Long-time Slashdot reader Artem S. Tashkinov quotes Wired: More than a year has passed since Bloomberg Businessweek grabbed the lapels of the cybersecurity world with a bombshell claim: that Supermicro motherboards in servers used by major tech firms, including Apple and Amazon, had been stealthily implanted with a chip the size of a rice grain that allowed Chinese hackers to spy deep into those networks. Apple, Amazon, and Supermicro all vehemently denied the report. The NSA dismissed it as a false alarm. The Defcon hacker conference awarded it two Pwnie Awards, for "most overhyped bug" and "most epic fail." And no follow-up reporting has yet affirmed its central premise.

But even as the facts of that story remain unconfirmed, the security community has warned that the possibility of the supply chain attacks it describes is all too real. The NSA, after all, has been doing something like it for years, according to the leaks of whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Now researchers have gone further, showing just how easily and cheaply a tiny, tough-to-detect spy chip could be planted in a company's hardware supply chain. And one of them has demonstrated that it doesn't even require a state-sponsored spy agency to pull it off -- just a motivated hardware hacker with the right access and as little as $200 worth of equipment.

"Microsoft's latest keyboards now include dedicated Office and emoji keys," reports the Verge: The software giant was previously experimenting with an Office key on keyboards earlier this year, and now the company is launching a new Ergonomic and slim Bluetooth Keyboard that include the dedicated button. The Office key replaces the right-hand Windows key, and it's used to launch the Office for Windows 10 app that acts as a hub for Microsoft's productivity suite. You can also use the Office key as a shortcut to launch Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and more. Office key + W opens Word for example, while Office key + X opens Excel.

Alongside the Office key, there's also a new emoji key on these new keyboards. It will launch the emoji picker inside Windows 10, but you won't be able to assign it to a specific emoji or even create shortcuts, unfortunately...

Microsoft quietly launched these new keyboards at the company's Surface hardware event last week, but they'll be available in stores on October 15th.

"There is no 'robot apocalypse', even after a major corporate automation event," writes Gizmodo, citing something equally ominous in new research by a team of economists.

merbs shared their report: Instead, automation increases the likelihood that workers will be driven away from their previous jobs at the companies -- whether they're fired, or moved to less rewarding tasks, or quit -- and causes a long-term loss of wages for the employee. The report finds that "firm-level automation increases the probability of workers separating from their employers and decreases days worked, leading to a 5-year cumulative wage income loss of 11 percent of one year's earnings." That's a pretty significant loss.

Worse still, the study found that even in the Netherlands, which has a comparatively generous social safety net to, say, the United States, workers were only able to offset a fraction of those losses with benefits provided by the state. Older workers, meanwhile, were more likely to retire early -- deprived of years of income they may have been counting on. Interestingly, the effects of automation were felt similarly through all manner of company -- small, large, industrial, services-oriented, and so on. The study covered all non-finance sector firms, and found that worker separation and income loss were "quite pervasive across worker types, firm sizes and sectors."

Automation, in other words, forces a more pervasive, slower-acting and much less visible phenomenon than the robots-are-eating-our-jobs talk is preparing us for. "People are focused on the damage of automation being mass unemployment," study author James Bessen, an economist at Boston University, tells me in an interview. "And that's probably wrong...." According to Bessen, compared to firms that have not automated, the rate of workers leaving their jobs is simply higher, though from the outside, it can resemble more straightforward turnover. "But it's more than attrition," he says. "A much greater percentage -- 8 percent more -- are leaving." And some never come back to work. "There's a certain percentage that drop out of the labor force. That five years later still haven't gotten a job."

The result, Bessen says, is an added strain on the social safety net that it is currently woefully unprepared to handle.

Bodhammer shares a report from Popular Mechanics: The U.S. Navy has jumped into the game by filing a patent for a compact fusion reactor, according to exclusive reporting by The War Zone. The success of the device, developed by researcher Salvatore Cezar Pais of the Naval Air Warfare Center -- Aircraft Division, relies on a part called a dynamic fusor. According to the patent, Pais' plasma chamber contains several pairs of these dynamic fusors, which rapidly spin and vibrate within the chamber in order to create a "concentrated magnetic energy flux" that can squish the gases together.

