Month: July 2022

Enlarge / Nikon's D6 will allegedly be the company's last DSLR camera. (credit: Nikon)

Nikkei Asia reports that camera maker Nikon will discontinue further development of its single-lens reflex (SLR) camera lineup, leaving the longtime professional standbys behind and shifting its efforts to smaller mirrorless models.

For its part, Nikon has denounced the report as "speculation" and stresses that the company "is continuing the production, sales, and service of digital SLR." But this rebuttal does not mention the development of future SLR cameras—the company's last new DSLR, the Nikon D6, was released in February 2020, and the company discontinued its entry-level D3500 and D5600 DSLR cameras last month. The Nikkei report indicates that Nikon's development efforts will shift to mirrorless cameras, which are smaller and more lightweight.

Early mirrorless cameras generally couldn't match the image quality or lens selection of DSLR cameras, and their electronic viewfinders lagged behind the real-time previews that a DSLR's optical viewfinder could provide. But newer mirrorless cameras have largely addressed those shortcomings while retaining their smaller sizes and lighter weights. Mirrorless cameras also usually offer superior video quality, which is useful for people who need their cameras to multitask.

Enlarge (credit: SOPA Images / Contributor | LightRocket)

When Facebook and Instagram began removing posts about abortion that didn't violate any community standards, at least two US lawmakers decided that Meta's apparent practice of censoring pro-choice advocates needed more scrutiny.

Last week, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) sent a letter to Meta asking what the company plans to do to end abortion-post censorship on its platforms. They gave Meta until this Friday, July 15, to respond, placing urgency on their request and seeking evidence that the company is taking immediate action.

Examples of censorship cited in the letter include instances where Facebook and Instagram removed "posts providing accurate information about how to legally access abortion services" within minutes and placed sensitivity screens over a post promoting an abortion documentary. The senators also took issue with censorship of health care workers, including a temporary account suspension of an "organization dedicated to informing people in the United States about their abortion rights."

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Twitter told Elon Musk in a letter that his "purported termination" of their merger deal "is invalid and wrongful," and that his commitment to fund the purchase remains in effect.

The letter, sent to Musk's lawyers on Sunday and made public Monday in a regulatory filing, is a prelude to the lawsuit that Twitter intends to file against Musk this week. The letter said:

Mr. Musk's and the other Musk Parties' purported termination is invalid and wrongful, and it constitutes a repudiation of their obligations under the Agreement. Contrary to the assertions in your letter, Twitter has breached none of its obligations under the Agreement, and Twitter has not suffered and is not likely to suffer a Company Material Adverse Effect. The purported termination is invalid for the independent reason that Mr. Musk and the other Musk Parties have knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially breached the Agreement, including but not limited to Sections 6.3, 6.8, and 6.10 thereof.

The cited sections include various commitments to close and finance the deal. Twitter's letter further said the Twitter/Musk "Agreement is not terminated, the Bank Debt Commitment Letter and the Equity Commitment Letter remain in effect, and Twitter demands that Mr. Musk and the other Musk Parties comply with their obligations under the Agreement." In the Equity Commitment Letter dated April 20, Musk committed to provide an estimated $21 billion in equity financing toward the $44 billion purchase.

Enlarge / Lenovo ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook. (credit: Lenovo)

A developer has shared a way to dual-boot Windows 10/11 and Chrome OS on an AMD Ryzen-powered Chromebook.

Note that there are simpler ways to get a Windows-like experience on a Chromebook, including virtualization apps such as Parallels Desktop. And you shouldn't get your hopes too high about Microsoft's OS and apps running smoothly on a Chromebook, especially if you're using one of the many lower-specced machines, since this method is not officially supported. You should take caution and be aware of the Chromebook manufacturer's warranty before deciding if you want to use the developer's guide.

As shared via Reddit and spotted by XDA Developers on Monday, the developer known as Coolstarog reportedly got Windows and Chrome OS to dual-boot on Chromebooks using AMD 3 3250C, Ryzen 5 3500C, and Ryzen 7 3700C processors and the AMD Athlon 3015ce APU. The HP Chromebook 14b, HP Chromebook Pro c645 Enterprise, and Lenovo Yoga C13 Chromebook were reportedly tested successfully.

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Some microprocessors from Intel and AMD are vulnerable to a newly discovered speculative execution attack that can covertly leak password data and other sensitive material, sending both chipmakers scrambling once again to contain what is proving to be a stubbornly persistent vulnerability.

Researchers from ETH Zurich have named their attack Retbleed because it exploits a software defense known as retpoline, which chipmakers introduced in 2018 to mitigate the harmful effects of speculative execution attacks. Speculative execution attacks, also known as Spectre, exploit the fact that when modern CPUs encounter a direct or indirect instruction branch, they predict the address for the next instruction they’re about to receive and automatically execute it before the prediction is confirmed. Spectre works by tricking the CPU into executing an instruction that accesses sensitive data in memory that would normally be off-limits to a low-privileged application. Retbleed then extracts the data after the operation is canceled.

Is it a trampoline or a slingshot?

Retpoline works by using a series of return operations to isolate indirect branches from speculative execution attacks, in effect erecting the software equivalent of a trampoline that causes them to safely bounce. Stated differently, a retpoline works by replacing indirect jumps and calls with returns, which many researchers presumed weren’t susceptible. The defense was designed to counter variant 2 of the original speculative execution attacks from January 2018. Abbreviated as BTI, the variant forces an indirect branch to execute so-called “gadget” code, which in turn creates data to leak through a side channel.

Enlarge / 20 oz. soda bottle for scale. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

The category of miniaturized classic arcade cabinets has exploded in recent years, and I've found that I'm in its target demographic. My struggle to juggle raging arcade-era nostalgia with limited apartment space means I'm not quite to the point of opening my own luxurious basement arcade, let alone purchasing every "small but still bulky" cabinet made by the likes of Arcade1Up.

Instead, I've compromised with a few space-saving options. In addition to a virtualized pinball machine, which condenses a mix of pinball and arcade games into one "full-size" unit, I've also appreciated the Sega Astro City Mini as a bookshelf decoration. Today, let's check out a few more options in the latter category.

If you're willing to shell out $140–$160 per game, a few companies offer decent (but not perfect) replica arcade cabinets that measure no taller than 17 inches and come with built-in screens, buttons, and batteries. None of these are highly recommended ways to play the games in question, but if you like the party trick of powering-on junior-size arcade cabs and sharing them with gamers of all ages, they get the job done.

A ground-based test of the Super Heavy rocket that is intended to boost a Starship upper stage into orbit ended in flames on Monday afternoon at SpaceX's launch site in South Texas. A fire burned in the vicinity of the pad, on and off, for more than an hour.

This is the first time SpaceX has tested a booster stage—this one bears the designation Booster 7—equipped with a full complement of 33 Raptor rocket engines. Monday's test was not intended to lead to a static fire test, during which the engines are briefly ignited, so seeing fire erupt from the aft end of the vehicle at 4:20 pm CT local time was a surprise.

The methane-fueled Raptor engine has a complicated sequence of events that must unfold precisely in order for it to ignite, and SpaceX was testing the "spin start" portion of this ignition sequence when the anomaly occurred. Something must have caused methane propellant to ignite, with the ambient oxygen in the air serving as an oxidizer, inside the vehicle.