Magnus Carlsen Wins 8th World Chess Championship. What Makes Him So Great?

“On Friday, needing just one point against Ian Nepomniachtchi to defend his world champion status, Magnus Carlsen closed the match out with three games to spare, 7.5-3.5,” ESPN reports. “He’s been the No 1 chess player in the world for a decade now…

“In a technologically flat, AI-powered chess world where preparation among the best players can be almost equal, what really makes one guy stand out with his dominance and genius for this long…?

American Grandmaster and chess commentator Robert Hess describes Carlsen as the “hardest worker you’ll find” both at the board and in preparation. “He is second-to-none at evading common theoretical lines and prefers to outplay his opponents in positions where both players must rely on their understanding of the current dynamics,” Hess says…

At the start of this year, news emerged of Nepomniachtchi and his team having access to a supercomputer cluster, Zhores, from the Moscow-based Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology. He was using it for his Candidates tournament preparation, a tournament he went on to win. He gained the challenger status for the World Championship and the Zhores supercomputer reportedly continued to be a mainstay in his team. Zhores was specifically designed to solve problems in machine learning and data-based modeling with a capacity of one Petaflop per second…. Players use computers and open-source AI engines to analyze openings, bolster preparation, scour for a bank of new ideas and to go down lines that the other is unlikely to have explored.

The tiny detail though is, that against Carlsen, it may not be enough. He has the notoriety of drawing opponents into obscure positions, hurling them out of preparation and into the deep end, often leading to a complex struggle. Whether you have the fastest supercomputer on your team then becomes almost irrelevant. It comes down to a battle of intuition, tactics and staying power, human to human. In such scenarios, almost always, Carlsen comes out on top. “[Nepomniachtchi] couldn’t show his best chess…it’s a pity for the excitement of the match,” he said later, “I think that’s what happens when you get into difficult situations…all the preparation doesn’t necessarily help you if you can’t cope in the moment….”

Soon after his win on Friday, Carlsen announced he’d be “celebrating” by playing the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Warsaw, a fortnight from now. He presently holds both those titles…

The article also remembers what happened in 2018 when Carlsen was asked to name his favorite chess player from the past. Carlsen’s answer?

“Probably myself, like, three or four years ago.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Data on Tens of Thousands of South Australian Government Employees Breached in Ransomware Attack

“Russian hackers have stolen and published the personal data of tens of thousands of employees…” reports the Australian Financial Review.

Government officials have confirmed the breach — part of a ransomware attack — and say the stolen data may even include info on the country’s premier, according to an Australian public broadcaster:
The government said the records of at least 38,000 employees, but potentially up to 80,000 workers, have been accessed in a cyber-attack on external payroll software provider Frontier Software. The data includes names, dates of birth, tax file numbers, home addresses, bank account details, remuneration and superannuation contributions… Treasurer Rob Lucas said politicians, including Premier Steven Marshall, could be among those affected.

The treasurer added the breach potentially impacted “The highest of the high to the lowest of the low and all of the rest of us in between.” Except for schoolteachers, and the Department of Education, who did not use Frontier’s software.

The website publishing the 3.75 gigabytes of data claimed it was just 10% of the total amount, according to the Australian Financial Review, which “understands Russian organised crime group Conti, which claimed credit for launching the cyberattack on Queensland’s energy network CS Energy, published the information.”
Australian Payroll Association chief executive Tracy Angwin said the hack was a wake-up call to employers using remotely accessed payroll systems to ensure they were secure…

Frontier Software said the hacker responsible for the incident was known to employ a “double extortion” strategy, which included encrypting systems and stealing the data.

In another report, Bleeping Computer describes Conti as “a long-lived Ransomware as a Service operation” that “still manages to evade prosecution even after high-profile incidents against vital national resources such as Ireland’s Department of Health.”

The gang is believed to be behind the recent revival of the notorious Emotet botnet, which could lead to a massive new wave of ransomware infections. This week, Conti took responsibility for the attack against Nordic Choice Hotels, a Scandinavian hotel chain with 200 properties.

Thanks to Macfox (Slashdot reader #50,100) for tipping us off to the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung Submits Patent Application On a Rollable Smartwatch With a Camera

According to recently-submitted patent application spotted by LetsGoDigital, Samsung may be working on a rollable smartwatch equipped with a camera and two separate displays. PhoneArena reports: The device looks like a regular Galaxy Watch with a display that features two parts on the top and bottom of the screen that can be expanded both independently or simultaneously. The watch also is equipped with a camera located in the middle portion between the two “rollable” portions of the display that can take photos and record videos.Besides optional sensors that could be built into the watch, a flash also could be part of the watch’s photography system.