Coated with an electrical charge, the cone-shaped fusors pump fuel gases like Deuterium or Deuterium-Xenon into the chamber, which are then put under intense heat and pressure to create the nuclei-fusing reaction. Current technology at reactors around the world use superconductors to create a magnetic field. The War Zone reports that the device could potentially produce more than a terawatt of energy while only taking in power in the kilowatt to megawatt range.

Chris Matyszczyk from ZDNet retells the draconian story of a Financial Times writer who wasn't able to prove she purchased a ticket for the London buses because her phone died (she used Apple Pay), which led to her being charged a criminal. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report: Today's witness is Jemima Kelly. She's a writer for The Financial Times. Please don't let any personal thoughts about that get in the way of her story. You see, she just experienced a little technological nightmare. A cheery digital convert, she admits she often leaves the house without her wallet. But surely not without her iPhone. Apple Pay is, after all, a contemporary joy. It's right up there with Tinder in its ability to make your life easier.

Kelly, indeed, hops on London buses and uses Apple Pay to tap her payment instead of buying a ticket the old-fashioned way. Which, as she cheerily described, is easy unless a ticket inspector wanders by. Just after your iPhone's battery has died. She couldn't prove that she'd paid, but gave her personal details and assumed there'd be a record of her probity on the transportation company's computers. But then she was charged with, well, not providing proof of payment. Charged as in would be forced to go to court and to plead guilty or not guilty within 21 days. Here's where things got (more) awkward. Kelly produced a bank statement that proved she'd paid. The transportation company -- Transport For London -- insisted this wasn't enough.

It seems she'd failed another digital task -- registering her Apple Pay with Transport For London. She was edging ever closer to criminal status. But did her Apple Pay details need to be registered? Kelly revealed: "They told me, 'there is no requirement for cards to be registered, the same as paying for any goods and services in a shop'. But it's not the same, actually; in a shop, you are given a breakdown in the form of a receipt." So, here she was, contactless and receiptless. Next, she heard that her court case had happened and she'd been found guilty. Oh, and she also owed a fine of around $592. In the end, Kelly managed to get back to court and persuade the judge to void her conviction, but the process took months.

"Her story, however, aptly describes how the digital world demands our complete and unyielding participation," writes Matyszczyk. "Digital systems are designed by those who strive for complete perfection and consistency. Which doesn't describe the human condition at all." Do you think digitizing everything is a good thing?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Google's October 15 hardware event is fast approaching, and in addition to the launch of the Pixel 4, Google Home Mini 2, Google WI-Fi 2, and a new pair of Pixel Buds, the show should usher in a new Pixelbook. We've known the new Pixelbook would be called the "Pixelbook Go," but other than a few details from Chrome OS commits, the device has mostly been a mystery. Google takes its title as "least secretive device manufacturer" very seriously, though, and recently 9to5Google managed to just get a Pixelbook Go ahead of the event. They took a bunch of pictures and video. Unlike the fairly unique design of the original Pixelbook and the Pixel Slate, the Pixelbook Go mostly just looks like a MacBook. 9to5Google got that vibe from the device in person, too, writing: "We can't fathom that this laptop won't immediately be labeled 'Google's MacBook.'" The one unique design aspect is the bottom, which is a brightly colored, ribbed pad that covers the entire bottom of the device. This device is a near-final prototype, with placeholder logos and product names.

9to5Google reports that the keyboard is "just as good or better than the first Pixelbook" and it "feels great to type on." The trackpad is "a traditional "diving board" trackpad and seemed sufficiently responsive and "clicky." There are single USB-C ports on the left and right side of the laptop, along with LEDs indicating the device's charging status. Like with past Pixelbooks, it seems like you can charge the device from either port. On the right side is also a headphone jack. Other specifications include: Intel Core m3, i5, and i7 configurations; Either 8GB or 16GB RAM; 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB storage; 2 front-firing speakers; 2MP front-facing camera -- 1080p at 60fps; Titan C chip; 13.3-inch touchscreen; and 16:9 aspect ratio, both Full HD or 4K "Molecular Display" options.

