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Researchers claim efficiency boost plus reduction in environmental harm

Scientists claim to have made a breakthrough in the search for more powerful and lower-cost lithium-metal batteries by including common polymer nylon in the design.…

A critical root certificate expiring on March 14, 2025 will disable extensions and potentially break DRM-dependent streaming services for Firefox users running outdated browsers. Users must update to at least Firefox 128 or ESR 115.13+ to maintain functionality across Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android platforms. The expiration additionally compromises security infrastructure, including blocklists for malicious add-ons, SSL certificate revocation lists, and password breach notifications. Even those on legacy operating systems (Windows 7/8/8.1, macOS 10.12â"10.14) must update to minimum ESR 115.13+.

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The US's largest pension fund has classified more than $3 billion of holdings in oil drillers, coal miners, and other major greenhouse gas producers as climate-friendly investments, according to a new analysis of public records. From a report: Stakes in Saudi Aramco, Chevron Corp. and Chinese coal company Inner Mongolia Dian Tou Energy are among the holdings that California Public Employees' Retirement System labeled as "climate solutions." The findings are part of a report from California Common Good, a coalition of environmental advocates and public sector unions. The group, which has called for Calpers to divest from major oil and gas companies, is staging protests Tuesday at Chevron's San Francisco Bay Area refinery and in the burn zone of the Eaton fire near Los Angeles.

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Folks with LaserJets complain of error code even when using approved supplies

Owners of HP laser printers are complaining about a firmware update that stops the hardware from printing, where the toner cartridge is not recognized even when they've got the expensive HP version installed.…

SpaceX's Starlink has secured its first agreement in India, partnering with telecommunications leader Bharti Airtel to bring high-speed satellite internet to the world's most populous country, the companies announced Tuesday [PDF]. The landmark deal will enable Starlink to tap into Airtel's extensive retail network and ground infrastructure while expanding its global reach into previously underserved regions across India, pending regulatory authorizations. "We are excited to work with Airtel and unlock the transformative impact Starlink can bring to the people of India," said Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX. "The team at Airtel has played a pivotal role in India's telecom story, so working with them to complement our direct offering makes great sense for our business." The collaboration will explore selling Starlink equipment through Airtel's retail stores and offering services to business customers while connecting communities in rural areas with limited connectivity.

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Dare mighty things ... as long as we can afford it

COMMENT NASA could be in line for severe cuts to its science budget, with a 50 percent reduction floated by folk in the space industry. The consequences would, according to observers, be nothing less than catastrophic.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A former senior Facebook executive has told the BBC how the social media giant worked "hand in glove" with the Chinese government on potential ways of allowing Beijing to censor and control content in China. Sarah Wynn-Williams -- a former global public policy director -- says in return for gaining access to the Chinese market of hundreds of millions of users, Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, considered agreeing to hiding posts that were going viral, until they could be checked by the Chinese authorities. Ms Williams -- who makes the claims in a new book -- has also filed a whistleblower complaint with the US markets regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), alleging Meta misled investors. The BBC has reviewed the complaint. Facebook's parent company Meta, says Ms Wynn-Williams had her employment terminated in 2017 "for poor performance." It is "no secret we were once interested" in operating services in China, it adds. "We ultimately opted not to go through with the ideas we'd explored." Meta referred us to Mark Zuckerberg's comments from 2019, when he said: "We could never come to agreement on what it would take for us to operate there, and they [China] never let us in." Facebook also used algorithms to spot when young teenagers were feeling vulnerable as part of research aimed at advertisers, Ms Wynn-Williams alleges. A former New Zealand diplomat, she joined Facebook in 2011, and says she watched the company grow from "a front row seat." Now she wants to show some of the "decision-making and moral compromises" that she says went on when she was there. It is a critical moment, she adds, as "many of the people I worked with... are going to be central" to the introduction of AI. In her memoir, Careless People, Ms Wynn-Williams paints a picture of what she alleges working on Facebook's senior team was like.

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Plus, startup's inference service makes debut on Hugging Face

Cerebras has begun deploying more than a thousand of its dinner-plate sized-accelerators across North America and parts of France as the startup looks to establish itself as one of the largest and fastest suppliers of AI inference services.…

First new version in about five years, but it's who did it that matters more

The WINE project has put out its first release of Mono, the original FOSS .NET runtime, since it took the project over from Microsoft six months ago.…

SpaceX's Starlink has secured its first agreement in India, partnering with telecommunications leader Bharti Airtel to bring high-speed satellite internet to the world's most populous country, the companies announced Tuesday [PDF]. The landmark deal will enable Starlink to tap into Airtel's extensive retail network and ground infrastructure while expanding its global reach into previously underserved regions across India, pending regulatory authorizations. "We are excited to work with Airtel and unlock the transformative impact Starlink can bring to the people of India," said Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX. "The team at Airtel has played a pivotal role in India's telecom story, so working with them to complement our direct offering makes great sense for our business." The collaboration will explore selling Starlink equipment through Airtel's retail stores and offering services to business customers while connecting communities in rural areas with limited connectivity.

