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An anonymous reader shared this report from CNBC: Italian defense company Leonardo on Thursday unveiled plans for an AI-powered shield for cities and critical infrastructure, adding to Europe's push to ramp up sovereign defense capabilities amid rising geopolitical tensions. The system, dubbed the "Michelangelo Dome" in a nod to Israel's Iron Dome and U.S. President Donald Trump's plans for a "Golden Dome," will integrate multiple defense systems to detect and neutralize threats from sea to air including missile attacks and drone swarms... Leonardo's dome will be built on what CEO Roberto Cingolani called an "open architecture" system meaning it can operate alongside any country's defense systems... Leonardo's dome will be built on what CEO Roberto Cingolani called an "open architecture" system meaning it can operate alongside any country's defense systems. 
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - The Battle Over Africa's Great Untapped Resource: IP Addresses In his mid-20s, Lu Heng "got an idea that has made him a lot richer," writes the Wall Street Journal. He scooped up 10 million unused IP addresses, mostly form Africa, and then leases them to companies, mostly outside Africa, "that need them badly." [A]round half of internet traffic continues to use IPv4, because changing to IPv6 can be expensive and complex and many older devices still need IPv4. Companies including Amazon, Microsoft and Google still want IPv4 addresses because their cloud-hosting businesses need them as bridges between the IPv4 and IPv6 worlds... Africa, which has been slower to develop internet infrastructure than the rest of the world, is the only region that still has some of the older addresses to dole out... He searches for IPv4 addresses that aren't being used — by ISPs or anyone else that holds them — and uses his Hong Kong-based company, Larus, to lease them out to others. In 2013, Lu registered a new company in the Seychelles, an African archipelago in the Indian Ocean, to apply for IP addresses from Africa's internet registry, called the African Network Information Centre, or Afrinic. Between 2013 and 2016, Afrinic granted that company, Cloud Innovation, 6.2 million IPv4 addresses. That's more addresses than are assigned to Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation. A single IPv4 address can be worth about $50 on its transfer to a company like Larus, which leases it onward for around 5% to 10% of that value annually. Larus and its affiliate companies, Lu said, control just over 10 million IPv4 addresses. The architects of the internet don't appear to have contemplated the possibility that anyone would seek to monetize IP addresses... Lu's activities triggered a showdown with Africa's internet registry. In 2020, after what it said was an internal review, Afrinic sent letters to Lu and others seeking to reclaim the IP addresses they held. In Lu's case, Afrinic said he shouldn't be using the addresses outside Africa. Lu responded that he wasn't violating rules in place when he got the addresses... After some back-and-forth, Lu sued Afrinic in Mauritius to keep his allocated addresses, eventually filing dozens of lawsuits... One of the lawsuits that Lu filed in Mauritius prompted a court there to freeze Afrinic's bank accounts in July 2021, effectively paralyzing the organization and eventually sending it into receivership. The receivership choked off distributions of new IPv4 addresses, leaving the continent's service providers struggling to expand capacity... In September, Afrinic elected a new board. Since then, some internet-service providers have been granted IPv4 addresses.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - Hundreds of Free Software Supporters Tuned in For 'FSF40' Hackathon The Free Software Foundation describes how "After months of preparation and excitement, we finally came together on November 21 for a global online hackathon to support free software projects and "put a spotlight on the difficult and often thankless work that free software hackers carry out..." Based on how many of you dropped in over the weekend and were incredibly engaged in the important work that is improving free software, either as a spectator or as a participant, this goal was accomplished. And it's all thanks to you! Friday started a little rocky with a datacenter outage affecting most FSF services. Participants spread out to work on six different free software projects over forty-eight hours as our tech team worked to restore all FSF sites with the help and support of the community. Over three hundred folks were tuned in at a time, some to participate in the hackathon and others to follow the progress being made. As a community, we got a lot done over the weekend... It was amazing to see so many of you take a little (or a lot of!) time out of your busy schedules to improve free software, and we're incredibly grateful for each and every one of you. It really energizes us and shows us how much we can accomplish when we work together over even just a couple days. Not only was this a fantastic sight to see because of the work we got done, but it was also a very fitting way to conclude our fortieth anniversary celebration events. Free software has been and always will be a community effort, one that continues to get better and better because of the dedicated developers, contributors, and users who ensure its existence. Thank you for celebrating forty years of the FSF and fighting for a freer future for us all.