You can watch 9to5Google's hands-on video here.

harrymcc writes: Go to Amazon, Walmart.com, and eBay, and you can find an array of companies selling laser cutters and engravers for a few hundred dollars -- dramatically less than you'll pay for a brand name such as Glowforge. But these budget models lack the safety features required to keep lasers safe, and may even have ignored the required FDA paperwork to put them on the market. Over at Fast Company, Glenn Fleishman wrote about the dangers of these devices. When alerted of specific models, the ecommerce sites removed them -- but many others remain for sale.

Rwanda's Mara Group just released two smartphones, earning the company the title of the first smartphone manufacturer in Africa. Their grand ambitions are to help turn Rwanda into a regional tech hub. Fast Company reports: Rwanda President Paul Kagame has announced Africa's "first high tech smartphone factory," CNN reported. While smartphones are assembled in other African nations (Egypt, Algeria, and South Africa all have assembly plants), according to Reuters, those companies all import the components. But at Mara, they manufacture the phones from the motherboards to the packaging, which is all done in the new factory. Kagame made the announcement in a press conference on Monday in the capital of Kigali. The phones, called Mara X and Mara Z, are the first "Made in Africa" models. Both run on Google's Android operating system. While the company admits they are a little more expensive than other options, like the popular Tecno brand phones made by a Chinese-owned company, they hope customers are willing to pay a bit more for quality and Made in Africa pride.

System76, the Denver-based Linux PC manufacturer and developer of Pop OS, has some stellar news for those who prefer their laptops a little more open. Later this month the company will begin shipping two of their laptop models with its Coreboot-powered open source firmware. From a report: Beginning today, System76 will start taking pre-orders for both the Galago Pro and Darter Pro laptops. The systems will ship out later in October, and include the company's Coreboot-based open source firmware which was previously teased at the 2019 Open Source Firmware Conference. (Coreboot, formerly known as LinuxBIOS, is a software project aimed at replacing proprietary firmware found in most computers with a lightweight firmware designed to perform only the minimum number of tasks necessary to load and run a modern 32-bit or 64-bit operating system.) What's so great about ripping out the proprietary firmware included in machines like this and replacing it with an open alternative? To begin with, it's leaner. System76 claims that users can boot from power off to the desktop 29% faster with its Coreboot-based firmware.

[...] Both of these laptops can be kitted out with 10th-Generation Intel CPUs (specifically the i5-10210U and the i7-10510U), and both have glare-resistant matte 1080p IPS displays. Beginning at $949, the Galago Pro features an all-aluminum chassis, a wealth of connectivity options including HDMI, DisplayPort to USB-C and Thunderbolt, and can be configured with up to 32GB of RAM and up to 6TB of storage space. The Darter Pro, meanwhile, can be built out with 32GB of RAM and up to 2TB of storage, and features up to 10 hours of battery life.

pgmrdlm writes: American workers are more productive than ever, but their paychecks haven't kept pace. Researchers with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco have identified a culprit: robots. Economists Sylvain Leduc and Zheng Liu theorize that automation is sapping employees' bargaining power, making it harder for them to demand higher wages. Companies across a range of industries increasingly have the option of using technology to handle work formerly done by people, giving employers the upper hand in setting pay. The result -- a widening gulf between wages and productivity. The research may bolster proposals for universal basic income, which is a government cash stipend that typically doesn't come with requirements. Andrew Yang, a Democratic presidential candidate who's running on a platform of giving every American adult $1,000 per month in basic income, tweeted about the economic findings, writing that automation is "making it hard for workers to ask for more."

"We should just give Americans a raise," he wrote. To be sure, automation is leading to massive changes in work that are hitting some industries and workers especially hard, such as lower and middle-skilled workers. For instance, the ranks of office assistants and clerical workers is expected to shrink by 5% through 2026 as offices shift tasks to artificial intelligence and other software, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This could result in a loss of 200,000 jobs.

