2025-07-13 11:34:00
An anonymous reader shared this report from Jalopnik: On July 2, the 88th anniversary of famed aviator Amelia Earhart's disappearance, Purdue University announced an expedition [which will launch in November] to confirm whether or not the wreckage of her plane has been found. Satellite imagery from a decade ago indicated the presence of something that sure looks plane-like under the waters of Nikumaroro Island, an uninhabited spit of land in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that just happens to be near Earhart's intended flightpath... This isn't the first time Earhart investigators have been to Nikumaroro. Human bones were recovered from the island previously, which scientists determined with 99% confidence to belong to the beloved pilot, per the university's student newspaper the Purdue Exponent. The investigators also found some women's beauty products from the 1930s. If that is indeed where Earhart died, it stands to reason that her Lockheed Electra 10E, nicknamed the Flying Laboratory, wouldn't be far away. Since nobody noticed any aircraft wreckage on the island (which isn't very big), it would probably be under the water. Recovering such a legendary airplane will be a multi-stage process spanning years. This expedition, which will embark in November, is only planning to verify what's actually there, not retrieve anything. Recent satellite imagery doesn't show the object anymore, meaning it might have become buried; in fact, it was only ever visible in 2015, right after a cyclone blew threw and shifted a bunch of sand, as NBC News reports. The team will start with non-invasive procedures, such as sonar and magnetometers, before drilling through the silt with a hydroglobe to make physical contact with the object. Lastly, they will use a suction dredge to pull off loose sediment. If they're lucky, that will be sufficient to actually see part of the Lockheed Electra.
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2025-07-13 09:34:00
Lucid Motors set a Guinness World Record for the longest journey by an electric car on a single charge, covering a distance of 749 miles (about 1,205 km), reports New Atlas. "In doing so, Lucid broke the 1,045-km (649-mile) record previously achieved by the Mercedes-Benz EQS450+ in June 2025 by the Japanese car website www.webcg.net/articles/-/52268webCG." The electric vehicle covered this journey between St. Moritz, Switzerland, and Munich, Germany, traveling through highways, secondary roads, and alpine roads — all without a single halt for charging. Given that the vehicle has a 960-km (596-mile) WLTP range, my guess is that the test team must have made good use of favorable road and weather conditions to make the feat possible. With a net elevation decrease of just over 1,310 m (about 4,300 ft) throughout the drive, the EV most certainly benefited from regenerative braking, a rather useful feature that turns downhill momentum back into battery power. Lucid has yet to release official data like average speed or total drive time, but what is apparent is that this was not a high-speed dash but rather a well-planned route to achieve one impressive result... The Air Grand Touring has two all-wheel drive electric motors with a combined system output of 611 kW (819 horsepower) and 1,200 Nm (885 lb.ft) of torque. Power is provided by an NMC battery, which has a gross energy capacity of 117 kWh (112 kWh usable). Best of all, it can go from 0-60 mph in just three seconds flat... For reference, the almost half-priced BMW i4 and jazzy Porsche Taycan offer less than half the WLTP range of the Lucid Air GT. So, it's not like there's a head-to-head competition out there. Lucid is miles ahead in its class (pun intended!) Starting at US$112,650, the Air Grand Touring is among the most luxurious sedans on the market right now. But as you can see, it comes at a price. Still, knowing that there is technology to conquer range anxiety is comforting. It might take a while, but there's no reason why we can't expect such range figures from reasonably priced EVs in the near future.
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2025-07-13 06:34:00
"Firefox is dead to me," wrote Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols last month for The Register, complaining about everything from layoffs at Mozilla to Firefox's discontinuation of Pocket and Fakespot, its small market share, and some user complaints that the browser might be becoming slower. But a new rebuttal (also published by The Register) argues instead that Mozilla just has "a management layer that doesn't appear to understand what works for its product nor which parts of it matter most to users..." "Steven's core point is correct. Firefox is in a bit of a mess — but, seriously, not such a bad mess. You're still better off with it — or one of its forks, because this is FOSS — than pretty much any of the alternatives." Like many things, unfortunately, much of computing is run on feelings, tradition, and group loyalties, when it should use facts, evidence, and hard numbers. Don't bother saying Firefox is getting slower. It's not. It's faster than it has been in years. Phoronix, the go-to site for benchmarks on FOSS stuff, just benchmarked 21 versions, and from late 2023 to now, Firefox has steadily got faster and faster... Ever since Firefox 1.0 in 2004, Firefox has never had to compete. It's been attached like a mosquito to an artery to the Google cash firehose... Mozilla's leadership is directionless and flailing because it's never had to do, or be, anything else. It's never needed to know how to make a profit, because it never had to make a profit. It's no wonder it has no real direction or vision or clue: it never needed them. It's role-playing being a business. Like we said, don't blame the app. You're still better off with Firefox or a fork such as Waterfox. Chrome even snoops on you when in incognito mode... One observer has been spectating and commentating on Mozilla since before it was a foundation — one of its original co-developers, Jamie Zawinksi... Zawinski has repeatedly said: "Now hear me out, but What If...? browser development was in the hands of some kind of nonprofit organization?" "In my humble but correct opinion, Mozilla should be doing two things and two things only: — Building THE reference implementation web browser, and — Being a jugular-snapping attack dog on standards committees. — There is no 3." Perhaps this is the only viable resolution. Mozilla, for all its many failings, has invented a lot of amazing tech, from Rust to Servo to the leading budget phone OS. It shouldn't be trying to capitalize on this stuff. Maybe encourage it to have semi-independent spinoffs, such as Thunderbird, and as KaiOS ought to be, and as Rust could have been. But Zawinski has the only clear vision and solution we've seen yet. Perhaps he's right, and Mozilla should be a nonprofit, working to fund the one independent, non-vendor-driven, standards-compliant browser engine.
