NASA Makes RISC-V the Go-to Ecosystem for Future Space Missions

SiFive is the first company to produce a chip implementing the RISC-V ISA.

They’ve now been selected to provide the core CPU for NASA’s next generation High-Performance Spaceflight Computing processor (or HSPC).

HPSC is expected to be used in virtually every future space mission, from planetary exploration to lunar and Mars surface missions.

HPSC will utilize an 8-core, SiFive® Intelligenceâ X280 RISC-V vector core, as well as four additional SiFive RISC-V cores, to deliver 100x the computational capability of today’s space computers. This massive increase in computing performance will help usher in new possibilities for a variety of mission elements such as autonomous rovers, vision processing, space flight, guidance systems, communications, and other applications….

The SiFive X280 is a multi-core capable RISC-V processor with vector extensions and SiFive Intelligence Extensions and is optimized for AI/ML compute at the edge. The X280 is ideal for applications requiring high-throughput, single-thread performance while under significant power constraints. The X280 has demonstrated a 100x increase in compute capabilities compared to today’s space computers..

In scientific and space workloads, the X280 provides several orders of magnitude improvement compared to competitive CPU solutions.

A business development executive at SiFive says their X280 core “demonstrates orders of magnitude performance gains over competing processor technology,” adding that the company’s IP “allows NASA to take advantage of the support, flexibility, and long-term viability of the fast-growing global RISC-V ecosystem.

“We’ve always said that with SiFive the future has no limits, and we’re excited to see the impact of our innovations extend well beyond our planet.”
And their announcement stresses that open hardware is a win for everybody:

The open and collaborative nature of RISC-V will allow the broad academic and scientific software development community to contribute and develop scientific applications and algorithms, as well optimizing the many math functions, filters, transforms, neural net libraries, and other software libraries, as part of a robust and long-term software ecosystem.

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US Approves Google Plan To Let Political Emails Bypass Gmail Spam Filter

The US Federal Election Commission approved a Google plan to let campaign emails bypass Gmail spam filters. From a report: The FEC’s advisory opinion adopted in a 4-1 vote said Gmail’s pilot program is permissible under the Federal Election Campaign Act and FEC regulations “and would not result in the making of a prohibited in-kind contribution.” The FEC said Google’s approved plan is for “a pilot program to test new Gmail design features at no cost on a nonpartisan basis to authorized candidate committees, political party committees, and leadership PACs.” On July 1, Google asked the FEC for the green light to implement the pilot after Republicans accused the company of giving Democrats an advantage in its algorithms. Republicans reportedly could have avoided some of their Gmail spam problems by using the proper email configuration. At a May 2022 meeting between Senate Republicans and Google’s chief legal officer, “the most forceful rebuke” was said to come “from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who claimed that not a single email from one of his addresses was reaching inboxes,” The Washington Post reported in late July. “The reason, it was later determined, was that a vendor had not enabled an authentication tool that keeps messages from being marked as spam, according to people briefed on the discussions.”

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Biden Signs China Competition Bill To Boost US Chipmakers

President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a bipartisan bill that aims to strengthen U.S. competitiveness with China by investing billions of dollars in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and science research. From a report: “Today is a day for builders. Today America is delivering,” Biden said at the signing ceremony outside the White House. He was joined by a crowd of hundreds, including tech executives, union presidents and political leaders from both parties. The bill, dubbed the Chips and Science Act, includes more than $52 billion for U.S. companies producing computer chips, as well as billions more in tax credits to encourage investment in semiconductor manufacturing. It also provides tens of billions of dollars to fund scientific research and development, and to spur the innovation and development of other U.S. tech. The Biden administration also contended that the legislation will “unlock hundreds of billions more” in private spending in the industry. The White House said Tuesday that multiple companies, “spurred” by the chips bill, have announced more than $44 billion in new semiconductor manufacturing investments.

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US Senate Finally Passes Its Massive Climate Bill

Slashdot reader Charlotte Web writes: At 3:02 p.m. EST, vice president Kamala Harris began presiding over the U.S. Senate.
After a vote on the very last proposed amendment, the Senate heard these final remarks from Democrat Senate Majority Leader, Chuck Schumer on what he called “the boldest climate package in US history.”