Pacific Gas & Electric began cutting off power to nearly 800,000 customers across large swaths of Northern and Central California Wednesday morning, in a planned outage that it says is necessary to avoid the risk of fire. From a report: PG&E gave residents in more than 30 counties advance warnings about the power cut, which it says would "proactively" reduce the dangerous effects of a potential "widespread, severe wind event" forecast for Wednesday. The utility giant's transmission lines have been linked to wildfires that have devastated communities in California. It filed for bankruptcy protection in January, and it's been roundly criticized for mismanagement and safety failures. As of Wednesday morning, people in Humboldt, Marin, Napa, Sonoma and other counties are currently without power in the initial phase of PG&E's Public Safety Power Shutoff. "The decision to turn off power was based on forecasts of dry, hot and windy weather including potential fire risk," PG&E said in a statement about the outage.

"This is a highly charged story," began Olof Ramstrom, a member of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry, announcing that a trio of chemists who spent decades developing the lithium ion battery were today awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work. From a report: These batteries, small and powerful compared to older battery technology, made possible pocket-sized mobile phones, laptop computers, electric cars, and renewable energy devices such as solar panels that can help address the problems of climate change, Ramstrom says. The prize will be shared by John B. Goodenough from the University of Texas at Austin, M. Stanley Whittingham from Binghamton University in New York, and Akira Yoshino, who works at Asahi Kasei Corporation and Meijo University in Japan. They will split the roughly $1 million award. Lithium batteries have been touted as Nobel-worthy for years, says Bonnie Charpentier, president of the American Chemical Society. "I think that it's magnificent that Goodenough won this year," she says, noting that at age 97 he is the oldest Nobel laureate. Yoshino is 71, showing that the research stretched across generations.

Indeed, it was in the 1970s that Whittingham began investigating the use of lithium, the smallest and lightest metal in the periodic table of the elements. That size and weight made it possible to pack a lot of lithium into a small space, unlike the large and heavy lead-acid batteries that dominated at the time. Lithium had another advantage: it easily gave up its electrons, and batteries produce electricity when electrons flow from one end, called the anode, to the other end, called the cathode. Whittingham put metallic lithium in one end and a layered material called titanitum disulphide at the other; the titanium had spaces that could capture the flowing electrons. However, this combination of materials also had the unfortunate potential to explode. Slashdot interviewed Goodenough two years ago. You can read the interview here.

MojoKid writes: The Raspberry Pi 4 is one of the cheapest single-board computers around. The new 4th generation is a solid performance lift over its predecessor and good bang for the buck if you're interested in learning Linux, working with embedded computing, or just want to kick back and play some retro games on an emulator. In addition, the latest version of the Raspberry Pi Foundation's Linux distribution, Raspbian Buster, comes with a new firmware revision for the tiny DIY PC that removes its 2GHz clock speed limit and allows voltage adjustments to wring out additional performance, with proper cooling of course. In testing, while there are no guarantees in overclocking, HotHardware was able to realize more than a 40% lift in their Raspberry Pi 4's processor clock speed, and a 50% boost to the GPU with an air-cooled mini case kit. Combined, they're not enough to turn the Pi 4 into your every day PC, but the performance gains are measurable and valuable. All it takes is a quick firmware update and a couple of Linux commands to dial things in.

An anonymous reader shares a report: One of the interesting developments of Intel's 9th Generation Core processors for desktops, known as the S-series, was that the company decided to release versions of the hardware with the graphics disabled in order to use every chip from the wafer. At the time Intel was criticised on its pricing: it was offering the same processor minus graphics for the same bulk unit cost, with no discount. Today Intel is adjusting its strategy, and pricing these F and KF processors lower than before. Nearly every 9th Generation Core processor for the desktop has a corresponding graphics-free option: the Core i9-9900K has its Core i9-9900KF, the Core i5-9500 has a Core i5-9500F. The difference between these two parts is just a matter of disabled graphics, which means the user can't take advantage of Intel's QuickSync or a display, however most of these processors end up in systems with discrete graphics cards anyway. At the time of launch, Intel priced them identically to the parts that did have graphics, but ultimately retail outlets were selling the K and KF processors at a small discount. Intel's announcement today makes that price difference official.

