05 Sci-Tech

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Excerpt from bgr.com

With its new unskippable ad feature, YouTube might end up killing ad blockers once and for all. Currently, the video platform is experimenting with server-side ad injection, which means the ads would appear directly in a video’s stream, bypassing ad blockers.

A Google spokesperson explained the test to Gizmodo: “YouTube is improving its performance and reliability in serving both organic and ad video content. This update may result in suboptimal viewing experiences for viewers with ad blockers installed. Ad blockers violate YouTube’s Terms of Service, and we’ve been urging viewers for some time to support their favorite creators and allow ads on YouTube or try YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience.”

While YouTube claims that watching ads helps support users’ favorite creators, a Redditor said they’re getting 90 seconds of unskippable ads “before every video,” which makes the platform pretty much useless.

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Excerpt from www.washingtonexaminer.com

Donald Trump on Thursday took aim at House Freedom Caucus Chairman Bob Good (R-VA) as the former president actively campaigns against the Republican incumbent in his primary election next week.

In a closed-door meeting on Thursday, Trump addressed GOP lawmakers to strategize ahead of the 2024 election and how the party can remain unified heading into November. But the former president also wasted no time to get in a handful of subtle jabs at other prominent Republicans, including some who were in the room, according to members present.

At one point during the roughly hourlong meeting, Trump touted his endorsement record so far in the 2024 cycle, noting he’s sure it makes “most of you guys happy,” one lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. And, he added, there are likely “a few of you who are not going to like that now,” the lawmaker said.

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Excerpt from abcnews.go.com

The United States has lifted a ban on providing American weapons and training to a controversial Ukrainian military unit that was key to the defense of the major port city of Mariupol

KYIV, Ukraine — The U.S. has lifted a ban on providing American weapons and training to a controversial Ukrainian military unit that was key to the defense of the major port city of Mariupol, the State Department said on Tuesday.

The Azov Brigade is among Ukraine’s most effective and popular fighting units but it has been dogged by its origins as a volunteer battalion that drew fighters from far-right circles and criticism for some of its tactics. The U.S. had banned the regiment from using American weapons, citing the neo-Nazi ideology of some of its founders.

The current members of the Azov Brigade, which has been absorbed into Ukraine’s National Guard as the 12th Special Forces Brigade, reject accusations of extremism and any ties with far-right movements. But the Kremlin has seized on the regiment’s origins in its efforts to cast Russia’s invasion as a battle against Nazi influence in Ukraine.

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Excerpt from nordicmonitor.com

An amendment to the Personnel Law of the Turkish Armed Forces that introduces new restrictions on social media use by soldiers was passed by the Turkish Parliament on Wednesday. The legislation aims to address security concerns following recent incidents of leaks and ambushes.

Under the new regulations, soldiers are now strictly prohibited from using social media platforms. The ban is intended to prevent the dissemination of sensitive information that could compromise military operations and endanger personnel. This move comes in response to several security breaches that have been attributed to the misuse of social media by military personnel.

Previous orders had already prohibited soldiers from using mobile phones capable of taking photos and video during military operations, with disobedience resulting in investigations for insubordination. However, this is the first time the military’s own disciplinary regulations are being amended.

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Excerpt from www.ecns.cn

In the vast, semiarid region near Postmasburg, in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province, construction of one of the country’s biggest renewable energy power plants is nearing completion.

The Redstone Concentrated Solar Thermal Power Project is expected to begin trial operations soon, eventually generating enough energy to power 200,000 households in South Africa, and thereby greatly alleviating the country’s acute power shortage.

Energy has been a major area of cooperation between China and South Africa over the past years. During President Xi Jinping’s visit to South Africa in August, in the presence of Xi and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, the two countries signed a number of cooperation deals in Pretoria, including agreements on emergency power, investment in renewable energy and the upgrade of South Africa’s power grids.

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Excerpt from www.reuters.com

New Zealand to reform of ‘outdated’ firearm laws  Reuters

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Excerpt from www.thehindu.com

 

Pakistani media outlets reported in the past week that the country plans to implement a Chinese-style firewall to block users from accessing social media platforms.

Pakistan Observer and Daily Ausaf claim the government is ready to set up a ‘National Firewall’ to stop people from accessing X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and YouTube. These outlets also noted that there are plans for filtering keywords to enforce the policy and block unwanted content. Other media reports claim even those using virtual private networks (VPNs) to access the internet would be hit by this digital firewall.

