2025-07-02 18:00:00
China's Northwestern Polytechnical University successfully tested a hypersonic aircraft called Feitian-2, claiming it reached Mach 12 and achieved a world-first by autonomously switching between rocket and ramjet propulsion mid-flight. The Register reports: The University named the craft "Feitian-2" and according to Chinese media the test flight saw it reach Mach 12 (14,800 km/h or 9,200 mph) -- handily faster than the Mach 5 speeds considered to represent hypersonic flight. Chinese media have not detailed the size of Feitian-2, or its capabilities other than to repeat the University's claim that it combined a rocket and a ramjet into a single unit. [...] The University and Chinese media claim the Feitian-2 flew autonomously while changing from rocket to ramjet while handling the hellish stresses that come with high speed flight. This test matters because, as the US Congressional Budget Office found in 2023, hypothetical hypersonic missiles "have the potential to create uncertainty about what their ultimate target is. Their low flight profile puts them below the horizon for long-range radar and makes them difficult to track, and their ability to maneuver while gliding makes their path unpredictable." "Hypersonic weapons can also maneuver unpredictably at high speeds to counter short-range defenses near a target, making it harder to track and intercept them," the Office found. Washington is so worried about Beijing developing hypersonic weapons that the Trump administration cited the possibility as one reason for banning another 27 Chinese organizations from doing business with US suppliers of AI and advanced computing tech. The flight of Feitian-2 was therefore a further demonstration of China's ability to develop advanced technologies despite US bans.
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2025-07-02 15:00:00
MethaneSAT, an $88 million satellite backed by Jeff Bezos and led by the Environmental Defense Fund to track global methane emissions, has been lost in space after going off course and losing power over Norway. "We're seeing this as a setback, not a failure," Amy Middleton, senior vice president at EDF, told Reuters. "We've made so much progress and so much has been learned that if we hadn't taken this risk, we wouldn't have any of these learnings." Reuters reports: The launch of MethaneSAT in March 2024 was a milestone in a years-long campaign by EDF to hold accountable the more than 120 countries that in 2021 pledged to curb their methane emissions. It also sought to help enforce a further promise from 50 oil and gas companies made at the Dubai COP28 climate summit in December 2023 to eliminate methane and routine gas flaring. [...] While MethaneSAT was not the only project to publish satellite data on methane emissions, its backers said it provided more detail on emissions sources and it partnered with Google to create a publicly-available global map of emissions. EDF reported the lost satellite to federal agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Federal Communications Commission and the U.S. Space Force on Tuesday, it said. Building and launching the satellite cost $88 million, according to the EDF. The organization had received a $100 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund in 2020 and got other major financial support from Arnold Ventures, the Robertson Foundation and the TED Audacious Project and EDF donors. The project was also partnered with the New Zealand Space Agency. EDF said it had insurance to cover the loss and its engineers were investigating what had happened. The organization said it would continue to use its resources, including aircraft with methane-detecting spectrometers, to look for methane leaks. It also said it was too early to say whether it would seek to launch another satellite but believed MethaneSAT proved that a highly sensitive instrument "could see total methane emissions, even at low levels, over wide areas."
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2025-07-02 11:30:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: No wonder Google is desperate for more power: The company's data centers more than doubled their electricity use in just four years. The eye-popping stat comes from Google's most recent sustainability report, which it released late last week. In 2024, Google data centers used 30.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity. That's up from 14.4 million megawatt-hours in 2020, the earliest year Google broke out data center consumption. Google has pledged to use only carbon-free sources of electricity to power its operations, a task made more challenging by its breakneck pace of data center growth. And the company's electricity woes are almost entirely a data center problem. In 2024, data centers accounted for 95.8% of the entire company's electron budget. The company's ratio of data-center-to-everything-else has been remarkably consistent over the last four years. Though 2020 is the earliest year Google has made data center electricity consumption figures available, it's possible to use that ratio to extrapolate back in time. Some quick math reveals that Google's data centers likely used just over 4 million megawatt-hours of electricity in 2014. That's sevenfold growth in just a decade. The tech company has already picked most of the low-hanging fruit by improving the efficiency of its data centers. Those efforts have paid off, and the company is frequently lauded for being at the leading edge. But as the company's power usage effectiveness (PUE) has approached the theoretical ideal of 1.0, progress has slowed. Last year, Google's company-wide PUE dropped to 1.09, a 0.01 improvement over 2023 but only 0.02 better than a decade ago. Yesterday, Google announced a deal to purchase 200 megawatts of future fusion energy from Commonwealth Fusion Systems, despite the energy source not yet existing. "It's a sign of how hungry big tech companies are for a virtually unlimited source of clean power that is still years away," reports CNN.
