Month: August 2022

Enlarge / Alondra Nelson, President Joe Biden's pick for OSTP Deputy Director for Science and Society, speaks during an announcement on January 16, 2021, at the Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware. (credit: Getty Images)

Many federal policy changes are well known before they are announced. Hints in speeches, leaks, and early access to reporters at major publications all serve to pave the ground for the eventual confirmation. But on Thursday, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) dropped a big one that seemed to take everyone by surprise. Starting in 2026, any scientific publication that receives federal funding will need to be openly accessible on the day it's published.

The move has the potential to further shake up the scientific publishing industry, which has already adopted preprint archives, similar mandates from other funding organizations, and greatly expanded access to publications during the pandemic.

The change was announced by Alondra Nelson, acting head of the OSTP (a permanent Director is in the process of Senate confirmation). The formal policy is laid out in an accompanying memorandum.

Enlarge / Scientists have found that tattoo ink ingredient labels are often inaccurate, and some inks contain nanoscale particles that could harm human cells. (credit: Kymberlie Dozois Photography/Getty Images)

Scientists at Binghamton University (State University of New York) have analyzed nearly 100 different tattoo inks and found that the manufacturers' ingredient labels (when used) are often inaccurate and that many inks contain small particles at the nanoscale that could be harmful to human cells. They presented their findings at this week's meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Chicago.

According to principal investigator John Swierk, a chemist at Binghamton, the project initially started when his group became interested in tattoos as tools for medical diagnostics. This shifted to an interest in tattoo laser removal, specifically how laser light causes tattoos to fade. "We realized we didn't understand a lot about the interaction between light and tattoos," Swierk said during a press briefing at the ACS meeting. "My group studies how light can drive chemical reactions, so it was a natural fit."

That meant learning more about the chemical composition of tattoo inks, which is also not well understood. One reason for this significant gap in scientific understanding is that in the US, at least, manufacturers of tattoo inks aren't required to disclose the ingredients, and even when they do, there is no real oversight of whether those disclosures are correct, per Swierk.

Enlarge / This is definitely not a Razer mouse—but you get the idea. (credit: calvio via Getty Images)

Two weeks ago, Twilio and Cloudflare detailed a phishing attack so methodical and well-orchestrated that it tricked employees from both companies into revealing their account credentials. In the case of Twilio, the attack overrode its 2FA protection and gave the threat actors access to its internal systems. Now, researchers have unearthed evidence the attacks were part of a massive phishing campaign that netted almost 10,000 account credentials belonging to 130 organizations.

Based on the revelations provided by Twilio and Cloudflare, it was already clear that the phishing attacks were executed with almost surgical precision and planning. Somehow, the threat actor had obtained private phone numbers of employees and, in some cases, their family members. The attackers then sent text messages that urged the employees to log in to what appeared to be their employers' legitimate authentication page.

In 40 minutes, 76 Cloudflare employees received the text message, which included a domain name registered only 40 minutes earlier, thwarting safeguards the company has in place to detect sites that spoof its name. The phishers also used a proxy site to perform hijacks in real time, a method that allowed them to capture the one-time passcodes Twilio used in its 2FA verifications and enter them into the real site. Almost immediately, the threat actor used its access to Twilio's network to obtain phone numbers belonging to 1,900 users of the Signal Messenger.

Enlarge / Google's Nest Hub Max is a 10-inch smart display designed for viewing photos, making video calls, controlling smart home devices, and accessing the Google Assistant, among other tricks. The speakers aren't the best, though, and there's no physical shutter for the built-in camera. (credit: Google)

The kingdom of Google's third major operating system, Fuchsia, is growing a little wider today. 9to5Google reports Google completed the rollout of Fuchsia to the Google Nest Hub Max. Along with the original Nest Hub/Google Home Hub, that puts two of Google's three smart displays on the new OS, with the one holdout being the 2nd Gen Nest Hub. The Nest Hub Max is the first device running Fuchsia that Google is currently selling—the Home Hub only got Fuchsia after it had been discontinued.

The Google smart display user interface is written in Flutter, a Google programming language designed for portability, which runs on Android, iOS, Fuchsia, and the weird cast platform Nest Hubs typically use. So it's not right to describe the user interface as "similar" after the OS swap—it's the exact same code because Flutter runs on nearly everything. You are getting a slightly newer code version, though, and it comes with a Bluetooth menu. If you dive into the settings and hit "about device," you'll see a "Fuchsia Version" field that will say something like "6.20211109.1.3166243."

It's a bit weird to do an entire OS switch to the futuristic, secretive Fuchsia project and then have basically nothing to show (or say) for it in terms of obvious improvements in performance or security. You can dive into the minutia of the Fuchsia source code, but it continues to be a mystery in terms of what practical benefits it offers consumers. Google never talks about Fuchsia, so not much is known about what, exactly, Google is accomplishing here.

Enlarge / Nvidia couldn't make enough GPUs last year, but now it has the opposite problem. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

How quickly things change: A year ago, it was nearly impossible to buy a GeForce GPU for its intended retail price. Now, the company has the opposite problem. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said during the company's Q2 2023 earnings call yesterday that the company is dealing with "excess inventory" of RTX 3000-series GPUs ahead of its next-gen RTX 4000 series release later this year.

To deal with this, according to Huang, Nvidia will reduce the number of GPUs it sells to manufacturers of graphics cards and laptops so that those manufacturers can clear out their existing inventory. Huang also says Nvidia has "instituted programs to price position our current products to prepare for next-generation products." When translated from C-suite to English, this means the company will be cutting the prices of current-generation GPUs to make more room for next-generation ones. Those price cuts should theoretically be passed along to consumers somehow, though that will be up to Nvidia's partners.

Nvidia announced earlier this month that it would be missing its quarterly projections by $1.4 billion, mainly due to decreased demand for its gaming GPUs. Huang said that "sell-through" of GPUs, or the number of cards being sold to users, had still "increased 70 percent since pre-COVID," though the company still expects year-over-year revenue from GPUs to decline next quarter.

Enlarge (credit: Joe Raedle / Staff | Getty Images News)

Yesterday, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) tweeted to sound the alarm that she had been "swatted" around 1 am. "Swatting" is a term for incidents that involve a false report of emergencies like suicide or gun violence that leads police to send a SWAT team or armed tactical unit to enter a person's home, often with guns drawn.

A Rome Police Department report from Wednesday confirmed there was an "attempted swatting," where five officers responding to a report of possible gun violence used a "tactical approach" before ringing the doorbell on Greene's residence. They said they knew it was her house before they arrived but didn't kick the door down like they might during an actual swatting because they "were still unsure" of "exactly what had transpired." A few minutes later, Greene answered the door and sent the police away after they performed a quick wellness check in the house to ensure there was no threat.

Today, Greene tweeted again, saying that she was swatted again.