An anonymous reader quotes Gizmodo: Over the next decade, U.S. banks, which are investing $150 billion in technology annually, will use automation to eliminate 200,000 jobs, thus facilitating "the greatest transfer from labor to capital" in the industry's history. The call is coming from inside the house this time, too -- both the projection and the quote come from a recent Wells Fargo report, whose lead author, Mike Mayo, told the Financial Times that he expects the industry to shed 10 percent of all of its jobs. This, Mayo said, will lay the groundwork for, and I quote, "a golden age of banking efficiency." The job cuts are slated to hit front offices, call centers, and branches the hardest, where 20-30 percent of those roles will be on the chopping block. They will be replaced by better ATMs, automated chatbots, and software instruments that take advantage of big data and cloud computing to make investment decisions...

It is not rare that a report forecasts the imminent erosion of an industry's jobs picture, but it is a little rare that a prominent industry analyst for one of said industry's largest companies is so brazen -- even giddy -- about trumpeting the imminent loss of those jobs.... It is the confidence and enthusiasm for this schema that is key, as that is what will transform the report into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the banks buy what Mayo and Wells Fargo are selling, then the report will contribute to an automated arms race between companies to cut staff and purchase enterprise financial software products that is already underway. This is how a lot of corporate automation unfolds.

As a result, we can expect to interact with even more customer service chatbots and automated call menus (whether they work well or not), to see more financial decisions turned over to algorithms, and a continued flood of software products to enter the banking industry. And Wells Fargo certainly won't be the only bank automating here: As the FT notes, Citigroup is planning to eliminate tens of thousands of call center workers, and Deutsche Bank expects to slash half its ~100,000-strong workforce.
Gizmodo argues the report's analysis is "filled with buzzwords and promises of harnessing big data and predictive algorithms that may or may not pan out to be as effective as currently thought."

Nonetheless, they write that the report's author "has been making the cable TV rounds, touting this incoming golden age of high-tech ultra-streamlined, automated banking, an age in which fleshy humanoid obstructions are finally smoothed out of the picture, making way for a purer, faster flow of capital from customer to banking executive."

Intel researchers published a paper last week suggesting a new kind of CPU memory to block side-channel attacks like Meltdown and Spectre, according to ZDNet: SAPM -- or Speculative-Access Protected Memory -- is the work of Intel STORM (STrategic Offensive Research & Mitigations), a team of elite security researchers that Intel assembled since 2017 to work on creating mitigations for all the speculative-execution attacks that have impacted the CPU maker's products. SAPM is only an idea for the moment, and there are no silicon prototypes. Intel STORM engineers only released "the theory and possible implementation options," to provide "a ground base for other researchers to improve upon and also for the industry to consider...."

Intel STORM researchers say SAPM will implement protections at the hardware level and will work with both physical and virtual memory addresses. "SAPM can be applied to specific memory ranges, with the attribute that any memory access to such memory type will be instruction-level serialized, meaning that any speculative execution beyond the SAPM-accessing instruction will be stopped pending the successful retirement of this SAPM-accessing instruction," Intel STORM developers said in their short description of SAPM's basic principles...

Intel STORM researchers say the second part (backend) of most speculative execution attacks performs the same actions. SAPM was designed to introduce hardware-based protections against the backend part of most attacks. It's because of this concept that Intel's research team believes that SAPM will also future-proof the next generations of Intel CPUs against other -- currently undiscovered -- speculative execution attacks.
"Intel STORM researchers don't deny that there's a performance hit," the article adds. "However, this impact is low and could be mitigated further by dropping other existing protections."

AmiMoJo quotes ZDNet: Semiconductor manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd (TSMC) has filed multiple lawsuits against its competitor GlobalFoundries, saying the US company allegedly infringed upon 25 patents related to its node processes. TSMC said on Monday that the lawsuits are seeking injunctions to stop GlobalFoundries from manufacturing and selling semiconductor products that allegedly infringe upon the patents in question...