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Email client rises like a zombie, though its digital grave still marked by big red cross

The native Outlook email app for iOS users remains missing in action for some more than a week after users first reported service disruption, and Microsoft still hasn't confirmed the root cause.…

It took a whistleblower to expose disastrous ERP go-live

Birmingham City Council did not tell its official auditors about the disastrous Oracle implementation for ten months after the suite of applications went live, and appeared to obstruct access to the new system needed to complete their work.…

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has taken control of rocket startup Relativity Space, replacing co-founder Tim Ellis as CEO and significantly funding the company's development of its medium-lift rocket, Terran R. The New York Times first reported (paywalled) the news. Ars Technica reports: Schmidt's involvement with Relativity has been quietly discussed among space industry insiders for a few months. Multiple sources told Ars that he has largely been bankrolling the company since the end of October, when the company's previous fundraising dried up. It is not immediately clear why Schmidt is taking a hands-on approach at Relativity. However, it is one of the few US-based companies with a credible path toward developing a medium-lift rocket that could potentially challenge the dominance of SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket. If the Terran R booster becomes commercially successful, it could play a big role in launching megaconstellations. Schmidt's ascension also means that Tim Ellis, the company's co-founder, chief executive, and almost sole public persona for nearly a decade, is now out of a leadership position. "Today marks a powerful new chapter as Eric Schmidt becomes Relativity's CEO, while also providing substantial financial backing," Ellis wrote on the social media site X. "I know there's no one more tenacious or passionate to propel this dream forward. We have been working together to ensure a smooth transition, and I'll proudly continue to support the team as Co-founder and Board member." Relativity also on Monday released a video outlining the development of the Terran R rocket and the work required to reach the launch pad. According to the video, the first "flight" version of the Terran R rocket will be built this year, with tentative plans to launch from a pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in 2026. "The company aims to soft land the first stage of the first launch in the Atlantic Ocean," adds Ars. "However, the 'Block 1' version of the rocket will not fly again." "Full reuse of the first stage will be delayed to future upgrades. Eventually, the Relativity officials said, they intend to reach a flight rate of 50 to 100 rockets a year with the Terran R when the vehicle is fully developed."

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1900 MHz band dormant since Y2K, but not available until 2029

Britain's telecoms regulator wants to repurpose unused mobile spectrum for the upcoming Emergency Services Network (ESN) and to overhaul communications in the railway sector.…

Nothing like an OpenAI-powered agent leaking data or getting confused over what someone else whispered to it

AI models with memory aim to enhance user interactions by recalling past engagements. However, this feature opens the door to manipulation.…

Big Blue's legal eagles soar on both sides of the pond

IBM scored a pair of legal wins this week: The US Supreme Court declined to reinstate a $1.6 billion judgment previously awarded to BMC Software, and the High Court in London, England, ruled in favor of Big Blue in a lawsuit against LzLabs, which was accused of misappropriating IBM's mainframe technology.…

NASA is eliminating approximately 20 positions, including its chief scientist and roles related to technology, policy, and diversity. The move, as part of a Trump administration effort to reduce staffing, "could be a harbinger of deeper cuts to NASA's science missions and a greater emphasis on human spaceflight, especially to Mars," reports the New York Times. From the report: The cuts affect about 20 employees at NASA, including Katherine Calvin, the chief scientist and a climate science expert. The last day of work for Dr. Calvin and the other staff members will be April 10. [...] The eliminated positions include the chief technologist and chief economist for the agency, which were part of the technology, policy and strategy office. Chief technologist positions at NASA centers like the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are not affected, the notice said. The agency is also cutting several positions related to diversity, equity and inclusion in its Office of Equal Opportunity. The notice said that NASA estimated severance costs would be about $1.2 million. "To optimize our work force, and in compliance with an executive order, NASA is beginning its phased approach to a reduction in force, known as a RIF," Cheryl Wheeler, a NASA spokeswoman, said in an email. "A small number of individuals received notification Monday they are a part of NASA's RIF." Eligible employees could opt for early retirement, Ms. Wheeler said. The Democratic House staff members said they worried deeper cuts at NASA would follow.

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The thermosphere usually drags space junk to its doom. As it thins, ruined orbits are a possibility

Earth’s atmosphere is shrinking due to climate change and one of the possible negative impacts is that space junk will stay in orbit for longer, bonk into other bits of space junk, and make so much mess that low Earth orbits become less useful.…

Guessed tax obligations wrong which helped to disappoint Wall Street even as sales boomed

Oracle on Monday announced customers committed to $48 billion of future cloud services consumption – just $5 billion less that its annual revenue for FY 2024 – but investors aren’t impressed.…

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The pollution of the planet by microplastics is significantly cutting food supplies by damaging the ability of plants to photosynthesize, according to a new assessment. The analysis estimates that between 4% and 14% of the world's staple crops of wheat, rice and maize is being lost due to the pervasive particles. It could get even worse, the scientists said, as more microplastics pour into the environment. About 700 million people were affected by hunger in 2022. The researchers estimated that microplastic pollution could increase the number at risk of starvation by another 400 million in the next two decades, calling that an "alarming scenario" for global food security. [...] The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, combined more than 3,000 observations of the impact of microplastics on plants, taken from 157 studies. Previous research has indicated that microplastics can damage plants in multiple ways. The polluting particles can block sunlight reaching leaves and damage the soils on which the plants depend. When taken up by plants, microplastics can block nutrient and water channels, induce unstable molecules that harm cells and release toxic chemicals, which can reduce the level of the photosynthetic pigment chlorophyll. The researchers estimated that microplastics reduced the photosynthesis of terrestrial plants by about 12% and by about 7% in marine algae, which are at the base of the ocean food web. They then extrapolated this data to calculate the reduction in the growth of wheat, rice and maize and in the production of fish and seafood. Asia was hardest hit by estimated crop losses, with reductions in all three of between 54 million and 177 million tons a year, about half the global losses. Wheat in Europe was also hit hard as was maize in the United States. Other regions, such as South America and Africa, grow less of these crops but have much less data on microplastic contamination. In the oceans, where microplastics can coat algae, the loss of fish and seafood was estimated at between 1m and 24m tonnes a year, about 7% of the total and enough protein to feed tens of millions of people. Further reading: Are Microplastics Bad For Your Health? More Rigorous Science is Needed

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