Tech

In 1896 the Dow Jones Industrial Average (or DJIA) was created as a kind of proxy indicator for the wider stock market. "A stock is typically added only if the company has an excellent reputation, demonstrates sustained growth and is of interest to a large number of investors," according to a source cited by Yahoo Finance. Its mix of stocks might be informally considered a sign of the times, since it's made up of 30 stocks that according to Wikipedia have been changed only 57 times over the last 128 years. Wait — make that 58.... CNBC reports that NVIDIA is replacing Intel in the DJIA, "a shakeup to the blue-chip index that reflects the boom in AI and a major shift in the semiconductor industry." Companies including Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon are purchasing Nvidia's GPUs, such as the H100, in massive quantities to build clusters of computers for their AI work. Nvidia's revenue has more than doubled in each of the past five quarters, and has at least tripled in three of them. The company has sginaled that demand for its next-generation AI GPU called Blackwell is "insane...." While Nvidia has been soaring, Intel has been slumping. Long the dominant maker of PC chips, Intel has lost market share to Advanced Micro Devices and has made very little headway in AI. Intel shares have fallen by more than half this year as the company struggles with manufacturing challenges and new competition for its central processors. Intel said in a filing this week that the board's audit and finance committee approved cost and capital reduction activities, including lowering head count by 16,500 employees and reducing its real estate footprint. The job cuts were originally announced in August." The DJIA will now include four of six tech companies worth $1 trillion — Apple, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Amazon (which joined in February, replacing the owners of the Walgreens pharmacy chain). The other two trillion-dollar tech companies (not included in the DJIA) are Meta and Alphabet. Adding NVIDIA to the DJIA will ensure "more representative exposure to the semiconductors industry" within the average, the index's curators told the Washington Post. And also leaving the DJIA is power-generation company AES (which according to CNBC had a power mix of 54% renewables, 27% natural gas, 17% coal). It will be replaced by Vistra, defined by Wikipedia as America's largest competitive power generator, "with a capacity of approximately 39GW powered by a diverse portfolio including natural gas, nuclear, solar, and battery energy storage facilities." In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Vistra Energy was ranked as the 756th-largest public company in the world. The company owns the Moss Landing Power Plant in California which currently (2021) contains the largest battery energy storage system in the world (400-MW/1,600-MWh). As of 2020, the company was ranked as the highest CO2 emitter in the U.S. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The free face-image search engine PimEyes "scans through billions of images from the internet and finds matches of your photo that could have appeared in a church bulletin or a wedding photographer's website," -us/news/technology/they-made-a-public-rolodex-of-our-faces-here-s-how-i-tried-to-get-out/ar-AA1tlpPuwrites a Washington Post columnist. So to find and delete themselves from "the PimEyes searchable Rolodex of faces," they "recently handed over a selfie and a digital copy of my driver's license to a company I don't trust." PimEyes says it empowers people to find their online images and try to get unwanted ones taken down. But PimEyes face searches are largely open to anyone with either good or malicious intent. People have used PimEyes to identify participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and creeps have used it to publicize strangers' personal information from just their image. The company offers an opt-out form to remove your face from PimEyes searches. I did it and resented spending time and providing even more personal information to remove myself from the PimEyes repository, which we didn't consent to be part of in the first place. The increasing ease of potentially identifying your name, work history, children's school, home address and other sensitive information from one photo shows the absurdity of America's largely unrestrained data-harvesting economy. While PimEyes' CEO said they don't keep the information you provide to opt-out, "you give PimEyes at least one photo of yourself plus a digital copy of a passport or ID with personal details obscured..." according to the article. (PimEyes' confirmation email "said I might need to repeat the opt-out with more photos...") Some digital privacy experts said it's worth opting out of PimEyes, even if it's imperfect, and that PimEyes probably legitimately needs a personal photo and proof of identity for the process. Others found it "absurd" to provide more information to PimEyes... or they weren't sure opting out was the best choice... Experts said the fundamental problem is how much information is harvested and accessible without your knowledge or consent from your phone, home speakers, your car and information-organizing middlemen like PimEyes and data brokers. Nathan Freed Wessler, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney focused on privacy litigation, said laws need to change the assumption that companies can collect almost anything about you or your face unless you go through endless opt-outs. "These systems are scary and abusive," he said. "If they're going to exist, they should be based on an opt-in system." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: A few weeks ago, analysts at a specialized technological lab put a microchip from China under a powerful microscope. Something didn't look right... The microscopic proof was there that a chunk of the electronic components from Chinese high-tech champion Huawei Technologies had been produced by the world's most advanced chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. That was a problem because two U.S. administrations in succession had taken actions to assure that didn't happen. The news of the breach of U.S. export controls, first reported in October by the tech news site the Information, has sent a wave of concern through Washington... The chips were routed to Huawei through Sophgo Technologies, the AI venture of a Chinese cryptocurrency billionaire, according to two people familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic... "It raises some fundamental questions about how well we can actually enforce these rules," said Emily Kilcrease, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington... Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs confirmed that TSMC recently halted shipments to a "certain customer" and notified the United States after suspecting that customer might have directed its products to Huawei... There's been much intrigue in recent days in the industry over how the crypto billionaire's TSMC-made chips reportedly ended up at Huawei. Critics accuse Sophgo of working to help Huawei evade the export controls, but it is also possible that they were sold through an intermediary, which would align with Sophgo's denial of having any business relationship with Huawei... While export controls are often hard to enforce, semiconductors are especially hard to manage due to the large and open nature of the global chip trade. Since the Biden administration implemented sweeping controls in 2022, there have been reports of widespread chip smuggling and semiconductor black markets allowing Chinese companies to access necessary chips... Paul Triolo, technology policy lead at Albright Stonebridge Group, said companies were trying to figure out what lengths they had to go to for due diligence: "The guidelines are murky." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous Slashdot reader shared this report from CNBC: Threads now has nearly 275 million monthly users, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday. "We continue to be on track towards this becoming our next major social app," Zuckerberg said on a call with analysts, adding that he was "quite pleased" with the trajectory of the app. The latest numbers indicate Threads is up 175% from a year ago when it reached 100 million users... The app is now signing up more than 1 million users per day, Zuckerberg also said on Wednesday. X remains ahead of Threads in terms of users, but not by much. Musk's social media app now has roughly 318 million monthly users, according to an estimate by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. That's down 24% since Musk completed his acquisition of the company in October 2022, according to Sensor Tower. The news also drew a reaction from ActivityPub/Activity Streams 2.0 co-author Evan Prodromou, who pointed out that the 275 million monthly active users is up from the 200 million reported just 13 weeks ago at the end of July. "And most of them have access to the Fediverse. With more, hopefully, getting access soon." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: More than 50 US lawmakers are calling on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to join dozens of other countries in banning a widely used weedkiller linked to Parkinson's disease and other health dangers. In a October 31 letter (PDF) to the agency, seven US senators said that paraquat, a weedkiller commonly applied on US farms, was a "highly toxic pesticide whose continued use cannot be justified given its harms to farmworkers and rural communities". The call for a ban from the senators came after 47 members of the US House of Representatives sent a similar letter (PDF) to the EPA calling for a ban earlier in October. The lawmakers cite scientific links between paraquat use and development of Parkinson's and other "life threatening diseases" as well as "grave impacts on the environment". "Health risks include a higher risk of Parkinson's disease, with some studies finding a 64% increase in the likelihood of developing Parkinson's, non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, thyroid cancer, and other thyroid issues," they wrote. The New Jersey senator Cory Booker, organizer of the Senate letter, said the risks of paraquat exposure were "well documented" and that it was "irresponsible" for the EPA to continue to allow its use. "I hope the EPA will follow the science and ban paraquat," Booker said. The EPA has long maintained that there is no "clear link" between paraquat exposure and Parkinson's disease, though the agency does have a number of restrictions on use of the chemical due to its acute toxicity. The agency issued a draft report earlier this year affirming its position. Still, the agency said at that time that it would be reviewing more scientific studies and would issue a final report by January 17, 2025. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Starlink has launched home Internet service to 99.5% of residents in the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) after a multi-year collaboration with the National Radio Astronomy Observatory to minimize interference with radio telescopes. "The vast majority of people within the areas of Virginia and West Virginia collectively known as the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) can now receive high speed satellite Internet service," the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatory announced said. "The newly available service is the result of a nearly three-year collaborative engineering effort between the US National Science Foundation (NSF), SpaceX, and the NSF National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO), which operates the NSF Green Bank Observatory (NSF GBO) in West Virginia within the NRQZ." Ars Technica reports: There's a controversy over the 0.5 percent of residents who aren't included and are said to be newly blocked from using the Starlink Roam service. Starlink markets Roam as a service for people to use while traveling, not as a fixed home Internet service. The Pendleton County Office of Emergency Management last week issued a press release (PDF) saying that "customers with the RV/Roam packages had been using Starlink for approximately two years throughout 100% of the NRQZ. Now, the 0.5% have lost coverage after having it for two years. This means that a large section of southeastern Pendleton County and an even larger section of northern Pocahontas will NOT be able to utilize Starlink." PCMag wrote that "Starlink is now live in 42 of the 46 cell areas around the Green Bank Observatory's telescopes." Pendleton County Emergency Services Coordinator Rick Gillespie told Ars today that Roam coverage was cut off in the remaining four cell areas. "After the agreement, we all lost effective use within the four cells," Gillespie told Ars in an email. Gillespie's press release said that, "in many cases, Starlink was the only Internet provider option residents and emergency responders had. This is unacceptable." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jay Newman, who made billions for Elliott Management pursuing Argentina's defaulted debt, wrote a 2022 thriller about corrupt spies and hedge funds. Now federal prosecutors are examining parallels between his novel "Undermoney" and real-world events. The investigation centers on Amit Forlit, an Israeli private investigator facing U.S. extradition charges for alleged email theft from Argentine officials during Elliott's sovereign debt battle. Prosecutors are probing whether Forlit's alleged $20 million hacking operation aided Elliott's eventual $2.2 billion settlement with Argentina. "There's not that much fiction in 'Undermoney,'" Newman told interviewers while promoting the book, which features Israeli operatives and hedge fund intrigue. Newman and Elliott deny any wrongdoing, with Newman calling suggestions of illegal activity "categorically false." The probe is examining $20 million paid to a Forlit-controlled company via a consulting firm that worked for Elliott, according to court statements and people familiar with the matter. Forlit denied involvement in hacking during a 2022 deposition. Prosecutors are also investigating Forlit's work for ExxonMobil regarding climate change critics. Neither Elliott nor ExxonMobil has been accused of wrongdoing. Newman, who left Elliott in 2016 with a $70 million bonus after the Argentina settlement, met regularly with Forlit to discuss the Argentine case, WSJ has reported. His novel follows dark money trails through Washington power corridors and Wall Street trading floors, featuring Israeli operatives described as "expensive, but consistent." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A new global inventory has catalogued air pollution from space activities from 2020 to 2022. The inventory includes time, position and pollution from 446 launchers as they ascended and the tracks of re-entries as objects are heated to extreme temperatures and break up or burn up in the upper atmosphere. It catalogues the pollution from 63,000 tons of rocket propellants used in 2022 and from 3,622 objects, including rocket parts and satellites, that re-entered the atmosphere between 2020 and 2023, amounting to about 12,000 tons. [...] Types of launch pollutants depend on the propellent but can include particles of soot and aluminum oxides as well as nitrogen oxides, chlorine and water vapour and carbon dioxide. Extreme heat on re-entry causes atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen to combine to form more nitrogen oxides and also produces tiny metal-oxide particles as the objects break and burn up. Soot emitted high in the atmosphere can persist for several years, with a resulting climate warming impact that is up to 500 times greater than the same amount of soot from aviation or ground-level sources. Aluminum oxide particles, nitrogen oxides and chloride can consume the ozone in the stratosphere that protects us from the sun's ultraviolet radiation. These can remain in the atmosphere for decades. Dr Connor Barker, of the UCL team, said: "Many rocket manufacturers and space agencies keep this information tightly controlled. We had to be creative about the different sources we consulted, from launch live streams on YouTube to online databases maintained by space enthusiasts in their spare time." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Identity management firm Okta said Friday it has patched a critical authentication bypass vulnerability that affected customers using usernames longer than 52 characters in its AD/LDAP delegated authentication service. The flaw, introduced on July 23 and fixed October 30, allowed attackers to authenticate using only a username if they had access to a previously cached key. The bug stemmed from Okta's use of the Bcrypt algorithm to generate cache keys from combined user credentials. The company switched to PBKDF2 to resolve the issue and urged affected customers to audit system logs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

California signed an agreement with major airlines to increase the use of sustainable aviation fuels, aiming to reach 200 million gallons by 2035 or about 40% of the state's air travel demand. The Hill reports: The California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Airlines for America (A4A) -- an industry trade group representing almost a dozen airlines -- pledged to increase the availability of sustainable aviation fuels statewide. Sustainable aviation fuels -- lower-carbon alternatives to petroleum-based jet fuels -- are typically made from nonpetroleum feedstocks, such as biomass or waste. At a San Francisco International Airport ceremony Wednesday, the partners committed (PDF) to using 200 million gallons of such fuels by 2035 -- an amount estimated to meet about 40 percent of travel demand within the state at that point, according to CARB. That quantity also represents a more than tenfold increase from current usage levels of these fuels, the agency added. Among A4A member airlines are Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Atlas Air Worldwide, Delta Air Lines, FedEx, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue Airways, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines and UPS, while Air Canada is an associate member. To achieve the 2035 goals, CARB and A4A said they plan to work together to identify, assess and prioritize necessary policy measures, such as incentivizing relevant investments and streamlining the permitting processes. A Sustainable Aviation Fuel Working Group, which will include government and industry stakeholders, will meet annually to both discuss progress and address barriers toward meeting these goals, the partners added. A public website will display updated information about the availability and use of conventional and sustainable fuels across California, while also providing details about state policies, according to the agreement. Read more of this story at Slashdot.