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - 63% of Americans Polled say Four-Year College Degrees Aren't Worth the Cost Almost two-thirds of registered U.S. voters "say that a four-year college degree isn't worth the cost," according to a new NBC News poll: Just 33% agree a four-year college degree is "worth the cost because people have a better chance to get a good job and earn more money over their lifetime," while 63% agree more with the concept that it's "not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off." In 2017, U.S. adults surveyed were virtually split on the question — 49% said a degree was worth the cost and 47% said it wasn't. When CNBC asked the same question in 2013 as part of its All American Economic Survey, 53% said a degree was worth it and 40% said it was not. The eye-popping shift over the last 12 years comes against the backdrop of several major trends shaping the job market and the education world, from exploding college tuition prices to rapid changes in the modern economy — which seems once again poised for radical transformation alongside advances in AI... Remarkably, less than half of voters with college degrees see those degrees as worth the cost: 46% now, down from 63% in 2013... The upshot is that interest in technical, vocational and two-year degree programs has soared. "The 20-point decline over the last 12 years among those who say a degree is worth it — from 53% in 2013 to 33% now — is reflected across virtually every demographic group."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - Uber Launches Driverless Robotaxi Service in Abu Dhabi, and Plans Many More "A year after launching a commercial robotaxi service in Abu Dhabi, Chinese autonomous vehicle technology company WeRide and partner Uber can finally call that service driverless," reports TechCrunch. A company official hailed it as "a historic transportation milestone, as the first driverless AV deployment outside of the U.S. or China." But TechCrunch notes that's just the beginning: Uber has spent the past two years locking up partnerships with 20 autonomous vehicle technology companies in various countries, including the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. Those partnerships have expanded beyond the realm of robotaxis as well. Uber's deals span the full range of self-driving applications, including delivery and trucking. This year alone, it announced partnerships withAnn Arbor, Michigan-basedMay MobilityandVolkswagen, Chinese self-driving firms Momenta,Pony.ai, and Baidu, as well as a recent deal to create a premium robotaxi service using Lucid Gravity SUVs equipped with a self-driving system from San Francisco-based startup Nuro. These deals are finally beginning to materialize into commercial services. For instance, Uber and Waymo launched a robotaxi service earlier this year in Austin. Now, Uber has expanded to the Middle East with WeRide in Abu Dhabi — with even more cities to come, including Dubai. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi forecast in the company's third-quarter earnings report that there would be autonomous vehicle deployments on the Uber network in at least 10 cities by the end of 2026. Uber and WeRide have previously shared plans to expand to 15 cities throughout the Middle East and Europe, eventually scaling to thousands of robotaxis. That would represent a massive leap for WeRide, which today has more than 150 robotaxis in the region.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - How Bad Will RAM and Memory Shortages Get? Digital Trends reports: A wave of shortages now threatens to ripple across RAM, SSDs, and even hard drives, affecting not only performance-hungry rigs but also everyday systems. — CyberPowerPC has publicly confirmed it will raise prices on all systems starting December 7th due to RAM costs spiking by 500% and SSD prices doubling since October. — Memory suppliers warn of a global DRAM and SSD shortage running into late 2026 or even 2027, driven heavily by AI server demand. — As reported by Bloomberg, Lenovo has already stockpiled memory to ride out the crunch and maintain steadier PC pricing. — Among other OEMs, HP, in its recent earnings call, flagged possible price increases or lower-spec models on the back of rising component costs. But Apple "may also be in a good position to weather the shortage," reports Ars Technica, since "analysts at Morgan Stanley and Bernstein Research believe that Apple has already laid claim to the RAM that it needs and that its healthy profit margins will allow it to absorb the increases better than most." Ars Technica also shows how much RAM and storage prices have jumped — sometimes as much as 2x or even 3x in just three months. "In short, there's no escaping these price increases, which affect SSDs and both DDR4 and DDR5 RAM kits of all capacities (though higher-capacity RAM kits do seem to be hit a little harder)." Memory and storage shortages can be particularly difficult to get through. As with all chips, it can take years to ramp up capacity and/or build new manufacturing facilities... And memory makers in particular may be slow to ramp up manufacturing capacity in response to shortages. If they decide to start manufacturing more chips now, what happens if memory demand drops off a cliff in six months or a year (if, say, an AI bubble deflates or pops altogether)? It means an oversupply of memory chips — consumers benefit from rock-bottom prices for components, but it becomes harder for manufacturers to cover their costs... The upshot is: Not only are memory prices getting bad now, but it's exceptionally difficult to predict when shortage-fueled price hikes might end... Tom's Hardware reports that AMD has told its partners that it expects to raise GPU prices by about 10 percent starting next year and that Nvidia may have canceled a planned RTX 50-series Super launch entirely because of shortages and price increases.