Retailers Surrender To Unprecedented Costs On Online Returns

Returning unwanted gifts this holiday season is becoming so expensive for retailers that they just might let customers keep the products — and issue refunds anyway. Axios reports: The cost of online returns is soaring, contributing to increased prices, product shortages and supply chain stress. Returning a $50 item is expected to cost an average of $33, up 59% from 2020, according to Optoro, a returns processor. Worker shortages and supply chain problems are taking a toll, Optoro CEO Tobin Moore tells Axios. About three in 10 online purchases are returned, according to CBRE Supply Chain.

Retailers are expected to pass on the cost of returns in the form of higher prices. “The consumer pays the price of a free return,â Columbia Business School retail studies professor Mark Cohen told Today. Some retailers, namely Amazon, sometimes tell returners to keep it. It would cost them too much to process a return, Moore says. The challenge for online retailers is to process returns quickly and get the goods back onto their virtual shelves, minimizing depreciation. “The faster you can get a good back to stock, the more you can avoid markdowns,” Moore says.

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Hyundai Shuts Down Its Engine Development Team Amid Focus On Electric Cars

Hyundai announced that it is shutting down its internal combustion engine development team as the automaker focuses on electric cars. Electrek reports: For 40 years the Korean automaker has been developing internal combustion engines to use in its vehicle lineup, but no more. The Korea Economic Daily reports that Hyundai’s new R&D chief Park Chung-kook confirmed in an email to employees that they are shutting down new engine development: “Now, it is inevitable to convert into electrification. Our own engine development is a great achievement, but we must change the system to create future innovation based on the great asset from the past.”

Hyundai reportedly had 12,000 people working on engines, but they are now being transferred to EV powertrain development: “Researchers at the engine design unit have moved to the electrification design center, leaving only some to modify existing engines. The powertrain system development center is transforming into an electrification test center, while the powertrain performance development center is becoming an electrification performance development center.” Park added on the change: “The immediate task is to develop innovative vehicles that can dominate the future market. This reorganization will be an important starting point for change ahead in the new year.”

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X-ray Analysis Confirms Forged Date On Lincoln Pardon of Civil War Soldier

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln pardoned a soldier in the Civil War, and in 1998 that document was re-discovered. But “It was the date that made the document significant,” writes Ars Technica: April 14, 1865, “meaning the pardon was likely one of the last official acts of President Lincoln, since he was assassinated later that same day at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. The pardon was broadly interpreted as evidence for a historical narrative about the president’s compassionate nature: i.e., his last act was one of mercy.”

But now scientists at America’s National Archives have conducted a new analysis (published in the journal Forensic Science International: Synergy), and “confirmed that the date was indeed forged (although the pardon is genuine).”
An archivist named Trevor Plante became suspicious of the document, noting that the ink on the “5” in “1865” was noticeably darker. It also seemed as if another number was written underneath it. Then Plante consulted a seminal collection of Lincoln’s writings from the 1950s. The pardon was there, but it was dated April 14, 1864 — a full year before Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. Clearly the document had been altered sometime between the 1950s and 1998 to make the pardon more historically significant..

Investigators naturally turned to the man who made the discovery for further information. They began corresponding with Thomas Lowry [a retired psychiatrist turned amateur historian] in 2010. Initially, Lowry seemed cooperative, but when he learned about the nature of the investigation, he stopped communicating with the Office of the Inspector General, thereby arousing suspicion. So the investigators knocked on the historian’s door one January morning in 2011 for an interview. Shortly thereafter, the National Archives released a statement that Lowry had confessed to altering the date on the pardon. Lowry confessed to bringing a fountain pen into the research room, along with fade proof, pigment-based ink, and changing the “4” in “1864” to a “5.” Lowry couldn’t be charged with any crime because the statute of limitations for tampering with government property had run out, but he was barred from the National Archives for life.
But there’s a twist: Lowry soon recanted, claiming he had signed the confession under duress from the National Archives investigators…

