The Mars Express Spacecraft Is Finally Getting a Windows 98 Upgrade

Engineers at the European Space Agency (ESA) are getting ready for a Windows 98 upgrade on an orbiter circling Mars. The Verge reports: The Mars Express spacecraft has been operating for more than 19 years, and the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument onboard has been using software built using Windows 98. Thankfully for humanity and the Red Planet’s sake, the ESA isn’t upgrading its systems to Windows ME. The MARSIS instrument on ESA’s Mars Express was key to the discovery of a huge underground aquifer of liquid water on the Red Planet in 2018. This major new software upgrade “will allow it to see beneath the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in more detail than ever before,” according to the ESA. The agency originally launched the Mars Express into space in 2003 as its first mission to the Red Planet, and it has spent nearly two decades exploring the planet’s surface.

MARSIS uses low-frequency radio waves that bounce off the surface of Mars to search for water and study the Red Planet’s atmosphere. The instrument’s 130-foot antenna is capable of searching around three miles below the surface of Mars, and the software upgrades will enhance the signal reception and onboard data processing to improve the quality of data that’s sent back to Earth. “We faced a number of challenges to improve the performance of MARSIS,” explains Carlo Nenna, a software engineer at Enginium who is helping ESA with the upgrade. “Not least because the MARSIS software was originally designed over 20 years ago, using a development environment based on Microsoft Windows 98!”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Government Scientists Discover Biggest Bacteria Ever, Visible To Naked Eye

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Scientists have discovered a bacteria with cells that measure a full centimeter in length, an astonishing size that makes it by far the largest bacterial species ever found and even “challenges our concept of a bacterial cell,” reports a new study. Bacteria are an extraordinarily diverse group of organisms that have inhabited Earth for billions of years and have evolved to occupy a dizzying variety of niches. Still, almost all of these microbes are composed of simple cells that measure about two microns in diameter, which is about 40 times smaller than a strand of human hair.

Thiomargarita magnifica, a bacteria discovered on sunken red mangrove leaves in Guadeloupe, Lesser Antilles, has blown this standard scale out of the water. The species has evolved filamentary cells that are “larger than all other known giant bacteria by ~50-fold,” making them “visible to the naked eye,” according to a study published on Thursday in Science.
Scientists led by Jean-Marie Volland, a marine biologist who holds joint appointments at the Laboratory for Research in Complex Systems and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI), a U.S. Department of Energy office at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, suspect that this record-breaking adaptation is partly due to the astonishing number of duplicated genes wielded by T. magnifica, an ability that is known as polyploidy. […]

The results revealed that these bacteria contain DNA clusters in their cells, which are located in compartments bordered by membranes that the team called “pepins.” These organized pepins provide a stark contrast to the free-floating DNA seen in the cells of most bacteria. In addition, the team’s genetic sequencing revealed that T. magnifica contains hundreds of thousands of genome copies that are dispersed across the cell, adding up to about three times the number of genes in most bacteria, which is an extreme example of polyploidy. “These cellular features likely allow the organism to grow to an unusually large size and circumvent some of the biophysical and bioenergetic limitations on growth,” Volland and his colleagues said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China Bans 31 Live-Streaming Behaviors

Long-time Slashdot reader Mr_Blank shares a report from Gerona: China has enacted new regulation for the live-streaming industry, listing 31 prohibited conducts and raising the bar for influencers to speak out on specific topics, in the government’s latest effort to regulate the booming digital economy. The 18-point guideline, released Wednesday by the National Radio and Television Administration and the Department of Culture and Tourism, requires influencers to have relevant qualifications to cover some subjects, including law, finance, medicine and education discuss, although the authorities have not specified the necessary qualifications.

The 31 prohibited conducts during live-streaming sessions include posting content that weakens or distorts the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, the socialist system, or the country’s reform and opening-up. Other prohibited behaviors include using deepfake technologies to manipulate the images of party or state leaders and intentionally ‘building up’ sensitive issues and attracting public attention. Live streamers are also prohibited from showing an extravagant lifestyle, such as showing luxury products and cash, the policy said. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dutch Join Germany, Austria, In Reverting To Coal

The Dutch joined Germany and Austria in reverting to coal power on Monday following an energy crisis provoked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. France 24 reports: The Netherlands said it would lift all restrictions on power stations fired by the fossil fuel, which were previously limited to just over a third of output. Berlin and Vienna made similar announcements on Sunday as Moscow, facing biting sanctions over Ukraine, cuts gas supplies to energy-starved Europe. “The cabinet has decided to immediately withdraw the restriction on production for coal-fired power stations from 2002 to 2024,” Dutch climate and energy minister Rob Jetten told journalists in The Hague. The Dutch minister said his country had “prepared this decision with our European colleagues over the past few days.”