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - New Hyperloop Projects Continue in Europe Hyperloop One ceased operations in December 2023, notes CNN. "Yet nearly two years on, in other parts of the world, hyperloop projects are ongoing." For example, Rotterdam-based Hardt Hyperloop has a cool web site — and the company's managing director tells CNN that hyperloops are the only "actionable, sustainable solution to replace short-haul air travel" over distances greater than 300 miles. "It's 90% more efficient than air travel, operational expenses and maintenance costs are much lower than conventional high-speed railways and, as an enclosed, autonomous system, it's not affected by external factors such as bad weather or strikes." Rail-friendly Europe appears to be the new hyperloop hub, with four companies dedicated to it... Europe's Hyperloop Development Program (HDP) is a public-private partnership backed by EU funding and the private sector. HDP's vision is to have the first set of commercially viable hyperloop lines open by 2035-40, followed by a route network by 2050. It estimates that a 15,000-mile network linking 130 of Europe's major cities could shift 66% of short-haul flight passengers to hyperloop by 2050, saving between 113 million and 242 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Core network hubs would be scattered across the continent from London to Berlin, Madrid to Belgrade, and Sofia to Athens, while loops would serve the Iberian Peninsula, the Baltic States and Scandinavia, the Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe. The cost? A cool 981 billion euros, or $1.1 trillion, according to HDP estimates... [T]hose behind the EU-backed HDP project are hoping to have a full-scale test track of up to 3 miles operational by the end of 2029, followed by a 20-30 mile twin-tube "Living Lab" which would replicate all aspects of day-to-day operation and public service, slated to be up and running by 2034. Elsewhere, Hyperloop Italia is investing in a demonstration line between Venice and Padua costing up to €800 million ($929 million) which could be ready by 2029, while Germany, Spain, India and China are also investigating trial routes to establish the viability of the technology. And meanwhile China and Japan are also building "maglev" (magnetic levitation) train lines, the article points out — though it also includes this quote from rail expert and author Christian Wolmar. "Hyperloop is unworkable. The infrastructure it needs would be amazingly expensive to build and it can't deliver the capacity to compete with high-speed railways or airlines. "It doesn't integrate with existing transport modes, the infrastructure required to reach city centers would cause intolerable noise and disruption. And there are doubts over energy costs, capacity and passenger safety if something goes wrong at such high speeds.... "[T]he economics of it just don't work."
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - Viral Song Created with Suno's genAI Removed From Streaming Platforms, Re-Released With Human Vocals An EDM song by the British group Haven ran into trouble in October after it shared clips of upcoming song "I Run" on TikTok. The song "was an overnight viral sensation online," writes Digital Music News — racking up millions of plays "even before it hit streaming services." (Although the Washington Post notes that "Record labels and TikTok users began questioning whether 'I Run' used an AI deepfake, modeled off British R&B singer Jorja Smith, for the vocals.") Digital Music News picks up the story: The artist says he used his own voice to record the vocals, and then ran it through layers of processing and filtering to turn it into the female-sounding voice heard in the track. However, that filtering also included the use of the controversial genAI platform Suno — and that's what complicates things... [The article says later that Suno "is currently in the middle of a blockbuster lawsuit with the Big Three major labels over allegations of widespread copyright infringement of sound recordings used during the AI model training process."] Meanwhile, the song was rapidly amassing listenership. It soared to #11 on the U.S. Spotify chart and #25 on Spotify globally. Videos using the song continued going viral on TikTok and Instagram, including one in which rapper Offset had apparently played the song during a Boiler Room set, which later turned out to be falsified. And then, as quickly as it appeared, "I Run" was taken down from streaming services, including Spotify and Apple Music. That was due, in part, to numerous takedown notices from The Orchard, the label to which Jorja Smith is signed, as well as the RIAA and IFPI. The takedown notices alleged various issues with the track, including the "misrepresentation" of another artist, as well as copyright infringement. As a result, the song has also been withheld from the Billboard charts, including the Hot 100, on which it had been predicted to debut this week before the controversy. Billboard points out that it "reserves the right to withhold or remove titles from appearing on the charts that are known to be involved in active legal disputes related to copyright infringement that may extend to the deletion of such content on digital service providers." The song itself has now been re-released with an all-human vocal track. But going forward will the music industry ever work with AI platforms? The Washington Post reports: "I Run" has taken off as record labels remain unsure of the extent to which they should welcome generative AI programs such as Suno or Udio into the industry. After the two AI music companies began growing in popularity, the three major labels — Sony Music, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group — filed lawsuits against Suno and Udio, claiming that the AI companies have used the labels' sound recordings to train their model. Since then, UMG and Warnerhave reached agreementsto work with Udio, ending their litigation... It comes shortly after all three major labels licensed their catalogue to Klay, a music streaming start-up that allows users to adjust songs using artificial intelligence. Major licensing organizations such as ASCAP and BMI shared that they would register songs that were partially AI-generated — but not fully generated ones. Haven appears to present an uncomfortable edge case. While some AI-generated songs that sound broadly like other artists have been allowed to remain on streaming platforms, the voice in "I Run" appears to have been deemed too duplicative for comfort.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - OpenAI Partners Amass $100 Billion Debt Pile To Fund Its Ambitions OpenAI's data centre partners are on course to amass almost $100 billion in borrowing tied to the lossmaking start-up, as the ChatGPT maker benefits from a debt-fuelled spending spree without taking on financial risks itself. Financial Times: SoftBank, Oracle and CoreWeave have borrowed at least $30 billion to invest in the start-up or help build its data centres, according to FT analysis. Investment group Blue Owl Capital and computing infrastructure companies such as Crusoe also rely on deals with OpenAI to service about $28 billion in loans. A group of banks is in talks to lend another $38 billion for Oracle and data centre builder Vantage to fund further sites for OpenAI, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks. OpenAI executives have said they plan to raise substantial debt to help pay for these contracts, but so far the financial burden has fallen to its counterparties and their lenders. "That's been kind of the strategy," said a senior OpenAI executive. "How does [OpenAI] leverage other people's balance sheets?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - Officials Clashed in Investigation of Deadly Air India Crash The investigation into the June 12 Air India crash that killed 260 people has been marked by tension, suspicion and poor communication between American and Indian officials, including an episode where NTSB chairwoman Jennifer Homendy instructed her black-box specialists not to board a late-night Indian military flight to a remote facility, WSJ reports. When two American recorder experts landed in New Delhi in late June, they received urgent messages from colleagues telling them not to go with the Indians; Homendy had grown concerned about sending U.S. personnel and equipment to an aerospace lab in the remote town of Korwa amid State Department security warnings about terrorism in the region. She made calls to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and the CEOs of Boeing and GE Aerospace, and the State Department sent embassy officials to intercept the NTSB specialists at the airport. Homendy eventually delivered an ultimatum: if Indian authorities didn't choose between their Delhi facility and the NTSB's Washington lab within 48 hours, she would withdraw American support from the probe. Indian officials relented. The downloaded data showed someone in the cockpit moved switches that cut off the engines' fuel supply, and India's preliminary report stated one pilot asked the other why he moved the switches while that pilot denied doing so. American government and industry officials now privately believe the captain likely moved the switches deliberately.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - The Mysterious Black Fungus From Chernobyl That May Eat Radiation Black fungus found growing inside Chernobyl's destroyed reactor may be feeding on radiation, and researchers have tested samples of the same species aboard the International Space Station to explore whether it could eventually shield astronauts from cosmic rays. Ukrainian scientist Nelli Zhdanova first discovered the melanin-rich mould colonizing the walls and ceilings of the exploded reactor building during a May 1997 survey. Her research indicated that the fungal hyphae were actually growing toward sources of ionizing radiation rather than merely tolerating it. In 2007, nuclear scientist Ekaterina Dadachova at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine found that melanised fungi grew 10% faster when exposed to radioactive caesium compared to control samples, leading her to propose "radiosynthesis" -- a process where organisms convert radiation into metabolic energy. The same strain, Cladosporium sphaerospermum, traveled to the ISS in December 2018 and grew an average of 1.21 times faster over 26 days compared to Earth-based controls. Nils Averesch, a biochemist at the University of Florida and co-author of that study, remains cautious about attributing the growth boost to radiation harvesting since zero gravity could also be responsible.