Long-time Slashdot reader waspleg writes that Ars Technica “goes through the analysis of how it was verified to be a forgery using several techniques,” including ultraviolet light and X-ray fluorescence analysis to study chemicals in the ink. From the article:

An examination under magnification and reflective fiber optic lighting showed the ink used to write the “5” was indeed different in overall color compared to the other numbers in the date. Furthermore, “Vestiges of ink from a scratched away number can be seen below and beside the darker ‘5,’ as well as smeared across the paper,” the authors wrote. Additional analysis under raking light — a technique that accentuates hills and valleys in the paper texture — revealed abrasions to the paper under and around the “5” that were not observed anywhere else on the document. The team also determined that the paper around the “5” is thinner than everywhere else, and that ink residue of the scratched-away “4” were caught in the abraded paper fibers, clearly visible using transmitted light microscopy…

“The authors also concluded that there is no way to restore the document to its original state without causing further damage.”

Is the Video Game Industry Closer to Unionization Than Ever Before?

“Video game companies in North America have never successfully unionized,” reports the Washington Post. “That changed December 16, when a union at the indie developer Vodeo Games was recognized by management.”

While video game companies rake in billions of dollars, their workers complain of unfair labor practices, long hours, sexual harassment and workplace misconduct… In the past, game workers would avoid speaking out publicly against their employer, as it could tarnish their reputation within the industry and make it difficult to find future jobs. But after decades of major gaming companies expecting employees to work 80- or 90-hour workweeks, and of workers fearing retaliation from management, Vodeo employees told The Post that the tide was changing…

What’s happening in the games industry at Activision Blizzard and Vodeo is unprecedented. No single gaming company like Activision Blizzard has dominated the headlines with lawsuit after lawsuit for months before, topped off with an explosive Wall Street Journal report in November that claimed CEO Bobby Kotick did not inform the company’s board of directors for years about sexual misconduct allegations. A petition calling for Kotick’s resignation that was circulated among employees netted over 1,850 signatures… At least several dozen Activision Blizzard workers across the company are in the midst of their third work stoppage following a California state agency lawsuit that alleged widespread sexual harassment and misconduct at the company. The strike is on its third week as workers demand that management rehire 12 contractors from Call of Duty developer Raven Software and promote all Raven quality assurance testers to full-time status. Some in-person demonstrations have taken place at the quality assurance office in Austin, Texas.

Activision Blizzard management responded to employees in a Dec. 10 email that ongoing work toward improving company culture would be best achieved without a union…

Activision Blizzard’s tumultuous battle with lawsuits, government investigations and worker protests has Wall Street analysts downgrading their rating of its stock. Unionization would further lower the company’s market value, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. “If they were to succeed [in unionizing], the company would have to determine whether to recognize the union or to bust it,” Pachter said. “If only the hourly workers chose unionization, Activision could decide whether it is cheaper to recognize them or to export their jobs to a nonunion locale.”

That possibility looms large for workers in the industry. “I do fear for my job,” said Aubrey Ryan, a contractor working for Blizzard. “Even if I’m fired, I have been part of a movement that is going to change the games industry. I might not benefit, but future people like me will.”

Some interesting quotes from two pro-union figures interviewed by the Post:

“There’s been a lot of groundwork that’s been happening in the game industry over the last few years in terms of raising awareness about unions.” — Vodeo designer Carolyn Jong

“Vodeo has broken the ice on smaller studios. There are definitely folks at smaller studios that are realizing that unions are not just for triple A studios…” — a Southern California games-industry organizer

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Ask Slashdot: How Many Files Are on Your Computer?

With some time on their hands, long-time Slashdot reader shanen began exploring the question: How many files does my Windows 10 computer have?

But then they realized “It would also be interesting to compare the weirdness on other OSes…”

Here are the two data points in front of me:

(1) Using the right click on properties for all of the top-level folders on the drive (including the so-called hidden folders), it quickly determined that there are a few hundred thousand files in those folders (and a few hundred thousand subfolders). That’s already ridiculous, but the expected par these days. The largest project I have on the machine only has about 3,000 files, and that one goes back many years… (My largest database only has about 5,000 records, but it’s just a few files.)

