Cambridge mapping project solves a medieval murder

“A tale of shakedowns, sex, and vengeance that expose[s] tensions between the church and England’s elite.”

In 2019, we told you about a new interactive digital "murder map" of London compiled by University of Cambridge criminologist Manuel Eisner. Drawing on data catalogued in the city coroners' rolls, the map showed the approximate location of 142 homicide cases in late medieval London. The Medieval Murder Maps project has since expanded to include maps of York and Oxford homicides, as well as podcast episodes focusing on individual cases.

It's easy to lose oneself down the rabbit hole of medieval murder for hours, filtering the killings by year, choice of weapon, and location. Think of it as a kind of 14th-century version of Clue: It was the noblewoman's hired assassins armed with daggers in the streets of Cheapside near St. Paul's Cathedral. And that's just the juiciest of the various cases described in a new paper published in the journal Criminal Law Forum.

The noblewoman was Ela Fitzpayne, wife of a knight named Sir Robert Fitzpayne, lord of Stogursey. The priest was her erstwhile lover, John Forde, who was stabbed to death in the streets of Cheapside on May 3, 1337. “We are looking at a murder commissioned by a leading figure of the English aristocracy," said University of Cambridge criminologist Manuel Eisner, who heads the Medieval Murder Maps project. "It is planned and cold-blooded, with a family member and close associates carrying it out, all of which suggests a revenge motive."

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Retroid Dual Screen add-on turns existing handhelds into dual-screen consoles

Handheld game console maker Retroid is planning to launch a new accessory that basically turns a PSP-style handheld into a Nintendo DS-style device. The upcoming Retroid Dual Screen add-on is designed to attach to a Retroid Pocket 5, Retroid Pocket 4 P…

Handheld game console maker Retroid is planning to launch a new accessory that basically turns a PSP-style handheld into a Nintendo DS-style device. The upcoming Retroid Dual Screen add-on is designed to attach to a Retroid Pocket 5, Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, or Retroid Pocket Mini to give your handheld a second screen. Retroid hasn’t provided […]

The post Retroid Dual Screen add-on turns existing handhelds into dual-screen consoles appeared first on Liliputing.

Startup puts a logical qubit in a single piece of hardware

Nord Quantique’s plan for error correction involves far less hardware.

Everyone in quantum computing agrees that error correction will be the key to doing a broad range of useful calculations. But early every company in the field seems to have a different vision of how best to get there. Almost all of their plans share a key feature: some variation on logical qubits built by linking together multiple hardware qubits.

A key exception is Nord Quantique, which aims to dramatically cut the amount of hardware needed to support an error-corrected quantum computer. It does this by putting enough quantum states into a single piece of hardware, allowing each of those pieces to hold an error-corrected qubit. Last week, the company shared results showing that it could make hardware that used photons at two different frequencies to successfully identify every case where a logical qubit lost its state.

That still doesn't provide error correction, and they didn't use the logical qubit to perform operations. But it's an important validation of the company's approach.

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GOP intensifies war against EVs and efficient cars

Get ready for less-efficient and more-polluting vehicles in the US.

This week, Republicans in Congress and the executive branch stepped up their efforts to roll back clean vehicle legislation and regulations. Antipathy toward environmental protections was a hallmark of the first Trump administration, but in his second term, the president and his congressional allies are redoubling their efforts to allow cars to pollute more and limit the adoption of electric vehicles.

Congressional republicans have been working on a budget bill that would radically transform many aspects of American life. Among the environmental protections being stripped away in the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (yes, that's what it's called) is a repeal of the US Environmental Protection Agency's rules on "greenhouse gas and multi-pollutant emissions standards."

These regulations are meant to limit the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the US vehicle fleet, a major driver of climate change, as well as the noxious pollutants containing sulfur and nitrogen compounds that have more immediate and deleterious effects on human health. And if the budget bill is sent to Trump to sign, the existing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) rules, implemented in 2022, and the future rules meant to take effect next year will be no more.

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OpenAI is retaining all ChatGPT logs “indefinitely.” Here’s who’s affected.

OpenAI explains how deleted ChatGPT logs may be accessed in court battle.

Late Thursday, OpenAI confronted user panic over a sweeping court order requiring widespread chat log retention—including users' deleted chats—after moving to appeal the order that allegedly impacts the privacy of hundreds of millions of ChatGPT users globally.

In a statement, OpenAI Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap explained that the court order came in a lawsuit with The New York Times and other news organizations, which alleged that deleted chats may contain evidence of users prompting ChatGPT to generate copyrighted news articles.

To comply with the order, OpenAI must "retain all user content indefinitely going forward, based on speculation" that the news plaintiffs "might find something that supports their case," OpenAI's statement alleged.

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