Germany however said it still aimed to close its coal power plants by 2030, in light of the greater emissions of climate-changing CO2 from the fossil fuel. “The 2030 coal exit date is not in doubt at all,” economy ministry spokesman Stephan Gabriel Haufe said at a regular news conference. The target was “more important than ever,” he added.

Austria’s government meanwhile announced Sunday that it would reopen a mothballed coal power station because of power shortages arising from reduced deliveries of gas from Russia. The authorities would work with the Verbund group, the country’s main electricity supplier, to get the station in the southern city of Mellach back in action, said the Chancellery. The European Commission noted Monday that “some of the existing coal capacities might be used longer than initially expected” because of the new energy landscape in Europe.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Juul E-Cigarettes To Be Ordered Off US Shelves

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is preparing to order Juul Labs Inc to take its e-cigarettes off the market in the United States, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Reuters reports: Juul has faced heightened scrutiny from regulators, lawmakers and state attorneys general over the appeal of its nicotine products to teenagers. Under pressure, the company in late 2019 had halted U.S. sales of several flavors. “This clearly comes as a surprise to the market … we would expect that Juul would appeal the decision, and remain on the market through that process, which would likely take a year or more,” Cowen analyst Vivien Azer said.

The looming verdict comes nearly two years after Juul had applied for approval to keep selling e-cigarettes in the country. The FDA’s review of the applications was based on whether the e-cigarettes are effective in getting smokers to quit and, if so, whether the benefits to smokers outweigh the health damage to new users, including teenagers. […] The estimated fair value of Altria’s investment in Juul was $1.6 billion as of March end, a fraction of the $12.8 billion it paid in 2018, as a crackdown on vaping has upended the once fast-growing industry.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Coinbase Shares Fall After Rival Binance.US Drops Spot Bitcoin Trading Fees

Coinbase shares fell almost 10% on Wednesday after rival crypto exchange Binance.US said it’s dropping certain trading fees for customers. CNBC reports: Binance.US, the U.S. affiliate of the largest crypto exchange in the world by trading volume, said it will allow users to make spot bitcoin trades for the U.S. dollar and stablecoins tether, USD Coin and Binance USD without paying spot trading fees. Shares of Coinbase were down 9.7%. Robinhood slipped by less than 1%.
In a separate report, Barron’s Daren Fonda speculates that a price war could be next.

“It’s the beginning of the end of Coinbase’s high-fee business model,” says Mizuho Securities analyst Dan Dolev. “We’ve said that the fees will eventually go close to zero. And it could be pretty rapid — it may be months. The market is very competitive and getting tighter.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SpaceX Asserts 5G Would ‘Blow Out’ Satellite Users In 12 GHz Band

Monica Alleven writes via Fierce Wireless: So much for the “win-win-win” scenario that Dish Network envisioned for the 12 GHz band. Dish and fellow MVDDS licensee RS Access have argued that the 12 GHz band can be used by both satellite players like SpaceX’s Starlink and by companies like Dish that want to use it for 5G, all for the public’s benefit. SpaceX on Tuesday submitted its own analysis (PDF) of the effect of terrestrial mobile deployment on non-geostationary orbit fixed satellite service (NGSO FSS) downlink operations. The upshot: The SpaceX study shows terrestrial mobile service would cause harmful interference to SpaceX’s Starlink terminals in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band more than 77% of the time, resulting in full outages 74% of the time.

Although entities like RS Access note that SpaceX has access to plenty of other spectrum to accomplish its broadband mission, SpaceX insists that the 12 GHz band has become one of the most important and intensely used spectrum bands for Americans who depend on satellite services. In fact, SpaceX said it depends on the 12 GHz band for the workhorse frequencies in critical downlink services to serve Americans “in every corner of the nation.” […] SpaceX would like the FCC to drop the 12 GHz proceeding, but Dish and RS Access have been urging the FCC for years to change the rules so that their MVDDS licenses can be used for two-way 5G services. In response to SpaceX’s submission, the 5G for 12 GHz Coalition, issued the following statement: “We understand that SpaceX has — after 18 months and both a robust comment and reply period — just filed its own in-house technical submission to the 12 GHz proceeding. Our engineers and technical experts are reviewing the filing in depth and remain committed to working in good faith with the FCC and stakeholders to ensure that the American public is able to reap the immense benefits of 5G services in this band.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Valve’s Steam Deck Makes a Brilliant Case Against Walled Gardens

