phone
    • chevron_right

      NOAA scientists scrub toilets, rethink experiments after service contracts end

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 14 April

    Federal scientists responsible for monitoring the health of West Coast fisheries are cleaning office bathrooms and reconsidering critical experiments after the Department of Commerce failed to renew their lab’s contracts for hazardous waste disposal, janitorial services, IT, and building maintenance.

    Trash is piling up at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, staffers told ProPublica. Ecologists, chemists, and biologists at Montlake Laboratory, the center’s headquarters in Seattle, are taking turns hauling garbage to the dumpster and discussing whether they should create a sign-up sheet to scrub toilets.

    The scientists—who conduct genetic sampling of endangered salmon to check the species’ stock status and survival—routinely work with chemicals that can burn skin, erupt into flames, and cause cancer. At least one said they’d have to delay mission-critical research if hazardous waste removal isn’t restored.

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      Google created a new AI model for talking to dolphins

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 14 April • 1 minute

    Dolphins are generally regarded as some of the smartest creatures on the planet. Research has shown they can cooperate, teach each other new skills, and even recognize themselves in a mirror. For decades, scientists have attempted to make sense of the complex collection of whistles and clicks dolphins use to communicate. Researchers might make a little headway on that front soon with the help of Google's open AI model and some Pixel phones.

    Google has been finding ways to work generative AI into everything else it does, so why not its collaboration with the Wild Dolphin Project (WDP)? This group has been studying dolphins since 1985 using a non-invasive approach to track a specific community of Atlantic spotted dolphins. The WDP creates video and audio recordings of dolphins, along with correlating notes on their behaviors.

    One of the WDP's main goals is to analyze the way dolphins vocalize and how that can affect their social interactions. With decades of underwater recordings, researchers have managed to connect some basic activities to specific sounds. For example, Atlantic spotted dolphins have signature whistles that appear to be used like names, allowing two specific individuals to find each other. They also consistently produce "squawk" sound patterns during fights.

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      HBO’s The Last of Us is back for season 2, and so are we

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 14 April • 8 minutes

    New episodes of season 2 of The Last of Us are premiering on HBO every Sunday night, and Ars' Kyle Orland (who's played the games) and Andrew Cunningham (who hasn't) will be talking about them here every Monday morning . While these recaps don't delve into every single plot point of the episode, there are obviously heavy spoilers contained within, so go watch the episode first if you want to go in fresh.

    Kyle : To start us off as we return to the world of The Last of Us , as a non-game player, maybe recap what you remember from the first season and what you've heard about the second.
    Andrew : Going into the first season, I’d been aware of The Last of Us , the video game, as a story about an older guy and a kid trying to navigate a post-apocalyptic world. And the show was also mostly that: It’s Joel and Ellie against the world, and who knows, maybe this spunky young girl with an apparent immunity to the society-ravaging fungal infection could hold the key to a cure!

    Things fell apart at the end of last season when the Fireflies (a group of survivalists/doctors/scientists/etc.) may or may not have been threatening to kill Ellie in order to research their cure, which made Joel go on a murder rampage, which he then lied to Ellie about. We fade to black as they make their way back toward the one semi-functioning human settlement they’d visited on their travels, where Joel’s brother and his family also happen to live.

    Going into this season: I know nothing. I don’t really engage in TV show fandoms or keep up with casting announcements or plot speculation. And the only thing I know about the second game going into this is a vague sense that it wasn’t as well-received as the first. In short, I am as a newborn baby, ready to take in the second season of a show I kind of like with the freshest possible eyes.

    Kyle : I may be to blame for that vague sense you have. I fell in love with the first game, especially the relationship between Joel and Ellie, and I thought the first season of the show captured that quite well. I thought the endings to both the game and season 1 of the show were just about perfect and that any continuation after that was gonna struggle to justify itself.