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - Airbus Issues Major A320 Recall, Threatening Global Flight Disruption Europe's Airbus said on Friday it was ordering immediate repairs to 6,000 of its widely used A320 family of jets in a sweeping recall affecting more than half the global fleet, threatening upheaval during the busiest travel weekend of the year in the United States and disruption worldwide. From a report: The setback appears to be among the largest recalls affecting Airbus in its 55-year history and comes weeks after the A320 overtook the Boeing 737 as the most-delivered model. At the time Airbus issued its bulletin to the plane's more than 350 operators, some 3,000 A320-family jets were in the air. The fix mainly involves reverting to earlier software and is relatively simple, but must be carried out before the planes can fly again, other than repositioning to repair centres, according to the bulletin to airlines seen by Reuters. Airlines from the United States to South America, Europe, India and New Zealand warned the repairs could potentially cause flight delays or cancellations.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - EU To Examine If Apple Ads and Maps Subject To Tough Rules, Apple Says No EU antitrust regulators will examine whether Apple's Apple Ads and Apple Maps should be subject to the onerous requirements of the bloc's digital rules after both services hit key criteria, with the U.S. tech giant saying they should be exempted. From a report: Apple's App Store, iOS operating system and Safari web browser were designated core platform services under the Digital Markets Act two years ago aimed at reining in the power of Big Tech and opening up the field to rivals so consumers can have more choice. The European Commission said that Apple has notified it that Apple Ads and Apple Maps met the Act's two thresholds to be considered "gatekeepers." The DMA designates companies with services with more than 45 million monthly active users and $79 billion in market capitalisation as gatekeepers subject to a list of dos and don'ts.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - Scientists Think They've Solved Why One of History's Most Advanced Civilizations Vanished A new study published in Communications Earth & Environment has reconstructed the climate conditions of the ancient Indus River Valley civilization between 3000 and 1000 B.C., finding that four intense droughts -- each lasting more than 85 years -- likely drove the gradual decline of one of the world's earliest advanced societies. The research team, led by Hiren Solanki at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, combined paleoclimate data from cave formations and lake records with computer models to determine that the region shifted from wetter-than-present monsoon conditions to prolonged dry spells as the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed. The third drought, peaking around 1733 B.C., proved the most severe: it lasted 164 years, reduced annual rainfall by 13%, and affected nearly the entire region. Overall temperatures rose by 0.5 degrees Celsius and rainfall dropped between 10 and 20%. These changes shrank lakes and rivers, dried soils, and made agriculture increasingly difficult in areas away from major waterways. Harappan settlements progressively relocated eastward toward the Indus River over roughly 2,000 years. The civilization's long survival under repeated climate stress -- through crop switching, trade diversification, and settlement relocation -- offers lessons for modern communities facing environmental pressures, the researchers said.
Read more of this story at Slashdot. - China-Netherlands Chip Fight Turns Into Corporate Civil War The bitter standoff between Dutch chipmaker Nexperia -- which supplies basic chips crucial to 49% of European automakers, over 85% of medical device companies, and the entire defense industry -- and its Chinese parent company Wingtech escalated on Friday when both Wingtech and Nexperia's Chinese unit accused the Dutch business of secretly building a supply chain that would cut China out entirely. The accusations came one day after Nexperia's Dutch headquarters published an open letter claiming it had repeatedly tried and failed to contact its Chinese unit. Nexperia China demanded the Dutch side halt its overseas expansion plans, specifically a $300 million investment in a Malaysian plant, and alleged an internal company target to source 90% of production outside China by mid-2026. The Chinese unit also accused its European counterparts of deleting employee email accounts and cutting off access to IT systems. The dispute traces back to September when the Dutch government invoked a Cold War-era law to seize control of Nexperia on economic security grounds. An Amsterdam court subsequently stripped Wingtech of its ownership rights. Beijing retaliated by halting exports of finished Nexperia chips on October 4, triggering warnings of production shutdowns from automakers including Nissan and Bosch. Export curbs were relaxed in early November, and the Dutch government suspended its intervention last week following talks, but the court ruling remains in force. Wingtech warned that supply disruptions could return if the control issue remains unresolved.
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