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Excellent and Accessible Write-Up on Spectre & Meltdown Vulnerabilities

By itss | 08/01/2018
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https://ds9a.nl/articles/posts/spectre-meltdown/

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  • California's Population Jumps Back to Near Pre-Pandemic Levels
    by EditorDavid on 21/12/2024 at 4:34 pm

    "California's population grew this year by nearly a quarter of a million residents," reports the Los Angeles Daily News, "closing in on record-high population levels the Golden State reached before the pandemic, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Thursday." Although "Data showed the state is growing more slowly than the country as a whole and other large states in the South..." The Census Bureau's Vintage 2024 population estimates show California's population on July 1, 2024 was 39,431,000, an increase of 233,000 from the year before, and just 125,000 short of the 2020 high point. For Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, there are two ways to look at the new data. "There's the optimistic look that in the past year, we have seen the population increase... bigger increases than we have in a decade, so I do think there is some truth to the narrative of folks coming back to California," he said. On the other hand, California is still far behind the population gains made in states like Florida and Texas. "We are still trying to claw back to where we were pre-pandemic," Bellisario said. "It's going to take us a few more years to get to solid population growth numbers." California had the third most new residents, with the population growing by about 0.59%. Florida and Texas saw more new residents, and top the list of states with the largest increases by raw numbers... Overall, the population of the entire country grew by about 0.9%, slightly outpacing California's growth. A graph accompanying the article shows California's population increasing steadily until the pandemic — which produced a sudden drop that the article seems to attribute to pandemic restrictions (including restrictions on entering the country). And then this year there was a sudden spike back to nearly where it was before the pandemic. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • 'Open Source Software Funding Report' Finds 86% of Corporate Contributions are Employees' Time
    by EditorDavid on 21/12/2024 at 3:34 pm

    The Linux Foundation partnered with GitHub and Harvard's Laboratory for Innovation Science to research organization-driven investments in open source software — the how and the why — surveying over 500 organizations around the world. So what are the highlights from the published report? The median responding organization invests $520,600 (2023 USD) of annual value to OSS. Responding organizations annually invest $1.7 billion in open source, which can be extrapolated to estimate that approximately $7.7 billion is invested across the entire open source ecosystem annually. 86% of investment is in the form of contribution labor by employees and contractors working for the funding organization, with the remaining 14% being direct financial contributions. But the ultimate goal of the research was ideas "to improve monitoring and investing in open source" (to "create a more sustainable and impactful open source economy...") In this research, we discovered a few key obstacles that make this kind of data capture challenging... [O]rganizations have blind spots when it comes to the specifics of their contributions. Many respondents knew where they contribute, but only a portion of those could answer how many labor hours went into their OSS contributions or the percentage of budget that went to OSS. Second, the decentralized nature of organizational contributions, without explicit policies or centralized groups that encourage and organize this effort, make reporting even more challenging... [W]e recommend that policies and practices are put in place to encourage employees to self-report their contributions, and do so using their employee email addresses to leave fingerprints on their work. We also suggest that open source work is consolidated under a single banner, such as an Open Source Program Office (OSPO). Finally, we suggest incorporating contribution monitoring into the organization's pipeline. We developed a toolkit to help improve data capture and monitoring. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • AI Writing Is Improving, But It Still Can't Match Human Creativity
    by BeauHD on 21/12/2024 at 1:00 pm

    sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: With a few keystrokes, anyone can ask an artificial intelligence (AI) program such as ChatGPT to write them a term paper, a rap song, or a play. But don't expect William Shakespeare's originality. A new study finds such output remains derivative -- at least for now. [...] [O]bjectively testing this creativity has been tricky. Scientists have generally taken two tacks. One is to use another computer program to search for signs of plagiarism -- though a lack of plagiarism does not necessarily equal creativity. The other approach is to have humans judge the AI output themselves, rating factors such as fluency and originality. But that's subjective and time intensive. So Ximing Lu, a computer scientist at the University of Washington, and colleagues created a program featuring both objectivity and a bit of nuance. Called DJ Search, it collects pieces of text of a minimum length from whatever the AI outputs and searches for them in large online databases. DJ Search doesn't just look for identical matches; it also scans for strings whose words have similar meanings. To evaluate the meaning of a word or phrase, the program itself relies on a separate AI algorithm that produces a set of numbers called an "embedding," which roughly represents the contexts in which words are typically found. Synonymous words have numerically close embeddings. For example, phrases that swap "anticipation" and "excitement" are considered matches. After removing all matches, the program calculates the ratio of the remaining words to the original document length, which should give an estimate of how much of the AI's output is novel. The program conducts this process for various string lengths (the study uses a minimum of five words) and combines the ratios into one index of linguistic novelty. (The team calls it a "creativity index," but creativity requires both novelty and quality -- random gibberish is novel but not creative.) The researchers compared the linguistic novelty of published novels, poetry, and speeches with works written by recent LLMs. Humans outscored AIs by about 80% in poetry, 100% in novels, and 150% in speeches, the researchers report in a preprint posted on OpenReview and currently under peer review. Although DJ Search was designed for comparing people and machines, it can also be used to compare two or more humanmade works. For example, Suzanne Collins's 2008 novel The Hunger Games scored 35% higher in linguistic originality than Stephenie Meyer's 2005 hit Twilight. (You can try the tool online.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Startup Set To Brick $800 Kids Robot Is Trying To Open Source It First
    by BeauHD on 21/12/2024 at 10:00 am