However, media outlet Samaa on June 10 quoted Pakistan’s Information Minister Atta Tarar as saying that no ‘Chinese-style firewall’ was being set up, though he did speak about the need to crack down on hate speech and misinformation.

Such conflicting reports reveal the lack of clarity regarding the current status of Pakistan’s potential firewall and its implementation. But, it must be noted that Pakistan does have a history of curtailing people’s access to the Internet, either through website or social media blocks. Some examples include a Twitter block in 2017 that was flagged by the company itself, and internet disruptions earlier this year around the time of the country’s elections.

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Excerpt from myind.net

According to a media report, the Indian Army has received the first batch of man-portable suicide drones known as Nagastra-1. These drones are capable of accurately targeting enemy training camps, launch pads, and infiltrators, thereby reducing risks to soldiers. The high-tech drones have been completely designed and developed in India by Economic Explosives Limited (EEL), a subsidiary of Solar Industries, based in Nagpur. Reports indicate that these drones have an indigenous content of over 75 percent

The introduction of these drones will significantly bolster the Indian Army’s ability to conduct shallow strikes across the border when required. Drones such as the Nagastra-1, equipped with built-in warheads, are often referred to as kamikaze or exploding drones. According to defense officials, the Indian Army has placed an order for 480 such drones with EEL (Economic Explosives Limited), out of which 120 Nagastra-1s have already been delivered to an Army Ammunition Depot.

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Excerpt from www.wvpe.org

The United States’ pivot to biofuels is releasing large amounts of hazardous air pollution into largely rural communities, according to a new report. The Environmental Integrity Project is calling for the end of biofuel subsidies and improved regulations of the industry’s emissions.

The report said biofuels — like corn ethanol and biodiesel from soybeans — released almost as much total hazardous air pollution as oil refineries in 2022. But unlike fossil fuel plants, biofuels have nearly twice the threshold before they’re mandated to install pollution controls.

Courtney Bernhardt is the director of research for the Environmental Integrity Project.

“It means that rural communities, largely across the Midwest, near biofuel manufacturing plants often suffer from unhealthy air quality,” Bernhardt said.

The report said lax regulations on these plants are harming the environment and communities they’re in, despite the industry’s “green-washing.”

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Excerpt from www.businessinsider.com

Congress is terrified that TikTok could be deployed as a disinformation tool to shape Americans’ views of current events in China’s favor. It’s a big part of why it passed a law in April to force a sale of TikTok’s US assets from its China-based owner, ByteDance, or else face a ban.

But are Americans worried about news and disinformation on TikTok? Not so much, at least when compared with other platforms, according to a March survey of around 10,000 US adults conducted by the Pew Research Center, which was released this week.

In fact, compared to Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter), respondents felt that TikTok was the app least likely to influence the news stories they saw, whether that be via algorithmic recommendations or content moderation. By the numbers, around 61% of US adults said they felt TikTok was influencing the news they were shown, while 74% said Facebook was, 72% said Instagram was, and 66% said X was.

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Excerpt from www.scientificamerican.com

First Wooden Satellite Will Test ‘Green’ Space Exploration

Japan’s LignoSat will test wood’s resilience in space and could lead to a new era of more sustainable, less polluting satellites

By Tim Hornyak & Nature magazine

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Excerpt from www.manmonthly.com.au

MIT and University of Texas researchers have developed what they say is the first chip-based 3D printer, a major step towards a portable, palm-sized 3D printing device.

Smaller than a coin, the device could enable a user to rapidly create customized, low-cost objects on the go, said MIT in a news release.

The Robert J. Shillman career development professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), and a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics, senior author Jelena Notaros, said the system completely rethinks what a 3D printer is.

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Excerpt from www.hindustantimes.com

 

June 13 – Myanmar’s resistance fighters notched decisive breakthroughs last year by relying on a scattered fleet of drones in battles against one of Southeast Asia’s most feared militaries.

But as the civil war grinds on, the rebels increasingly find their familiar weapons – Chinese-made commercial drones modified to carry arms – in the unfamiliar hands of the country’s ruling junta, according to seven people with knowledge of the matter. “The battle is changing now as drones are being used by both sides,” said a 31-year-old rebel fighter in the country’s southeast, identifying himself by the nom de guerre of Ta Yoke Gyi. He said the junta began using armed unmanned aerial vehicles to attack the rebels at around the turn of the year and that his unit recently shot down a drone, which they identified as Chinese from its components and had been modified for combat. Two rebel fighters in other parts of Myanmar also described similar skirmishes to Reuters.