“It’s been a long, tough, and winding road. But at last — at last — we have arrived. I know it’s been a long day and long night, but we’ve gotten it done….”

“It’s a game changer. It’s a turning point. And it’s been a long time coming.

“To Americans who have lost faith that Congress can do big things, this bill is for you…
And to the tens of millions of young Americans who spent years marching, rallying, demanding that Congress act on climate change, this bill is for you. The time has come to pass this historic bill.”

One by one, Senators delivered their votes for the official tally, and at 3:18 PST Harris announced that “On this vote, the yeas are 50, the nays are 50.” And with the vice president casting deciding votes in an equally-divided Senate, “the bill as amended is passed.”

And the Senate broke into spontaneous applause.

The bill now goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, which is expected to vote on it Friday.

As Slashdot reported last week:

The bill helps U.S consumers buy electric vehicle chargers, rooftop solar panels, and fuel-efficient heat pumps. It extends energy-industry tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources — and for carbon capture technology. In fact, most of its impact is accomplished through tax credits, reports the New York Times, “viewed as one of the least expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions.

“The benefits are worth four times their cost, according to calculations by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.” One example is ending an eligibility cap on the $7,500 tax credit for consumers buying electric vehicles.

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San Francisco Decriminalizes Psychedelics

San Francisco lawmakers have unanimously approved a measure calling for the decriminalization of psychedelics like psilocybin and ayahuasca. DoubleBlind Mag reports: The Board of Supervisors approved the measure, sponsored by Supervisors Dean Preston (D) and Hillary Ronen (D), on Wednesday. While it doesn’t immediately enact changes to criminal justice policy in San Francisco, it urges police to deprioritize psychedelics as “amongst the lowest priority” for enforcement and requests that “City resources not be used for any investigation, detention, arrest, or prosecution arising out of alleged violations of state and federal law regarding the use of Entheogenic Plants listed on the Federally Controlled Substances Schedule 1 list.”

Decriminalize Nature San Francisco helped advance the resolution, which also implores city officials to “instruct” its state and federal lobbyists to push for psychedelics decriminalization in California and federally. The whereas section of the measure talks about emerging research that shows entheogenic substances have therapeutic potential to treat a wide range of mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance misuse disorder. It further notes that the “state legislature has already started the conversation around the decriminalization of personal possession of small amounts of seven psychedelic substances,” in the form of a bill from Sen. Scott Wiener (D) that passed the Senate and several Assembly committees before being significantly scaled back in a final panel and ultimately pulled by the sponsor.

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Rolls Royce Exits Boom’s Supersonic Airliner Project

Rolls-Royce has ended its involvement in a project by Boom Supersonic to develop a faster-than-sound passenger airliner, leaving unclear the powerplant options available to Boom. FlightGlobal reports: “We are appreciative of Rolls-Royce’s work over the last few years, but it became clear that Rolls’ proposed engine design and legacy business model is not the best option for Overture’s future airline operators or passengers,” Boom said on 7 September. “Later this year, we will announce our selected engine partner and our transformational approach for reliable, cost-effective and sustainable supersonic flight.”

Earlier in the day, news broke that R-R had backed out of the Boom project. “We’ve completed our contract with Boom and delivered various engineering studies for their Overture supersonic program,” the UK engine manufacturer says. “After careful consideration, Rolls-Royce has determined that the commercial aviation supersonic market is not currently a priority for us and, therefore, will not pursue further work on the program at this time. It has been a pleasure to work with the Boom team and we wish them every success in the future.”

Boom, with offices in Denver, has been developing a supersonic aircraft called Overture that it says will carry up to 80 passengers and cruise at Mach 1.7. It initially intended for Overture to have two engines, but recently changed to a four-engined design. The company has been targeting first flight of Overture in 2026 and first delivery in 2029. “Overture remains on track to carry passengers in 2029, and we are looking forward to making our engine announcement later this year,” Boom says.