A patent titled “Electronic device comprising rollable display and display method therefor” was submitted to the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) on June 2, 2021. To expand the watch display, the user presses the crown on the side of the watch. When fully opened the screen is 40% larger than the size when closed. The screen can also be expanded or reduced by making a swiping gesture across the display. When fully opened, the rollable Galaxy smartwatch has an oval shape allowing for additional content to appear. The user can decide whether he wants one side extended or both sides. This can also depend on a particular app being used. The large portion of the display (the part extended) could show the app while the part that is not extended can show the app controls.

As Lets Go Digital points out, the timepiece depicted in the patent is not the first to offer a flexible screen. That honor goes to the Nubia Alpha which was worn on the wrist but featured a long bendable display. The device featured a camera that could allow users to take part in a video chat, and also could make or take phone calls, get the time, set alarms, and more.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Android Games Are Coming To Windows PCs In 2022

Google is bringing Android games from Google Play to Windows laptops, PCs, and tablets, the company announced on Thursday. Gizmodo reports: Google announced a standalone Google Play Games launcher that lets gamers play mobile titles on Windows PCs at The Game Show Awards on Thursday. The upcoming app will allow players to close out of their game on one device and resume playing where they left off on another. This means you could switch between a Chromebook, Windows PC, and Android phone without losing saved data. The app, which is being built and distributed by Google, runs games locally on your system, no cloud streaming required. So far, Google has only teased the service in a brief video clip, so some important details haven’t been revealed. We do, however, know it is set to arrive sometime in 2022.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brazil Health Ministry Website Hit By Hackers, Vaccination Data Targeted

New submitter Unpopular Opinions writes: Brazil’s health ministry reports that in the early hours of Friday it suffered an incident that temporarily compromised some of its systems, which are currently unavailable and/or being directed to other domains. The alleged hackers posted a message on the website saying that internal data had been copied and deleted. “Contact us if you want the data back,” it said, including e-mail and Telegram contact info. Some of the systems affected by the hack included information about the national immunization program and another used to issue digital vaccination certificates. “The government put off for a week implementing new health requirements for travelers arriving in Brazil due to the attack,” reports Reuters.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Head of Instagram Agrees To Testify as Congress Probes the App’s Effects on Young People

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has agreed for the first time to testify before Congress, as bipartisan anger mounts over harms to young people from the app. From a report: Mr. Mosseri is expected to appear before a Senate panel during the week of Dec. 6 as part of a series of hearings on protecting children online, said Senator Richard Blumenthal, who will lead the hearing. Mr. Mosseri’s appearance follows hearings this year with Antigone Davis, the global head of safety for Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, and with Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistle-blower. Ms. Haugen’s revelations about the social networking company, particularly those about Facebook and Instagram’s research into its effects on some teenagers and young girls, have spurred criticism, inquiries from politicians and investigations from regulators.

In September, Ms. Davis told Congress that the company disputed the premise that Instagram was harmful for teenagers and noted that the leaked research did not have causal data. But after Ms. Haugen’s testimony last month, Mr. Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, wrote a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, suggesting that his company had “provided false or inaccurate testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research.” Mr. Blumenthal asked that Mr. Zuckerberg or Mr. Mosseri testify in front of the consumer protection subcommittee of the Senate’s Commerce Committee to set the record straight.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Three-Party Alliance is Set To Govern Germany

Three German parties have reached a deal to form a new government that will end the era of longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to Olaf Scholz, who is poised to replace her. From a report: Scholz, of the center-left Social Democrats, said he expects that members of the parties will give their blessing to the deal in the next 10 days. At a news conference, Scholz and other leaders gave some indications of how the coalition would govern. Among the first measures agreed: compulsory vaccinations in places where particularly vulnerable people are cared for, with the option of expanding that rule. That comes as Germany is seeing a surge in cases, and the political transition has somewhat hampered the country’s response. Scholz also stressed the importance of a sovereign Europe, friendship with France and partnership with the United States as key cornerstones of the government’s foreign policy — continuing a long post-war tradition. The new government will not seek “the lowest common denominator, but the politics of big impacts,” Scholz promised. Robert Habeck, co-leader of the environmentalist Green party, meanwhile, said measures planned by the government would put Germany on a path to meet the goals of the 2015 Paris climate accord.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Can an Athlete’s Blood Enhance Brainpower?