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Excerpt from www.sciencenews.org

Genetic clues have unveiled a type of ritual child sacrifice at an ancient Maya site that consisted only of young boys, often chosen as closely related pairs that included twins.

The discovery stems from a burial of more than 100 people in an underground chamber discovered in 1967 at Chichén Itzá, a once dominant Maya city in what’s now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Chichén Itzá reached its pinnacle between around A.D. 800 and A.D. 1000, as many Maya cities in Mexico and Central America fell on hard times or were abandoned (SN: 12/4/23).

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Excerpt from www.tomshardware.com

Intel, Samsung Foundry, and TSMC use ASML’s EUV lithography machines, which are capable of ‘printing’ semiconductors at a 13nm resolution, to build chips on their latest fabrication nodes. But using a laser produced plasma (LPP) EUV light source (which is a CO2 laser applied to small tin droplets) is not the only way to generate 13.5 nm EUV radiation to ‘print’ chips. Researchers in Japan are exploring the usage of free-electron lasers (FELs) from particle accelerators to make chips with leading-edge feature sizes, reports Spectrum.IEEE.org.

The High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), in Tsukuba, Japan, is exploring usage of free electron lasers (FELs) generated by an energy recovery linear (ERL) accelerator for chipmaking. They say that an energy recovery linear accelerator could produce tens of kilowatts of EUV power cost-effectively to power multiple lithography machines simultaneously. By contrast, ASML has produced a 500W EUV light source for its Twinscan NXE:5800E and is looking at potentially improving power of its EUV light sources to 1000W — eventually.

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Excerpt from www.sciencedaily.com

Researchers from North Carolina State University have demonstrated miniature soft hydraulic actuators that can be used to control the deformation and motion of soft robots that are less than a millimeter thick. The researchers have also demonstrated that this technique works with shape memory materials, allowing users to repeatedly lock the soft robots into a desired shape and return to the original shape as needed.

“Soft robotics holds promise for many applications, but it is challenging to design the actuators that drive the motion of soft robots on a small scale,” says Jie Yin, corresponding author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State. “Our approach makes use of commercially available multi-material 3D printing technologies and shape memory polymers to create soft actuators on a microscale that allow us to control very small soft robots, which allows for exceptional control and delicacy.”

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Excerpt from www.science20.com

Do you believe bees are dying, that GMOs ‘need more study’, modern pesticides cause impotence?If so, I know how you vote, and that you would be a great fit as a humanities academic claiming to be an expert about science. Like historian Dr. Naomi Oreskes, who sees conspiracies everywhere except in her tribe, even if a domestic front group for her political party got a gigantic mysterious off-shore anonymous donation through a donor-advised fund because they routinely promoted Russia Today and Sputnik and oppose American science in Russia’s two largest exports, energy and food.

Dr. Oreskes routinely denied that she takes money from lawyers but when exposed as a liar after a deposition reverted to arguing that she only takes money from lawyers out to sue oil companies since Big Oil was trying to buy off scientists. Because she was a history major she may never have learned logic. If the conspiracy had been on the Big Oil side, they’d have won. She repeatedly claimed Monsanto bought off scientists to get GMOs approved yet her noble cause resisted the money. So trillions of dollars of Big Oil money could not buy off a few hundred climate scientists while tiny Monsanto, with even less revenue than organic store Whole Foods, somehow bought off 500,000 biologists?

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Excerpt from autogear.pt

The European Commission threatens to increase tariffs on imports of electric vehicles from China by the European Union (EU) starting from July 4, after provisionally concluding that Beijing is benefiting Chinese manufacturers with “unfair subsidies, which is causing an economic threat to EU electric vehicle producers”.

In a statement, the community executive indicated that, provisionally, imports of electric vehicles from BYD will be subject to a 17.4% tax, Geely to 20%, and SAIC to 38.1%, these being the brands included in the investigated sample.

Based on the findings of the investigation, the Commission has provisionally established that it is “in the interest of the EU to remedy the effects of the detected unfair trade practices by imposing provisional countervailing duties on imports of electric vehicles from China”.