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US State of Virginia Has More Datacenter Capacity Than Europe or China

The state of Virginia has over a third of America’s hyperscale datacenter capacity, and this amounts to more than the entire capacity of China or the whole of Europe, highlighting just how much infrastructure is concentrated along the so-called Datacenter Alley. The Register reports: These figures come from Synergy Research Group, which said that the US accounts for 53 percent of global hyperscale datacenter capacity, as measured by critical IT load, at the end of the second quarter of 2022. The remainder is relatively evenly split between China, Europe, and the rest of the world. While few would be surprised at the US accounting for the lion’s share of datacenter capacity, the fact that so much is concentrated in one state could raise a few eyebrows, especially when it is centered on a small number of counties in Northern Virginia — typically Loudoun, Prince William, and Fairfax — which make up Datacenter Alley.

“Hyperscale operators take a lot of factors into account when deciding where to locate their datacenter infrastructure,” said Synergy chief analyst John Dinsdale. “This includes availability of suitable real estate, cost and availability of power supply options, proximity to customers, the risk of natural disasters, local incentives and approvals processes, the ease of doing business and internal business dynamics, and this has inevitably led to some hyperscale hot spots.” Amazon in particular locates a large amount of its datacenter infrastructure in Northern Virginia, with Microsoft, Facebook, Google, ByteDance, and others also having a major presence, according to Synergy. The big three cloud providers — Amazon, Microsoft and Google — have the broadest hyperscale bit barn footprint, with each of these having over 130 datacenters of the 800 or so around the globe. When measured in datacenter capacity, the leading companies are Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Alibaba and Tencent, according to Synergy.

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Former Disney CEO Says Company Found a ‘Substantial Portion’ of Twitter Users Were Not Real When It Evaluated Acquisition in 2016

Bob Iger, former Disney CEO, explained on Wednesday why Disney didn’t acquire Twitter in 2016. He said: “We enter the process immediately, looking at Twitter as the solution: a global distribution platform. It was viewed as sort of a social network. We were viewing it as something completely different. We could put news, sports, entertainment, [and] reach the world. And frankly, it would have been a phenomenal solution, distribution-wise. Then, after we sold the whole concept to the Disney board and the Twitter board, and we’re really ready to execute — the negotiation was just about done — I went home, contemplated it for a weekend, and thought, ‘I’m not looking at this as carefully as I need to look at it.’ Yes, it’s a great solution from a distribution perspective. But it would come with so many other challenges and complexities that as a manager of a great global brand, I was not prepared to take on a major distraction and having to manage circumstances that weren’t even close to anything that we had faced before. Interestingly enough, because I read the news these days, we did look very carefully at all of the Twitter users — I guess they’re called users? — and we at that point estimated with some of Twitter’s help that a substantial portion — not a majority — were not real. I don’t remember the number but we discounted the value heavily. But that was built into our economics. Actually, the deal that we had was pretty cheap.”

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A Text Alert May Have Saved California From Power Blackouts

A timely mobile alert may have prevented hundreds of thousands of Californians from being plunged into darkness in the middle of a heat wave Tuesday night. Bloomberg reports: Just before 5:30 p.m. local time, California’s grid operator ordered its highest level of emergency, warning that blackouts were imminent. Then, at 5:48 p.m., the state’s Office of Emergency Services sent out a text alert to people in targeted counties, asking them to conserve power if they could. Within five minutes the grid emergency was all but over. Power demand plunged by 1.2 gigawatts between 5:50 and 5:55 p.m., and would continue to drop in the hours after that, according to data from the California Independent System Operator. A gigawatt is enough to power about 750,000 Californian homes.

But while the state’s grid operator said California had avoided rolling blackouts Tuesday, some cities apparently didn’t get the message. Officials in three San Francisco Bay area cities — Alameda, Healdsburg and Palo Alto — reported on social media that power shutdowns were underway that evening, which also could have contributed to the sharp decline in demand. By 8 p.m., the grid operator canceled the highest level of emergency without calling for power cuts. More than 500,000 homes and businesses had been warned earlier in the day that they might lose service.

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