fahrbot-bot shares a report from The New York Times: What if something in the blood of an athlete could boost the brainpower of someone who doesn’t or can’t exercise? Could a protein that gets amplified when people exercise help stave off symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other memory disorders? That’s the tantalizing prospect raised by a new study in which researchers injected sedentary mice with blood from mice that ran for miles on exercise wheels, and found that the sedentary mice then did better on tests of learning and memory. The study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, also found that the type of brain inflammation involved in Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders was reduced in sedentary mice after they received their athletic counterparts’ blood. Scientific results with mice don’t necessarily translate to humans. Still, experts said the study supports a growing body of research.

The study involved mice that were about three months old — roughly the equivalent of 25-to-30-year olds for humans. Some of the mice, nocturnal animals that love to run, could freely use exercise wheels in their cages and logged about four to six miles on the wheels each night. The wheels were locked for other mice that could scoot around their cages but could not get an extended cardio workout. […] After 28 days, the researchers took a third group of mice that also did not exercise and injected them with blood plasma, the liquid that surrounds blood cells, from either the runner mice or the non-runner mice. Mice receiving runner blood did better on two tests of learning and memory than those receiving blood from the non-runner mice. In one test, which measures how long a mouse will freeze in fear when it is returned to a cage where it previously received an electric foot shock, mice with runner blood froze 25 percent longer, indicating they had better memory of the stressful event […]. In the other test, mice with runner blood were twice as fast at finding a platform submerged in opaque water, he said. The team also found that the brains of mice with runner blood produced more of several types of brain cells, including those that generate new neurons in the hippocampus, a region involved in memory and spatial learning. A genetic analysis showed that about 1,950 genes had changed in response to the infusion of runner blood, becoming either more or less activated. Most of the 250 genes with the greatest activation changes were involved in inflammation and their changes suggested that brain inflammation was reduced.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SF Millennium Tower Tilts Quarter Inch In Four Days

Newly released monitoring data shows that San Francisco’s Millennium Tower tilted a quarter inch during the four days it took to install the first test pile to bedrock last month. From a local report: The monitoring data tracks settlement, tilting and water pressure levels underneath the sinking and leaning structure since work began on a fix for the troubled tower in May. Since work began to shore the sinking structure up on the north and west sides, the building has settled nearly 2 inches at the northwest corner and is now tilting more than two feet at that edge. The latest data — including the four days that the test pile was installed from Nov. 15 to Nov. 19 — shows a quarter inch of new tilt, as well as a tenth of an inch of settlement at the time the test installation occurred. At the same time, there was marked fluctuation of water pressure below the foundation on the Mission Street side of the structure.
[…]
Still, Ron Hamburger, the fix designer, recently assured city officials that the settlement that has occurred during testing of new methods designed to limit sinking is within expected levels. Hamburger now has city permission to install two more test piles. Hamburger told city officials the additional testing is needed to help determine just how many piles will ultimately be used to shore up the structure.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Suicide Pods Now Legal In Switzerland, Providing Users With a Painless Death

Switzerland is giving the green light to so-called “suicide capsules” — 3-D printed pods that allow people to choose the place where they want to die an assisted death. Global News reports: The country’s medical review board announced the legalization of the Sarco Suicide Pods this week. They can be operated by the user from the inside. Dr. Philip Nitschke, the developer of the pods and founder of Exit International, a pro-euthanasia group, told SwissInfo.ch the machines can be “towed anywhere for the death” and one of the most positive features of the capsules is that they can be transported to an “idyllic outdoor setting.”

Currently, assisted suicide in Switzerland means swallowing a capsule filled with a cocktail of controlled substances that puts the person into a deep coma before they die. But Sarco pods — short for sarcophagus — allow a person to control their death inside the pod by quickly reducing internal oxygen levels. The person intending to end their life is required to answer a set of pre-recorded questions, then press a button that floods the interior with nitrogen. The oxygen level inside is quickly reduced from 21 per cent to one per cent. After death, the pod can be used as a coffin. […]

Nitschke said his method of death is painless, and the person will feel a little bit disoriented and/or euphoric before they lose consciousness. He said there are only two capsule prototypes in existence, but a third machine is being printed now, and he expects this method to become available to the Swiss public next year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.