The 25 TSMC patents in the complaints relate to technologies such as FinFET designs, shallow trench isolation techniques, double patterning methods, advanced seal rings and gate structures, and innovative contact etch stop layer designs, TSMC said. These technologies are used to create TSMC's 40nm, 28nm, 22nm, 14nm, and 12nm node processes.

Long-time Slashdot reader sandbagger shared this news from the University of Illinois at Urbana, where researchers have made a surprising new discovery in a well-studied bioactive molecule: The molecule, which inserts itself into DNA to prevent replication, was once explored as a potential anti-cancer agent... "While examining these pharmaceutical molecules, we noticed that their molecular structures looked much like the organic semiconductors..." said chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Ying Diao.

These molecules, called DNA topoisomerase inhibitors, are flat and contain neatly stacked columns of electrically conductive molecular rings -- features that make a good semiconductor. Distinct from a typical semiconductor, these molecular columns are linked together by hydrogen bonds that can move charges from column to column, forming bridges that transform the entire molecular assembly into a semiconductor -- something rarely seen before this study, the researchers said. "These molecules can interact with biological material with high specificity, making them good candidates for use in biosensors," Diao said. "They are also easily printable but will require new solvents because they are chemically different than other organic semiconductors. The fabrication infrastructure is already in place...." Organic semiconductors are responsible for things like flexible electronics and transparent solar cells, but researchers are working to expand their use in biomedicine and devices that require interaction between electrically active molecules and biological molecules...

The team printed and tested the semiconductors and acknowledge that their efficiency and performance need improvement. Diao said the real excitement regarding this advance will come from the possibility of discovering similar molecules. "We envision partnering with researchers in machine learning who can train computers to spot the unique characteristics of these molecules," Diao said. "They can mine the vast pharmaceutical databases available today in search of molecules with similar, or maybe even better semiconducting properties."

The first all electric X-plane, the X-57 Mod II, has arrived at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California and is now ready to undergo some rigorous testing. Engadget reports: X-planes are the aircraft the agency uses to test and evaluate new technologies -- NASA plans to put this plane's electric propulsion system through testing, with the intention of sharing "valuable lessons learned along the way" in order "to inform the growing electric aircraft market." NASA will begin by conducting ground tests on the Mod II to prepare for the project's next phases, which will include taxi and, eventually, flight tests. It's not entirely clear when those will take place, but the Mod III and IV configurations of the plane will have wings unlike the current iteration. When a flight test does happen, it will make history as the first crewed X-plane in two decades. X-57 Project Manager Tom Rigney said: "The X-57 Mod II aircraft delivery to NASA is a significant event, marking the beginning of a new phase in this exciting electric X-plane project. With the aircraft in our possession, the X-57 team will soon conduct extensive ground testing of the integrated electric propulsion system to ensure the aircraft is airworthy. We plan to rapidly share valuable lessons learned along the way as we progress toward flight testing, helping to inform the growing electric aircraft market."

A man in Florida has been arrested for cutting the brake lines on dozens of public scooters. The man has been identified by police as 59-year-old Randall Thomas Williams of Ford Lauderdale, though a possible motive has not yet been released. The BBC reports: According to Fort Lauderdale police, a surveillance operation was set up over the weekend after more than 140 scooters were vandalized. Randall Williams, 59, was captured on camera cutting brake lines over three days, police say. When Mr Williams was arrested on Sunday, he was found carrying two pairs of wire cutters and wearing one glove. He has been charged with criminal mischief as well as resisting arrest and "loitering or prowling."

"In the early morning hours on September 28, 2019... the defendant was observed walking around the neighborhood, hiding in the shadows, and utilizing the dark alleyways to conceal himself from public view," according to the police arrest report. It said he placed white stickers over the QR codes used by riders to activate the scooters. During his interrogation "the defendant failed to dispel officers' alarm as to why he was lurking in the shadows and using the alleyways behind closed business, which are not normal avenues of transport for law-abiding citizens," police said. The companies who owned the scooters have since removed the scooters in the vicinity to avoid rider injury.