(2) However, I also decided to take a look with Microsoft’s malicious software removal tool and got a completely different answer. For twisted grins, I had invoked the full scan. It’s still running a day later and has already passed 10 million files. Really? The progress bar indicates about 80% finished? WTF?

Obviously there is some kind of disagreement about the nature of “file” here. I could only think of one crazy explanation, but my router answered “No, the computer is not checking all of the files on the Internet.” So I’ve already asked the specific question in three-letter form, but the broader question is about the explosive, perhaps even cancerous, “population growth” of files these days.

Maybe we can all solve this mystery together. So use the comments to share your own answers and insights.

How many files are on your computer?

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How Peter Jackson’s Beatles Documentary Used Custom AI To Remove Background Noise

Peter Jackson’s seven-hour documentary “Get Back” (now streaming on Disney+) edits footage from the Beatles’ ambitious recording sessions for their 1970 album Let It Be. But long-time Slashdot reader MattSparkes writes that the whole documentary “would have been impossible without custom-made artificial intelligence, say sound engineers.”
Sixty hours of footage were recorded but most of the audio was captured by a single microphone that picked up the musicians’ instruments in a noisy jumble rather than a carefully crafted mix. It also recorded background noise and chatter, which made much of the footage unusable.

The team scoured academic papers on using AI to separate audio sources but realised that none of the previous research would work for a music documentary. They consulted with Paris Smaragdis at the University of Chicago and started to create a neural network called MAL (machine assisted learning) and a set of training data that was higher quality than datasets used in academic experiments.
The Washington Post describes it as “a sort of sonic forensics,” adding that the name MAL was a deliberate homage to the HAL computer in 2001: a Space Odyssey — and to the Beatles’ beloved road manager and principal assistant, Mal Evans.
Using MAL, Jackson and his colleagues were able to painstakingly and precisely isolate each and every audio track — be it musical instrumentation, singing or studio chatter — from the original mono recordings made for most of “Let It Be.”

“What we’ve managed to do is split it all apart in a way that is utterly clean and sounds much better,” Jackson said.

Other interesting observations from the Post:

“Get Back” tapped nearly 120 hours of previously unheard audio recordings. Jackson and his team started work in 2017.
Jackson’s team also “carefully restored, upgraded and enlarged the grainy original 16-millimeter” footage from the 1969 documentary Let It Be “so that it now pops with vibrant color.”
Jackson’s documentary “was originally set to open in theaters last year as a two-and-a-half hour feature film, but was pushed back by the pandemic. With more time unexpectedly on his hands, Jackson transformed his feature film into the six-hour epic….”
Jackson would also like to release an expanded director’s cut sometime in the future, “but there are no current plans to do so.”
“At one point, Jackson’s favorite version of his Get Back film clocked in at 18 hours…”

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New Era Begins: Construction Starts on 47-Acre Fusion Reactor Funded by Google and Bill Gates

Heating plasma fuel to over 100 million degrees Celsius to create inexpensive and unlimited zero-emissions electricity “has been compared to everything from a holy grail to fool’s gold…” writes the Boston Globe, “or an expensive delusion diverting scarce money and brainpower from the urgent needs of rapidly addressing climate change.”
[N]ow, after breakthroughs this year at MIT and elsewhere, scientists — and a growing number of deep-pocketed investors — insist that fusion is for real and could start sending power to electricity grids in about a decade.
To prove that, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, an MIT spinoff in Cambridge, is using a whopping $1.8 billion it raised in recent months from investors such as Bill Gates, Google, and a host of private equity firms to build a prototype of a specially designed fusion reactor on a former Superfund site in Devens. A host of excavators, backhoes, and other heavy machinery are clearing land there and laying concrete foundations on 47 acres of newly acquired land. “It may sound like science fiction, but the science of fusion is real, and the recent scientific advancements are game-changing,” said Dennis Whyte, director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and cofounder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. “These advancements aren’t incremental; they are quantum leap improvements. . . . We’re in a new era of actually delivering real energy systems….”

