Month: January 2023

Enlarge / Chicken eggs are disposed of at a quarantined farm in Israel's northern Moshav (village) of Margaliot on January 3, 2022. (credit: Getty | JALAA MAREY / AFP))

The ongoing bird flu outbreak in the US is now the longest and deadliest on record. More than 57 million birds have been killed by the virus or culled since a year ago, and the deadly disruption has helped propel skyrocketing egg prices and a spike in egg smuggling.

Since highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) was first detected in US birds in January 2022, the price of a carton of a dozen eggs has shot up from an average of about $1.79 in December 2021 to $4.25 in December 2022, a 137 percent increase, according to data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although inflation and supply chain issues partly explain the rise, eggs saw the largest percentage increase of any specific food, according to the consumer price index.

And the steep pricing is leading some at the US-Mexico border to try to smuggle in illegal cartons, which is prohibited. A US Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told NPR this week that people in El Paso, Texas, are buying eggs in Juárez, Mexico, because they are "significantly less expensive." Meanwhile, a customs official in San Diego tweeted a reminder amid a rise in egg interceptions that failure to declare such agriculture items at a port of entry can result in penalties up to $10,000.

Enlarge / Chaotic shapes 3D-printed in bronze represent the first step in the transformation from chaos to manufacturable forms. (credit: F. Bertacchini/P.S. Pantano/E. Bilotta)

A team of Italian scientists has figured out a way of turning the striking, complex twisting shapes of chaos theory into actual jewelry, according to a new paper published in the journal Chaos. These pieces aren't simply inspired by chaos theory; they were directly created from its mathematical principles.

"Seeing the chaotic shapes transformed into real, polished, shiny, physical jewelry was a great pleasure for the whole team. Touching and wearing them was also extremely exciting," said co-author Eleonora Bilotta of the University of Calabria. "We think it is the same joy that a scientist feels when her theory takes form, or when an artist finishes a painting."

The concept of chaos might suggest complete randomness, but to scientists, it denotes systems that are so sensitive to initial conditions that their output appears random, obscuring their underlying internal rules of order: the stock market, rioting crowds, brain waves during an epileptic seizure, or the weather. In a chaotic system, tiny effects are amplified through repetition until the system goes critical. The roots of today's chaos theory rest on a serendipitous discovery in the 1960s by mathematician-turned-meteorologist Edward Lorenz.

Enlarge / Chaotic shapes 3D-printed in bronze represent the first step in the transformation from chaos to manufacturable forms. (credit: F. Bertacchini/P.S. Pantano/E. Bilotta)

A team of Italian scientists has figured out a way of turning the striking, complex twisting shapes of chaos theory into actual jewelry, according to a new paper published in the journal Chaos. These pieces aren't simply inspired by chaos theory; they were directly created from its mathematical principles.

"Seeing the chaotic shapes transformed into real, polished, shiny, physical jewelry was a great pleasure for the whole team. Touching and wearing them was also extremely exciting," said co-author Eleonora Bilotta of the University of Calabria. "We think it is the same joy that a scientist feels when her theory takes form, or when an artist finishes a painting."

The concept of chaos might suggest complete randomness, but to scientists, it denotes systems that are so sensitive to initial conditions that their output appears random, obscuring their underlying internal rules of order: the stock market, rioting crowds, brain waves during an epileptic seizure, or the weather. In a chaotic system, tiny effects are amplified through repetition until the system goes critical. The roots of today's chaos theory rest on a serendipitous discovery in the 1960s by mathematician-turned-meteorologist Edward Lorenz.

Enlarge / Let's see, you landed on my "Google Ads" space, and with three houses... that will be $1,400. (credit: Ron Amadeo / Hasbro)

It's been expected for some time, but today the Justice Department and eight states are suing Google over its purported domination of the online advertising market. The government has a problem with Google's position in "ad tech," or the tools used to automatically match advertisers with website publishers. To solve it, apparently, the DOJ has told Google it's considering breaking the company up.

“Today’s complaint alleges that Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful conduct to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “No matter the industry and no matter the company, the Justice Department will vigorously enforce our antitrust laws to protect consumers, safeguard competition, and ensure economic fairness and opportunity for all.”

The press release gives a quick rundown of what the DOJ has a problem with:

Enlarge / A scene from Proletariat's Spellbreak illustrating union members dodging alleged management interference.

