas the LASCO C3 images are observed from satellites can be used to see CMEs when they occur. A CME will appear like an explosion outward from the sun's corona. The data is input into a model called WSA-ENLIL, which predicts the density and radial velocity (outward from the sun) of solar wind plasma. A higher plasma density or a faster radial velocity should result in a stronger geomagnetic storm. This is also useful for estimating when a CME will reach Earth. I believe the GOES magnetometer data is used to measure how much the Earth's magnetic field is compressed or stretched and can identify the onset of geomagnetic storms. The ACE MAG and SWEPAM data are satellite-derived measurements of the solar wind. In addition to showing the plasma speed, temperature, and density, the Bz and Phi variables show the orientation of the magnetic field in the solar wind. If Bz is positive, it's a northward-oriented magnetic field. However, a negative Bz indicates a southward-oriented magnetic field, the opposite direction of Earth's magnetic field, and this can result in more severe geomagnetic storms. Basically, a strongly negative Bz around -10 or even -20 would be more favorable for a strong geomagnetic storm. The aurora forecast is a short-term forecast (~30 minutes to an hour) of the probability of auroral activity over a location, though auroras may be visible near the horizon in areas equatorward of what the forecast shows.

There's a lot of data on NOAA's space weather dashboard that can be useful for anyone hoping to see the auroras. My understanding of space weather is very limited, so if anyone else has a better understanding of what the data means, please share the information in the comments. Although a G4 or even a G5 geomagnetic storm is possible, but there's still a lot of uncertainty until the CME gets very close to Earth.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Scientists simulated a nuclear explosion using x-ray pulses to push an asteroid-like rock away in space-like conditions:

It's been almost 25 years since Bruce Willis, playing the fictional character Harry Stamper in the blockbuster movie, Armageddon, saved Earth from an asteroid careering towards the planet. In true Hollywood fashion, he did this by detonating a nuclear bomb implanted in the asteroid, preventing what scientists call a "mass extinction event". The whole world cheered (at least in the movie).

The world might be able to cheer for real now. In a study published in Nature Physics, physicists at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, US, say they have simulated a nuclear X-ray pulse directed onto the side of an asteroid to change the trajectory of the asteroid and avoid a collision with the Earth.

[...] Scientists used an X-ray pulse inside a vacuum to simulate a nuclear explosion on the surface of an asteroid-like rock in space-like conditions. The pulse created a vapour plume which pushed the rock away.

"The vaporised material shoots off one side, pushing the asteroid in the opposite direction," Dr Nathan Moore, the lead author of the new study, said in a press statement.

In an interview with Space.com, an online publication focused on space exploration and astronomy, Moore said: "You have to concentrate a lot of power, about 80 trillion watts, into a very small space, the size of a pencil lead, and very quickly, about 100 billionths of second, to generate a hot enough argon plasma, several millions of degrees, to make a powerful enough X-ray burst to heat the asteroid material surface to tens of thousands of degrees to give it enough push."

Freeman writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/scotus-denial-ends-saga-of-shkrelis-infamous-5000-drug-price-scheme/

The legal saga over Martin Shkreli's infamous 5,000 percent price hike of a life-saving anti-parasitic drug has ended with a flat denial from the highest court in the land.

On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected Shkreli's petition to appeal an order to return $64.6 million in profits from the pricing scheme of Daraprim, a decades-old drug used to treat toxoplasmosis. The condition is caused by a single-celled parasite that can be deadly for newborns and people with compromised immune systems, such as people who have HIV, cancer, or an organ transplant.
[...]
In a lawsuit filed in 2021, the Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys general accused Shkreli of building a "web of anticompetitive restrictions to box out the competition." In January of 2022, US District Court Judge Denise Cote agreed, finding that Shkreli's conduct was "egregious, deliberate, repetitive, long-running, and ultimately dangerous."

Cotes banned Shkreli from the pharmaceutical industry for life and found him liable for $64.6 million in disgorgement. In January 2024, an appeals court upheld Cote's ruling.
[...]
Shkreli's lawyer filed a petition with the Supreme Court arguing that the ill-gotten profits from Daraprim's price hike went to corporate entities, not Shkreli personally, and that federal courts had issued conflicting rulings on disgorgement liabilities.

In a list of orders today, the Supreme Court announced it denied Shkreli's petition to hear his appeal. The justices offered no explanation and no dissents were noted.

The denial is Shkreli's second rejection from the Supreme Court.

Previously on SoylentNews: SoylentNews Stories on Shkreli (Search Link)
Infamous Pharma Company Founded by Shkreli Files for Bankruptcy, Blames Shkreli - 20230514
Shkreli Released From Prison to Halfway House After Serving - 20220522
Judge Denies Shkreli's "Delusional Self-Aggrandizing" Plea to Get Out of Jail - 20200519
Sobbing Martin Shkreli Sentenced to 7 Years in Prison for Defrauding Investors - 20180310
FBI Arrests Shkreli of the Drug Price Hike Fame - 20151217 (That didn't take him long.)
Cost of Daraprim Medication Raised by Over 50 Times - 20150922

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The data compiled by Jon Peddie Research (JPR) reveals a significant surge in global AIB [add-in board] volumes, up 47.9 percent year-on-year to 9.5 million units and up 9.4 percent quarter-over-quarter from 8.7 million.