“Unlike practically every major game console that’s come before it, the Steam Deck, from PC gaming giant Valve, doesn’t lock users into one ecosystem,” writes Fast Company’s Jared Newman. “While Valve’s own Steam store is the default way to buy and play games, the Steam Deck also lets users install whatever software they want on the device’s Linux-based operating system. The experience has been liberating…” From the report: In recent weeks, I’ve gorged on weird indie creations from itch.io, classic games from GOG.com, and free games from the Epic Games Store. I’ve used Plexamp to stream my personal music collection in place of in-game soundtracks, and I’ve used Vivaldi to browse the web in the Steam Deck’s desktop mode. You don’t have to use your Steam Deck this way, but just being knowing that it’s an option makes the device more capable and personal. The tech industry is filled with companies that seem deathly afraid of this model, either because they don’t trust their users or don’t want to risk weakening their own ecosystems. By taking the opposite approach, Valve is proving that open platforms aren’t so catastrophic, and it elevates the Steam Deck from yet another gadget into the most exciting consumer electronics device in years. […]

Valve could have easily used the Steam Deck to lock players into its own ecosystem. It could have opted not to include a desktop mode and withheld instructions on how to lift its read-only restrictions. It could have discouraged users from installing different operating systems and made its recovery tools unavailable to the public. Console makers have long insisted that such restrictions are necessary for the good of their platforms. In 2020, for instance, Microsoft argued that because console makers sell their hardware at or below cost to create a market for their software, they shouldn’t have to accommodate third-party app stores or sideloading.

Similar arguments have spilled out into the broader mobile app business as well. In response to a lawsuit from Epic Games, Apple has claimed that its investments in the App Store wouldn’t be feasible if it couldn’t force developers to use its in-app purchase mechanisms. Some defenders of Apple’s viewpoint, such as Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, have argued that iOS is more like a game console than a PC platform. So, it’s all the more remarkable that Valve ignored all this hand-wringing and made the Steam Deck a haven for tinkerers. Instead of trying to shut out competitors, the company is betting that its own store will prevail on quality. If the Steam Deck successful — as it appears to be so far — it could upend years of conventional wisdom around walled gardens and become a threat to other consoles in more ways than one.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Physicists Say They’ve Built an Atom Laser That Can Run ‘Forever’

A new breakthrough has allowed physicists to create a beam of atoms that behaves the same way as a laser, and that can theoretically stay on “forever.” ScienceAlert reports: At the root of the atom laser is a state of matter called a Bose-Einstein condensate, or BEC. A BEC is created by cooling a cloud of bosons to just a fraction above absolute zero. At such low temperatures, the atoms sink to their lowest possible energy state without stopping completely. When they reach these low energies, the particles’ quantum properties can no longer interfere with each other; they move close enough to each other to sort of overlap, resulting in a high-density cloud of atoms that behaves like one ‘super atom’ or matter wave. However, BECs are something of a paradox. They’re very fragile; even light can destroy a BEC. Given that the atoms in a BEC are cooled using optical lasers, this usually means that a BEC’s existence is fleeting.

Atom lasers that scientists have managed to achieve to date have been of the pulsed, rather than continuous variety; and involve firing off just one pulse before a new BEC needs to be generated. In order to create a continuous BEC, a team of researchers at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands realized something needed to change. “In previous experiments, the gradual cooling of atoms was all done in one place. In our setup, we decided to spread the cooling steps not over time, but in space: we make the atoms move while they progress through consecutive cooling steps,” explained physicist Florian Schreck. “In the end, ultracold atoms arrive at the heart of the experiment, where they can be used to form coherent matter waves in a BEC. But while these atoms are being used, new atoms are already on their way to replenish the BEC. In this way, we can keep the process going — essentially forever.” The research has been published in the journal Nature.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DRAM Prices To Drop 3-8% Due To Ukraine War, Inflation

Taiwanese research firm TrendForce said Monday that DRAM pricing for commercial buyers is forecast to drop around three to eight percent across those markets in the third quarter compared to the previous three months. Even prices for DDR5 modules in the PC market could drop as much as five percent from July to September. The Register reports: This could result in DRAM buyers, such as system vendors and distributors, reducing prices for end users if they hope to stimulate demand in markets like PC and smartphones where sales have waned. We suppose they could try to profit on the decreased memory prices, but with many people tightening their budgets, we hope this won’t be the case. The culprit for the DRAM price drop is one that we’ve been hearing a great deal about in the past few months: weaker demand for consumer electronics, including PCs and smartphones, as a result of high inflation and Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, according to TrendForce.

The weaker consumer demand means DRAM inventories are building up at system vendors and distributors, which means they don’t need to buy as much in the near future. This, in turn, is why memory prices are dropping, the research firm said. On the PC side, DDR4 memory pricing is expected to drop three to eight percent in the third quarter of 2022 after only seeing a zero to five percent decline in the second quarter. DDR5 pricing, on the other hand, is set to drop by only zero to five percent in Q3 after seeing a three to eight percent plummet in the previous quarter. For certain DRAM products, prices could see a steeper decline of more than eight percent, according to TrendForce, though the firm didn’t say which products this would include. TrendForce said PC makers are focused on getting rid of their existing DRAM inventories, and a continuously “sluggish” market means they’ll be reticent to buy much more memory.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.