    Without giving too much away, I think the second game misses a lot of what made the narrative of the first one special and gets sidetracked in a lot of frankly gratuitous directions. That said, this premiere episode of the second season drew me in more than I expected.

    One jarring thing (in a good way) about both the second game and the second season is suddenly seeing Joel and Ellie just existing in a thriving community with electric lights, music, alcohol, decent food, laughter, etc., etc. After the near-constant precarity and danger they've faced in the recent past, it really throws you for a loop.

    Andrew : Unfortunately but predictably, you see both of them struggling to adapt in different ways; these are two extremely individualistic, out-for-number-one people. Ellie (now a 19-year-old, after a five-year time jump) never met a rule she couldn’t break, even when it endangers her friends and other community members.

    And while Joel will happily fix your circuit breaker or re-string your guitar, he emphatically rejected a needs-of-the-many-outweigh-the-needs-of-the-few approach at the end of last season. When stuff breaks bad (and I feel confident that it will, that’s the show that it is) these may not be the best people to have in your corner.

    My only real Game Question for you at the outset is the big one: Is season 2 adapting The Last of Us Part II or is it doing its own thing or are we somewhere in between or is it too early to say?

    "Oh, dang, is that Catherine O'Hara?"
    Kyle : From what I have heard it will be adapting the first section of the second game (it's a long game) and making some changes and digressions that expand on the game's story (like the well-received Nick Offerman episode last season). Already, I can tell you that Joel's therapy scene was created for the TV show, and I think it improves on a somewhat similar "Joel pours his heart out" scene from early in the game.

    The debut episode is also already showing a willingness to move around scenes from the game to make them fit better in chronological order, which I'm already appreciating.

    One thing I think the show is already doing well, too, is showing 19-year-old Ellie "acting like every 19-year-old ever" (as one character puts it) to father figure Joel. Even in a zombie apocalypse, it's a relatable bit of character-building for anyone who's been a teenager or raised a teenager.

    Andrew : Joel’s therapist, played by the wonderful Catherine O’Hara. (See, that’s why you don’t follow casting announcements, so you can watch a show and be like, “Oh, dang, is that Catherine O’Hara?”)

    I didn’t know if it was a direct adaptation, but I did notice that the show’s video gamey storytelling reflexes were still fully intact. We almost instantly end up in a ruined grocery store chock-full of environmental storytelling (Ellie notes a happy birthday banner and 2003’s Employee of the Year wall).

    And like in any new game new season of a TV show, we quickly run into a whole new variant of mushroom monster that retains some of its strategic instincts and can take cover rather than blindly rushing at you. Some of the jump scares were so much like quick-time events that I almost grabbed my controller so I could press X and help Ellie out.

    Kyle : Yeah, it's pretty easy to see that the semi-stealthy assault on the abandoned market came directly from the game. I felt like there was some implication that the "strategic" zombie still had a little more humanity left in her that was struggling to fight against the fungus' pull, which was pretty chilling in the way it was presented.
    Andrew : Yes! Fungus is still a maximally creepy and visually interesting way for an infection to spread, and it’s a visual note that helps TLoU stand out from other zombie stories.

    It does seem like we’re moving into Phase 2 of most zombie apocalypse fiction. Phase 1 is: There’s an infection! Society collapses. Phase 2 is: Humanity attempts to rebuild. But maybe the scariest monster of all… is humankind??

    I’ve always found Phase 2 to be inherently less interesting because I can watch all kinds of shows where people are the antagonists, but Joel and Ellie remain unique and compelling enough as characters that maybe they’ll carry me through.

    A teenager should have some hobbies. Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
    Kyle : The first game already established a lot in the way of "humans are the real monsters" vignettes. And while I still don't want to give too much away, I will say that human-versus-human drama is definitely going to be an increasingly central part of the narrative going forward.

    Speaking of which, I wondered what you made of the brief scenes we get with Abby leading a reluctant but willing band of revenge-seekers that see doctor-murdering Joel as an unalloyed evil (somewhat justifiably, especially from their point of view).