Last month, workers at Spellbreak studio Proletariat became the third group within Activision Blizzard to form a union. Today, though, the Communication Workers of America is pulling back on its push for a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election that could have forced parent company Activision Blizzard to recognize that union. In doing so, the CWA cites actions by Proletariat CEO Seth Sivak that have made "a free and fair election impossible."

In a statement provided to Ars Technica, a CWA spokesperson said Sivak "chose to follow Activision Blizzard's lead and responded to the workers' desire to form a union with confrontational tactics." Those tactics include "a series of meetings that demoralized and disempowered the group," according to the CWA.

Proletariat Software Engineer Dustin Yost said in an accompanying statement that those management meetings "took their toll" on the group by "fram[ing] the conversation as a personal betrayal, instead [of] respecting our right to join together to protect ourselves and have a seat at the table..."

Enlarge / Microsoft's Surface devices have user-replaceable SSDs, but it's difficult to find them in the right (physical) size. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Microsoft's Surface devices had a well-deserved reputation for being impossible to repair in their early years, but Microsoft has sought to change that more recently. Newer Surfaces feature detailed repair manuals and, at least in theory, easily upgradeable SSDs.

I say "in theory" because it hasn't been as simple as going out, buying a drive, and installing it. The Surface's storage slot uses the standard M.2 interface, and most devices make it easy to access, but the PCs use relatively rare 30-mm-long drives that most of the big SSD makers simply don't offer to regular consumers. This has made it harder to do that old tech-savvy money-saving trick: buying a 128GB or 256GB version of a computer and upgrading it with a 512GB or 1TB drive for a fraction of what the company would charge you to do it.

But that's slowly changing. Some of the smaller-but-still-reputable SSD makers like Sabrent and Inland have finally started offering 30 mm-long versions of some of their SSDs complete with retail packaging and standard warranties. Until recently, the best way to get upgrades for these drives was to buy a warranty-less, possibly used white-label drive from the likes of Newegg or eBay. So being able to buy SSDs in full retail packaging with actual warranties is an improvement.

Enlarge / Nvidia's Eye Contact feature automatically maintains eye contact with a camera for you. (credit: Nvidia)

Nvidia recently released a beta version of Eye Contact, an AI-powered software video feature that automatically maintains eye contact for you while on-camera by estimating and aligning gaze. It ships with the 1.4 version of its Broadcast app, and the company is seeking feedback on how to improve it. In some ways, the tech may be too good because it never breaks eye contact, which appears unnatural and creepy at times.

To achieve its effect, Eye Contact replaces your eyes in the video stream with software-controlled simulated eyeballs that always stare directly into the camera, even if you're looking away in real life. The fake eyes attempt to replicate your natural eye color, and they even blink when you do.

So far, the response to Nvidia's new feature on social media has been largely negative. "I too, have always wanted streamers to maintain a terrifying level of unbroken eye contact while reading text that obviously isn't displayed inside their webcams," wrote The D-Pad on Twitter.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Twitter is being sued for alleged nonpayment of rent by the owner of its US headquarters building in San Francisco, the latest of several lawsuits saying Twitter stopped paying bills after Elon Musk bought the company.

The lawsuit, filed Friday by SRI Nine Market Square LLC, says Twitter leases 462,855 square feet on eight floors of the 1355 Market Street building but failed to pay $3.36 million in rent due in December 2022. Twitter also failed to pay rent of $3.43 million in January 2023, according to the complaint filed in California Superior Court in San Francisco County.

SRI had a letter of credit with Twitter amounting to $3.6 million "as security for Defendant's performance of its obligations under the Lease," the lawsuit said. Because Twitter failed to pay rent, SRI drew on the letter of credit, and it is now down to $1, the complaint said. Twitter allegedly failed to replenish the letter of credit as required by the lease.

Enlarge / SpaceX completed a wet-dress rehearsal of its Starship launch system on Monday. (credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX on Tuesday confirmed that it fully fueled its Starship launch system during a critical test on Monday and is now preparing to take the next step toward launch.

The company shared images and video of its fully fueled Starship upper stage and Super Heavy first stage in South Texas. The shiny, stainless steel vehicles appeared frosty as they were loaded with super-cold liquid oxygen and methane propellants.

During this "wet-dress rehearsal" test, SpaceX said it loaded more than 10 million pounds (about 460,000 kg) of propellant onboard the vehicle, which, when fully stacked, stands 120 meters tall. Essentially then, over the course of a little more than an hour, the company filled a skinny, 30-story skyscraper with combustible liquid propellants—and nothing blew up.