There are now at least 35 companies trying to prove that fusion can be a practical power source, most of them established in the past decade, according to the three-year-old Fusion Industry Association. The promise of fusion was buoyed with significant developments this year. In May, scientists in China used their own specially designed tokamak to sustain a fusion reaction of 120 million degrees Celsius for 101 seconds, the longest on record. In September, Whyte’s team at MIT and his colleagues at Commonwealth Fusion Systems demonstrated that, while using relatively low-cost materials that don’t require a large amount of space, they could create the most powerful magnetic field of its kind on Earth, a critical component of the prototype reactor they’re building in Devens.

“We have come a long way,” said Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, who compared their advance to similar breakthroughs that made flight possible. “We’re a pretty conservative science bunch, but we’re pretty confident.” With some $2 billion raised in recent years — more than any of the other fusion startups — his company is racing to prove that their prototype, called SPARC, will produce more energy than it consumes in 2025. If they succeed, the company plans to start building their first power plant several years afterward. Ultimately, he said, their goal is to help build 10,000 200-megawatt fusion power plants around the world, enough to replace nearly all fossil fuels. “This is a solution that can scale to the size of the problem that decarbonization requires,” he said.

Phil Warburg, a senior fellow at Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy, disagrees. “Fusion has been an elusive fantasy for a half-century or more,” he tells the Boston Globe. “Along with the technical hurdles, the environmental downsides have not been seriously examined, and the economics are anything but proven… The current wave of excitement about fusion comes at a time when we’ve barely begun to tap the transformative potential of solar, wind, storage, and energy efficiency — all known to be technically viable, economically competitive, and scalable today. The environmental advocacy community needs to focus on vastly expanding those clean-energy applications, leaving fusion to the scientists until they’ve got something much more credible to show for their efforts.”

But Elizabeth Turnbull Henry, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts rejected the argument that fusion research detracts from investments in renewables as a “false choice…. We’re at a very different moment now, and it’s good to have a lot of different horses in the race.”

The also article notes that officials at America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission told them federal officials are already holding meetings to discuss how they’d regulate fusion reactors.

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Large Ocean Fossil Discovered in Nevada Could Hold Key To Aquatic Evolution

An 8-foot-long skull discovered in the Augusta Mountains of Nevada is the largest fossil ever found from its time. The research team believes that the remarkable discovery could provide insight into how modern whales developed, and how to preserve their presence in our oceans. From a report: The fossil — a newly discovered species of ichthyosaur, a type of large aquatic reptile — dates to about 246 million years ago. The newly-named cymbospondylus youngorum is, according to the research team, the largest animal found from that time period, both in the sea and on land. It currently holds the title of the first giant animal to ever inhabit Earth. The well-preserved skull was excavated along with part of the creature’s backbone, shoulder and forefin. At more than 55 feet long, the ichthyosaur was estimated to be the size of a large sperm whale, according to the study released Thursday by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County. The ichthyosaur has an elongated snout and conical teeth, leading researchers to believe it ate squid and fish. It also could have hunted smaller marine reptiles and younger members of its species.

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Centralized Crypto Exchanges Saw Over $14 Trillion in Trading Volume this Year

Russia Steps Up Pressure on Google, Meta With Record Fines

A Russian court fined Alphabet’s Google 7.2 billion rubles ($98 million) and Meta Platforms 2 billion rubles Friday for failing to remove banned content, the largest such penalties yet, as the authorities escalate a crackdown on foreign technology companies. From a report: The fines were due to the companies’ repeated failure to comply with orders to take down content and based on a percentage of their annual earnings in Russia, the federal communications watchdog said in a statement. Google and Meta could face more fines if they don’t remove the material, it said.

Google is studying the ruling and then will determine its next steps, the company’s press service in Moscow said in a statement. Russia has stepped up its confrontation with foreign social media and internet companies this year in what the government calls a campaign to uphold its digital sovereignty. Regulators have levied fines and slowed content in a bid to force companies including Google and Twitter to delete posts encouraging unauthorized protests and other material deemed illegal.

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