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2025-07-02 09:25:00
Laptop Mag, a tech publication that began in 1991 as a print magazine, is shutting down after nearly 35 years. The Verge reports: Laptop Mag has evolved many times over the years. It started as a print publication in 1991, when Bedford Communications launched the Laptop Buyers Guide and Handbook. Laptop Mag was later acquired by TechMedia Network (which is now called Purch) in 2011 and transitioned to digital-only content in 2013. Future PLC, the publisher that owns brands like PC Gamer, Tom's Guide, and TechRadar, acquired Purch -- and Laptop Mag along with it. "We are incredibly grateful for your dedication, talent, and contributions to Laptop Mag, and we are committed to supporting you throughout this transition," [Faisal Alani, the global brand director at Laptop Mag owner Future PLC] said. Laptop Mag's shutdown follows the closure of long-running tech site AnandTech, which was also owned by Future PLC. It's not clear whether Laptop Mag's archives will be available following the shutdown.
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2025-07-02 08:45:00
Apple has filed (PDF) a lawsuit against former Vision Pro engineer Di Liu, accusing him of stealing thousands of confidential files related to his work on Apple's augmented reality headset for the benefit of his new employer Snap. The company alleges Liu misled colleagues about his departure, secretly accepted a job offer from Snap, and attempted to cover his tracks by deleting files -- actions Apple claims violated his confidentiality agreement. The Register reports: Liu secretly received a job offer from Snap on October 18, 2024, a role the complaint describes as "substantially similar" to his Apple position, meaning Liu waited nearly two weeks to resign from Apple, per the lawsuit. "Even then, he did not disclose he was leaving for Snap," the suit said. "Apple would not have allowed Mr. Liu continued access had he told the truth." Liu allegedly copied "more than a dozen folders containing thousands of files" from Apple's filesystem to a personal cloud storage account, dropping the stolen bits in a pair of nested folders with the amazingly nondescript names "Personal" and "Knowledge." Apple said that data Liu copied includes "filenames containing confidential Apple product code names" and files "marked as Apple confidential." Company research, product design, and supply chain management documents were among the content Liu is accused of stealing. The complaint also alleges that Liu deleted files to conceal his activities, a move that may hinder Apple's ability to determine the full scope of the data he exfiltrated. "Mr. Liu additionally took actions to conceal his theft, including deceiving Apple about his job at Snap, and deleting files from his Apple-issued computer that might have let Apple determine what data Mr. Liu stole," the complaint noted. Whatever he has, Apple wants it back. The company demands a jury trial on a single count of breach of contract under a confidentiality and intellectual property agreement Liu was bound to. It also asks the court to compel Liu to return all misappropriated data, award damages to be determined at trial, and reimburse Apple's costs and attorneys' fees.
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2025-07-02 08:02:00
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Tinder is mandating new users in California verify their profiles using facial recognition technology starting Monday, executives exclusively tell Axios. The move aims to reduce impersonation and is part of Tinder parent Match Group's broader effort to improve trust and safety amid ongoing user frustration. The Face Check feature prompts users to take a short video selfie during onboarding. The biometric face scan, powered by FaceTec, then confirms the person is real and present and whether their face matches their profile photos. It also checks if the face is used across multiple accounts. If the criteria are met, the user receives a photo verified badge on their profile. The selfie video is then deleted. Tinder stores a non-reversible, encrypted face map to detect duplicate profiles in the future. Face Check is separate from Tinder's ID Check, which uses a government-issued ID to verify age and identity. "We see this as one part of a set of identity assurance options that are available to users," Match Group's head of trust and safety Yoel Roth says. "Face Check ... is really meant to be about confirming that this person is a real, live person and not a bot or a spoofed account." "Even if in the short term, it has the effect of potentially reducing some top-line user metrics, we think it's the right thing to do for the business," Rascoff said.
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