    Last week, startup Embodied announced it was closing down, and its product, an $800 robot for kids ages 5 to 10, would soon be bricked. Now, in a blog post published on Friday, CEO Paolo Pirjanian shared that Embodied's technical team is working on a way to open-source the robot, ensuring it can continue operating indefinitely. Ars Technica reports: The notice says that after releasing OpenMoxie, Embodied plans to release "all necessary code and documentation" for developers and users. Pirjanian said that an over-the-air (OTA) update is now available for download that will allow previously purchased Moxies to support OpenMoxie. The executive noted that Embodied is still "seeking long-term answers" but claimed that the update is a "vital first step" to "keep the door open" for the robot's continued functionality. At this time, OpenMoxie isn't available and doesn't have a release date. Embodied's wording also seems careful to leave an opening for OpenMoxie to not actually release; although, the company seems optimistic. However, there's also a risk of users failing to update their robots in time and properly. Embodied noted that it won't be able to support users who have trouble with the update or with OpenMoxie post-release. Updating the robot includes connecting to Wi-Fi and leaving it on for at least an hour. "It is extremely important that you update your Moxie with this OTA as soon as possible because once the cloud servers stop working you will not be able to update your robot," the document reads. Embodied hasn't said when exactly its cloud servers still stop working. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • Axiom's Private Space Station Could Arrive As Early As 2028
    by BeauHD on 21/12/2024 at 7:00 am

    Axiom Space has revised its plan for assembling its commercial space station by launching the Payload, Power, and Thermal module first, enabling it to operate as a free-flying platform as early as 2028 -- two years ahead of the original timeline. Space.com reports: NASA awarded Axiom Space a contract in 2020 to attach one or more modules to the International Space Station (ISS), which is set to retire by 2030 at the earliest. The original plan called for Axiom to detach a multi-module group from the ISS, creating a commercial outpost in low Earth orbit that will continue operating after the ISS is gone. But that plan has now been altered. To create its space station, Axiom plans to launch five modules: a payload/power/thermal element, an airlock, a research/manufacturing hub, and a pair of habitat modules. The original plan was for Axiom to launch the Habitat 1 module to the ISS first, followed by the additional elements. The new assembly sequence will see the Payload, Power and Thermal module launch to the ISS first. This module could detach from the station -- and become a free flyer called Axiom Station -- as soon as 2028, according to the company. After that happens, Axiom will continue assembling the outpost, launching the Habitat 1 module to meet up with it. Habitat 1 will be followed by the airlock, the Habitat 2 module, and then the research and manufacturing facility. Angela Hart, a manager for the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development Program at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said: "The updated assembly sequence has been coordinated with NASA to support both NASA and Axiom Space needs and plans for a smooth transition in low Earth orbit." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

  • 10 Years Later: Malaysia To Resume Hunt For Flight MH370
    by BeauHD on 21/12/2024 at 3:30 am

    An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Malaysia has agreed to resume the search for the wreckage of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, its transport minister said on Friday, more than 10 years after it disappeared in one of the world's greatest aviation mysteries. Flight MH370, a Boeing 777 carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew, vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014. [...] MH370's last transmission was about 40 minutes after it took off from Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. The pilots signed off as the plane entered Vietnamese air space over the Gulf of Thailand and soon after its transponder was turned off. "Our responsibility and obligation and commitment is to the next of kin," Transport Minister Anthony Loke told a press conference. "We hope this time will be positive, that the wreckage will be found and give closure to the families." Further reading: Could Sea Explosions Finally Locate the 2014 Crash Site of Flight MH370? Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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