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2025-07-13 05:34:00
Slashdot reader BrianFagioli shared this report from Nerds.xyz: NVIDIA just put out a new security notice, and if you're running one of its powerful GPUs, you might want to pay attention. Researchers from the University of Toronto have shown that Rowhammer attacks, which are already known to affect regular DRAM, can now target GDDR6 memory on NVIDIA's high-end GPUs when ECC [error correction code] is not enabled. They pulled this off using an A6000 card, and it worked because system-level ECC was turned off. Once it was switched on, the attack no longer worked. That tells you everything you need to know. ECC matters. Rowhammer has been around for years. It's one of those weird memory bugs where repeatedly accessing one row in RAM can cause bits to flip in another row. Until now, this was mostly a CPU memory problem. But this research shows it can also be a GPU problem, and that should make data center admins and workstation users pause for a second. NVIDIA is not sounding an alarm so much as reminding everyone that protections are already in place, but only if you're using the hardware properly. The company recommends enabling ECC if your GPU supports it. That includes cards in the Blackwell, Hopper, Ada, and Ampere lines, along with others used in DGX, HGX, and Jetson systems. It also includes popular workstation cards like the RTX A6000. There's also built-in On-Die ECC in certain newer memory types like GDDR7 and HBM3. If you're lucky enough to be using a card that has it, you're automatically protected to some extent, because OD-ECC can't be turned off. It's always working in the background. But let's be real. A lot of people skip ECC because it can impact performance or because they're running a setup that doesn't make it obvious whether ECC is on or off. If you're not sure where you stand, it's time to check. NVIDIA suggests using tools like nvidia-smi or, if you're in a managed enterprise setup, working with your system's BMC or Redfish APIs to verify settings.
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2025-07-13 04:34:00
Robinhood's stock hit is up more than 160% for 2025, reports CNBC, and the trading platform's own stock hit an all-time high on Friday. But "Despite its stellar year, the online broker is facing several headwinds..." Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier opened a formal investigation into Robinhood Crypto on Thursday, alleging the platform misled users by claiming to offer the lowest-cost crypto trading. "Robinhood has long claimed to be the best bargain, but we believe those representations were deceptive," Uthmeier said in a statement. The probe centers on Robinhood's use of payment for order flow — a common practice where market makers pay to execute trades — which the AG said can result in worse pricing for customers. Robinhood is also facing opposition to a new 25% cut of staking rewards for U.S. users, set to begin October 1. In Europe, the platform will take a smaller 15% cut. Staking allows crypto holders to earn yield by locking up their tokens to help secure blockchain networks like ethereum, but platforms often take a percentage of those rewards as commission. Robinhood's 25% cut puts it in line with Coinbase, which charges between 25.25% and 35% depending on the token. The cut is notably higher than Gemini's flat 15% fee. It marks a shift for the company, which had previously steered clear of staking amid regulatory uncertainty... The company now offers blockchain-based assets in Europe that give users synthetic exposure to private firms like OpenAI and SpaceX through special purpose vehicles, or SPVs. An SPV is a separate entity that acquires shares in a company. Users then buy tokens of the SPV and don't have shareholder privileges or voting rights directly in the company. OpenAI has publicly objected, warning the tokens do not represent real equity and were issued without its approval... "What's important is that retail customers have an opportunity to get exposure to this asset," [Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said in an interview with CNBC], pointing to the disruptive nature of AI and the historically limited access to pre-IPO companies. "It is true that these are not technically equity," Tenev added, noting that institutional investors often gain similar exposure through structured financial instruments... Despite the regulatory noise, many investors remain focused on Robinhood's upside, and particularly the political tailwinds.
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2025-07-13 03:34:00
It killed tens of millions of people in 14th century Europe," CNN reports, though "today, it's easily treated with antibiotics." And yet "A resident of northern Arizona has died from pneumonic plague, health officials said Friday." Plague is rare to humans, with on average about seven cases reported annually in the U.S., most of them in the western states, according to federal health officials. The death in Coconino County, which includes Flagstaff, was the first recorded death from pneumonic plague since 2007, local officials said... The bubonic plague is the most common form of the bacterial infection, which spreads naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats. There are two other forms: septicemic plague that spreads through the whole body, and pneumonic plague that infects the lungs. Pneumonic plague is the most deadly and easiest to spread.
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