Yet since Intel introduced its first dedicated AIB – or graphics card – via the Arc Alchemist microarchitecture in March 2022, the company has seemingly failed to capture meaningful market share from either Nvidia or AMD, at least according to JPR.

[...] When Intel first teased its Arc GPUs, there was a lot of buzz. Could Chipzilla translate its experience in processors to AIBs and perform as well in the dedicated graphics market as it has elsewhere?

On launch, the company talked a big game about disrupting the duopoly of Nvidia and AMD. Intel promised its products would be affordable and competitive, with options for gamers, creators, and enterprise users. Just over two years in, the reality hasn't lived up to the hype. Intel has suffered some technical setbacks, including driver instability and immaturity, which is a given for a new player in the market. The other stumbling block is performance related, although Intel has consistently released new driver updates looking to address this.

From here, Intel's movement into the AIB market seems to have been a dud, particularly considering the company's poor financial position and rivals expressing interest in acquiring assets. If Intel can't even dent a full percentile of AMD's market share, it seemingly doesn't stand a chance.

Unless Intel can recapture some of that earlier buzz with the upcoming Battlemage AIBs between now and the end of 2025, its goal of being a major player in dedicated graphics appears more likely to be a pipe dream.

Intel needs to focus on its pedigree in microprocessors rather than trying to enter a market locked down by Nvidia because the issues around its 14th and 13th gen Core series families haven't done its reputation any favors. Nvidia's dominance in the broader graphics market looks unlikely to change as we enter the age of AI, nor will its chokehold on the AIB industry, at least not any time soon.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

In a surprising announcement, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the web, and Rosemary Leith, co-founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, revealed that the organization is ceasing operations. The decision comes after 16 years of advocating for a safe, trusted, open web.

However, Berners-Lee is not giving up on the Foundation's goals; instead, he's just redirected his efforts to the Solid Protocol. That said, some of the Foundation's original objectives have been achieved. These include:

• Expanding internet access: When the Foundation started in 2009, only 20% of the world had internet access. Now, nearly 70% of the global population is online.
• Advocating for affordable internet: The foundation set a benchmark called "1 for 2", which stated that 1GB of mobile data shouldn't cost over 2% of a person's average monthly income. Not only was this successful, but now the Alliance for Affordable Internet is advocating for "1 for 5", where the goal is for the cost of 5GB of broadband, both mobile and fixed, to be no more than 2% of someone's average monthly income by 2026.
• Promoting net neutrality: The foundation helped win victories for net neutrality in the EU, India, and the US.

• Berners-Lee and Leith cited the dramatically changed landscape of internet access as a key factor in their decision. The Foundation's original mission has evolved with most of the world now online, at affordable prices, and numerous organizations now defending web users' rights.

From where they sit, the top threat to users' rights is dominant, centralized social media platforms, such as Facebook, X, and Reddit. This dominance has led to the commoditization of user data and a concentration of power that's contrary to Berners-Lee's original vision of the web.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

A view from a retrofitted spy plane soaring at 20 kilometers up revealed storms glowing and flickering in gamma rays, high-energy light invisible to the eye. Ten flights with the plane, NASA’s ER-2 aircraft, captured the shimmer of gamma-ray outbursts over a variety of timescales and intensities, suggesting that the emissions are more complex and more common than previously thought. And the study unveiled a brand-new type of gamma-ray blast the researchers named a flickering gamma-ray flash. 

“I’m absolutely awestruck,” says physicist David Smith, of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved with the research. It’s most important new data in this field for over a decade, he says.

Scientists knew of two main types of thunderstorm gamma-ray emissions. Short, intense blasts called terrestrial gamma-ray flashes are so luminous they can be seen from space, and last for mere fractions of a millisecond (SN: 1/10/23). Then there are longer, dimmer emissions called gamma-ray glows. Scientists spotted both on the flights. 

Glows, the scientists found, were unexpectedly persistent and prevalent. They continued for hours, covered thousands of square kilometers, and were seen in nine of the plane’s 10 flights, physicist Nikolai Østgaard and colleagues report in the Oct. 3 Nature. 

“It’s astonishing,” says physicist Ningyu Liu of the University of New Hampshire in Durham, who was not involved with the work. 

What’s more, the gamma-ray glows weren’t static, as previously thought, but constantly simmered, brightening and dimming repeatedly on timescales of seconds. “Large storms are bubbling. It’s like a boiling pot,” says Østgaard, of the University of Bergen in Norway.