Month: November 2022

Enlarge / House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) is seen during a hearing in March 2022 in Washington, DC. (credit: Alex Wong / Staff | Getty Images News)

Online verification through ID.me was supposed to help the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) prevent widespread fraud while rushing unemployment benefits to those who needed it most during the pandemic.

Instead, wait times to get verified for some stretched up to 10 hours, and in one case in California, actually took three days. A six-month investigation by the House Oversight Committee found evidence that ID.me “downplayed excessive wait times,” hiding the problem from federal and state agencies by only providing data related to successful connections, Politico reported. This likely kept aid out of reach for those most in need, whose technology access was not reliable enough to stay connected through substantially delayed wait times.

In a statement, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), described the evidence revealed by the investigation as “appalling.” The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis chairman, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), expressed disappointment that ID.me did not deliver as a partner in US efforts to quickly disburse aid.

Enlarge / Each one of the silvery squares includes a small sheet of an atomically thin material. (credit: Dodda, et. al.)

Since the isolation of graphene, we've identified a number of materials that form atomically thin sheets. Like graphene, some of these sheets are made of a single element; others form from chemicals where the atomic bonds naturally create a sheet-like structure. Many of these materials have distinct properties. While graphene is an excellent conductor of electricity, a number of others are semiconductors. And it's possible to tune their properties further based on how you arrange the layers of a multi-sheet stack.

Given all those options, it shouldn't surprise anyone that researchers have figured out how to make electronics out of these materials, including flash memory and the smallest transistors ever made, by some measures. Most of these, however, are demonstrations of the ability to make the hardware—they're not integrated into a useful device. But a team of researchers has now demonstrated that it's possible to go beyond simple demonstrations by building a 900-pixel imaging sensor using an atomically thin material.

Making pictures

Most image sensors currently consist of standard silicon semiconductors, manufactured using the usual complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processes. But it's possible to replace the silicon with another semiconductor. In this case, the researchers used molybdenum disulfide, an atomically thin material that has seen a lot of use in experimental devices.

Enlarge / Each one of the silvery squares includes a small sheet of an atomically thin material. (credit: Dodda, et. al.)

Since the isolation of graphene, we've identified a number of materials that form atomically thin sheets. Like graphene, some of these sheets are made of a single element; others form from chemicals where the atomic bonds naturally create a sheet-like structure. Many of these materials have distinct properties. While graphene is an excellent conductor of electricity, a number of others are semiconductors. And it's possible to tune their properties further based on how you arrange the layers of a multi-sheet stack.

Given all those options, it shouldn't surprise anyone that researchers have figured out how to make electronics out of these materials, including flash memory and the smallest transistors ever made, by some measures. Most of these, however, are demonstrations of the ability to make the hardware—they're not integrated into a useful device. But a team of researchers has now demonstrated that it's possible to go beyond simple demonstrations by building a 900-pixel imaging sensor using an atomically thin material.

Making pictures

Most image sensors currently consist of standard silicon semiconductors, manufactured using the usual complementary metal–oxide semiconductor (CMOS) processes. But it's possible to replace the silicon with another semiconductor. In this case, the researchers used molybdenum disulfide, an atomically thin material that has seen a lot of use in experimental devices.

Enlarge (credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia has released a firmware update tool for its new GeForce RTX 4090 and 4080 GPUs to fix a bug that could break display output, causing the GPU to show a blank screen when being used without drivers installed. The issue only affects "certain motherboards," and Nvidia says it "should only be applied if blank screens are occurring on boot." (We installed it on an RTX 4080 Founders Edition in an Asus motherboard that was working normally and didn't notice any adverse effects.)

Obviously, you aren't buying a GPU to use it with no drivers installed. But if you're adjusting BIOS settings, performing a fresh Windows install, or booting up for the first time after installing a new GPU, you need your GPU to be able to draw a basic image without having drivers loaded. The problem doesn't affect everyone, but if you notice a blank screen when you first boot your computer after installing an RTX 4090 or 4080, this firmware update may fix your problem.

If the bug is preventing you from installing the firmware update in the first place, Nvidia recommends connecting "using an alternate graphics source" like an integrated GPU or secondary GPU, or allowing your system to sit with a blank screen until it can install a driver on its own; Windows Update can usually grab a functional driver for most GPUs by itself, though you'll want to download and install the newest version to take advantage of new fixes and optimizations. The update can be applied to Founders Edition cards from Nvidia or any RTX 4090 or 4080 made by Nvidia's partners.

Enlarge

After laying off half of Twitter's employees and issuing a stay-or-leave ultimatum to the rest, Elon Musk sent an email to the remaining staff today seeking responses from "anyone who actually writes software."

"Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 pm today. Before doing so, please email a bullet point summary of what your code commands have achieved in the past ~6 months, along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code," Musk wrote in the first of three emails reportedly sent around midnight PT Friday.

Musk's emails were published in full by Business Insider and also reported by Fortune, CNBC, and Reuters. His emails requested in-person meetings with coders despite Twitter informing staff that it was closing all office buildings and disabling employee badge access until Monday.

• 

  The spinoff game has a Christmas, winter setting. [credit: Sony ]

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the spinoff to the popular and critically acclaimed 2018 PlayStation game Marvel's Spider-Man, launched on Windows PCs today, just three months after the original game did, too.

The game was developed by Insomniac Games (previously best known for the Ratchet & Clank franchise), PlayStation, and Marvel Games. This port is being done under the stewardship of Netherlands-based studio Nixxes Software, which was acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment last year. The studio focuses on ports as well as supporting other studios' productions in various ways.

The PC port contains all the content from the original game. On top of that, there are several enhancements, including support for Nvidia's DLSS 2 and DLSS 3, as well as DLAA and Reflex, and AMD's FSR 2.1. There are expanded settings for ray-traced shadows and reflections, and as with the previous game, strong ultra-wide and multi-monitor support.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Andrey Denisyuk)

The Federal Communications Commission took two significant steps toward providing US broadband users with more accurate availability and pricing information.

Today, the FCC released the long-awaited National Broadband Map update based on the most detailed data the commission has ever collected from ISPs. There's still plenty of work to do, as this first version will undergo a challenge process to correct errors, and there are indications it will have many inaccuracies.

"The map will display specific location-level information about broadband services available throughout the country—a significant step forward from the census block level data previously collected," an FCC press release said. "This release of the draft map kicks off the public challenge processes that will play a critical role in improving the accuracy of the map."

Enlarge / A look at an alternate reality where vector displays never died.

Atari's new 50th-anniversary compilation is stuffed with historical filler, but one new game contained in the package won't let me go. I'm talking about Vctr Sctr, a retro-style arcade shooter that melds the addictive gameplay of classics like Asteroids and Tempest with modern gameplay concepts.

As a package, Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection sets a new high-water mark for retro video game compilations. The collection's "timeline" feature deftly weaves archival materials like design documents and manuals, explanatory context and contemporary quotes from the game's release, and new video interviews with game creators into an engaging, interactive trip through gaming history.

But while the presentation shines, the games contained within Atari 50 often don't. Sure, there are a few truly replayable classics on offer here, especially in the games from Atari's glorious arcade era. That said, the bulk of Atari 50's selection of over 100 titles feels like filler that just doesn't hold up from a modern game design perspective. Dozens of "classic" Atari games—from 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe on the Atari 2600 to Missile Command 3D on the Jaguar—boil down to mere historical curiosities that most modern players would be hard-pressed to tolerate for longer than a couple of minutes.