    Andrew : My first thought was “look at all these clean, hot, well-coiffed apocalypse survivors.” At least Joel and Ellie both look a little weathered.

    But in seriousness, yes, it’s obvious that What Joel Did is a bomb that’s going to go off sooner rather than later. Trying to address it without addressing it has pushed taciturn, closed-off Joel into therapy, where he insists to a woman whose (presumably infected) husband he killed that he’s a “good guy.” And it seems clear to me that Ellie’s shunning of Joel is coming from her sense that something is amiss, just as much as it is about a 19-year-old rebelling against her would-be father figure.

    In Joel’s case, it’s telling that it seems like lying to Ellie is weighing on him more than the murder-rampage itself. But having these improbably fresh-faced Firefly remnants chasing him down will mean that he might end up paying for both.

    Kyle : I think Joel can live with sacrificing the entire world to save Ellie. I don't think he can live with Ellie knowing he did that pretty much against her explicit wishes.
    Andrew : Oops!! Pobody’s nerfect!
    Kyle : I'm sure Abby will understand if Joel just says he made an oopsie.
    Andrew : Seriously. Can’t believe they’re still mad even after a five-year time jump. Can’t we all just move on?

    As we close, and while at least trying to avoid spoilers, are there any game moments you’re looking forward to seeing? Or are you just hoping that this season can “fix” a story that didn’t work as well for you in video game form?

    How can you stay mad at this man? Credit: Warner Bros. Discovery
    Kyle : Actually, I don't have to spoil anything to say that the scene at the dance was one I was looking forward to seeing in both the game and the show. That's because a large chunk of it was the first bit of the game Sony ever showed during a memorable E3 2018 press conference , which would end up being the company's last ever official E3 press presentation.

    Besides making me an instant fan of the song ".44 Pistol," that scene had me very excited to see how the social adventures of " All Growed Up " Ellie might develop. And while I don't feel like the game really delivered a very satisfying or believable version of Ellie's evolution, I'm hopeful the show might be able to smooth out some of the rough storytelling edges and give a more compelling version of the character.

    Andrew : Yeah. Video games get remastered, but they mostly seek to preserve the original game rather than overhauling it. A well-funded multiseason TV adaptation is a rare opportunity for a redo.
    Kyle : The way HBO handled the first season gives me hope that they can once again embrace the excellent world-building of the games while adding some prestige TV polish to the plot.

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      An Ars Technica history of the Internet, part 1

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 14 April • 1 minute

    In a very real sense, the Internet, this marvelous worldwide digital communications network that you’re using right now, was created because one man was annoyed at having too many computer terminals in his office.

    The year was 1966. Robert Taylor was the director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Information Processing Techniques Office. The agency was created in 1958 by President Eisenhower in response to the launch of Sputnik . So Taylor was in the Pentagon, a great place for acronyms like ARPA and IPTO. He had three massive terminals crammed into a room next to his office. Each one was connected to a different mainframe computer. They all worked slightly differently, and it was frustrating to remember multiple procedures to log in and retrieve information.

    Author’s re-creation of Bob Taylor’s office with three teletypes. Credit: Rama & Musée Bolo (Wikipedia/Creative Commons), steve lodefink (Wikipedia/Creative Commons), The Computer Museum @ System Source

    In those days, computers took up entire rooms, and users accessed them through teletype terminals—electric typewriters hooked up to either a serial cable or a modem and a phone line. ARPA was funding multiple research projects across the United States, but users of these different systems had no way to share their resources with each other. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a network that connected all these computers?

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      After market tumult, Trump exempts smartphones from massive new tariffs

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 12 April

    The Trump administration has excluded smartphones and other consumer electronics from its steep “reciprocal” tariffs in a significant boost for Big Tech as the White House battles to calm global markets after launching a multifront trade war.

    According to a notice posted late on Friday night by Customs and Border Patrol, smartphones, along with routers, chipmaking equipment, wireless earphones and certain computers and laptops, would be exempt from reciprocal tariffs, which include the 125 percent levies Donald Trump has imposed on Chinese imports.

    The carve-out is a big win for companies such as Apple, Nvidia and Microsoft, and follows a week of intense turbulence in US markets after Trump unleashed a trade war on “liberation day” on April 2. The announcement rattled global investors and triggered a stock market rout.

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      AI isn’t ready to replace human coders for debugging, researchers say

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 11 April

    There are few areas where AI has seen more robust deployment than the field of software development. From "vibe" coding to GitHub Copilot to startups building quick-and-dirty applications with support from LLMs, AI is already deeply integrated.

    However, those claiming we're mere months away from AI agents replacing most programmers should adjust their expectations because models aren't good enough at the debugging part, and debugging occupies most of a developer's time. That's the suggestion of Microsoft Research, which built a new tool called debug-gym to test and improve how AI models can debug software.

    Debug-gym (available on GitHub and detailed in a blog post ) is an environment that allows AI models to try and debug any existing code repository with access to debugging tools that aren't historically part of the process for these models. Microsoft found that without this approach, models are quite notably bad at debugging tasks. With the approach, they're better but still a far cry from what an experienced human developer can do.

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      Turbulent global economy could drive up prices for Netflix and rivals

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 11 April

    Debate around how much taxes US-based streaming services should pay internationally, among other factors, could result in people paying more for subscriptions to services like Netflix and Disney+.

    On April 10, the United Kingdom's Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) Committee reignited calls for a streaming tax on subscription revenue acquired through UK residents. The recommendation came alongside the committee's 120-page report [ PDF ] that makes numerous recommendations for how to support and grow Britain’s film and high-end television (HETV) industry.

    For the US, the recommendation garnering the most attention is one calling for a 5 percent levy on UK subscriber revenue from streaming video on demand services, such as Netflix. That’s because if streaming services face higher taxes in the UK, costs could be passed onto consumers, resulting in more streaming price hikes . The CMS committee wants money from the levy to support HETV production in the UK and wrote in its report:

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      Holy water brimming with cholera compels illness cluster in Europe

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 11 April

    European tourists who toted home bottles of water from a holy well in Ethiopia were likely hoping for blessings and spiritual cleansing—but instead carried an infectious curse and got an intestinal power cleanse.

    Three people in Germany and four in the UK fell ill with cholera after directly drinking or splashing their faces with the holy water. Two required intensive care. Luckily, they all eventually recovered, according to a report in the journal Eurosurveillance .

    The infections occurred in February after some of the patients reported taking independent trips to Ethiopia in January. Two of the German patients and three of the UK patients reported travel to the country, and several reported visiting a holy well called Bermel Giorgis (also spelled ‘Georgis’) in the Quara district. The German travelers and at least one of the UK travelers brought water home with them and shared it.

    Read full article

    Comments

    • chevron_right

      That groan you hear is users’ reaction to Recall going back into Windows

      news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica • 11 April

    Security and privacy advocates are girding themselves for another uphill battle against Recall, the AI tool rolling out in Windows 11 that will screenshot, index, and store everything a user does every three seconds.

    When Recall was first introduced in May 2024, security practitioners roundly castigated it for creating a gold mine for malicious insiders, criminals, or nation-state spies if they managed to gain even brief administrative access to a Windows device. Privacy advocates warned that Recall was ripe for abuse in intimate partner violence settings. They also noted that there was nothing stopping Recall from preserving sensitive disappearing content sent through privacy-protecting messengers such as Signal.

    Enshittification at a new scale

    Following months of backlash, Microsoft later suspended Recall. On Thursday, the company said it was reintroducing Recall. It currently is available only to insiders with access to the Windows 11 Build 26100.3902 preview version. Over time, the feature will be rolled out more broadly. Microsoft officials wrote:

    Read full article

    Comments