An anonymous reader shares a report: The first few months of 2021 have been absolutely massive for AMD and Intel. According to the latest report from Mercury Research, the first three months of 2021 saw the largest yearly increase in shipments of CPUs in a quarter of a century, and second only to the final moments of 2020 in terms of raw volume. You'd be perhaps surprised to learn that Intel has gained a touch in overall x86 market share in Q1 2021, whereas AMD reportedly lost out. There's only a percentage point in it: a 1% gain for Intel and a 1% loss for AMD, though. Far from major gains in either direction. Mercury Research puts that down to an increase in budget chip shipments for Chipzilla, which tallies with other figures out of the tech giant as of late. But where Intel has gained in mobile processor market share, it loses out marginally in desktop. That's where AMD's Ryzen processors are seemingly crushing it, and despite some difficulty sourcing the top-tier chips, such as the Ryzen 9 5950X and Ryzen 9 5900X, AMD is still managing to make gains within the market predisposed to Intel processors for so long. [...] But perhaps the biggest win in AMD's eyes is the 1.8% increase in server market share quarter to quarter, and 3.8 percent year on year. That means its Epyc processors are selling supremely well against Intel's Xeon chips, and the market that AMD will be most determined to get more of a footing in.

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In the absence of humans, the region around Chernobyl is being reclaimed by nature. From a report: 35 years ago a total of 350,000 people were evacuated from the territory after one of humanity's worst nuclear disasters. Ukrainian authorities say the area may not be fit for humans for another 24,000 years. Today, however, it serves as Among the Chernobyl exclusion zone, endangered animals thrive, including the stunning Przewalski's horses. For many decades they were considered the last truly wild horse in the world. In the 1970s they were almost rendered extinct in the wild, but a captive breeding program managed to rescue the species from extinction. Today, several hundred live in the wild in the steppes of Asia and in Europe, but there's also a steadily growing population - to the surprise of many - in Chernobyl. Further reading: Chernobyl alcohol drink seized by authorities.

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Scientists believe the dust sample may provide clues on the formation of the Solar System.

Gas flaring worldwide decreased by 5 percent in the pandemic year, mostly because of lower demand for oil, according to a recent report from the World Bank. From a report: While the overall drop was expected, the report offered a detailed picture of the flaring activities around the world, with steep declines in some areas, like the United States, and surprising increases in others, notably China. Flaring occurs when the gas that emerges with crude oil is burned off rather than captured. That burning emits carbon dioxide, a gas that is the main contributor to climate change. According to World Bank officials, flaring adds roughly 400 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions to the atmosphere every year. According to the report, Russia was responsible for more flaring overall than any other country in 2020, contributing 15 percent of the global total. But within Russia, there were areas of progress. Burning continued to decrease in the Khanty-Mansi region of Siberia, where flaring volumes have dropped by nearly 80 percent over the previous 15 years.

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Several Apple suppliers may have used forced labor in China, according to The Information. From a report: Working with two human rights groups, the publication identified seven companies that supplied products or services to Apple and supported forced labor programs, according to statements made by the Chinese government. The programs target the country's Muslim minority population, particularly Uyghurs living in Xinjiang. Six of the seven suppliers were said to participate in work programs operated by the Chinese government, The Information reports, which human rights groups describe as frequently offering cover for forced labor. Workers can be jailed for refusing to join the work programs, the report says, and those enrolled in the programs are often moved far from their homes. One of the suppliers operated in Xinjiang, the region of China predominantly populated by Uyghurs and where the most egregious human rights violations have reportedly taken place. The companies supplied Apple with antennas, cables, and coatings, among other products and services, according to The Information.

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For more than 16 months, a threat actor has been seen adding malicious servers to the Tor network in order to intercept traffic and perform SSL stripping attacks on users accessing cryptocurrency-related sites. From a report: The attacks, which began in January 2020, consisted of adding servers to the Tor network and marking them as "exit relays," which are the servers through which traffic leaves the Tor network to re-enter the public internet after being anonymized. But since January 2020, a threat actor has been inserting thousands of malicious servers into the Tor network to identify traffic heading to cryptocurrency mixing websites and perform an SSL stripping attack, which is when traffic is downgraded from an encrypted HTTPS connection to plaintext HTTP. The belief is that the attacker has been downgrading traffic to HTTP in order to replace cryptocurrency addresses with their own and hijack transactions for their own profit. The attacks are not new and were first documented and exposed last year, in August, by a security researcher and Tor node operator known as Nusenu. At the time, the researcher said the attacker managed to flood the Tor network with malicious Tor exit relays on three occasions, peaking their attack infrastructure at around 23% of the entire Tor network's exit capacity before being shut down by the Tor team on every occasion.

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A fast-spreading strain of Covid-19 first identified in India, the scene of one of the world's most fearsome outbreaks, will be classified as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization. From a report: The global health group will publish a detailed report Tuesday on the variant, called B.1.617, said Maria van Kerkhove, the WHO's technical lead officer on Covid-19. "There is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility," she said at a media briefing on Monday. A study of a limited number of patients that has not undergone peer review also suggested that the mutant can evade some key antibodies, she said. "As such, we're classifying this as a variant of concern at the global level." India's health system has been stretched to the breaking point by a virus wave that's proving highly lethal and difficult to control. The country has reported more than 300,000 new virus infections for the past 19 days straight. Fearing an influx of infections and mindful of the new variant, countries including Singapore, the U.K. and Tanzania have curbed travel to and from India.

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An anonymous reader shares a report from Technology Review: The Massachusetts Audubon Society has long managed its land in western Massachusetts as crucial wildlife habitat. Nature lovers flock to these forests to enjoy bird-watching and quiet hikes, with the occasional bobcat or moose sighting. But in 2015, the conservation nonprofit presented California's top climate regulator with a startling scenario: It could heavily log 9,700 acres of its preserved forests over the next few years. The group raised the possibility of chopping down hundreds of thousands of trees as part of its application to take part in California's forest offset program. The program allows forest owners like Mass Audubon to earn so-called carbon credits for preserving trees. Each credit represents a ton of CO2. California polluters, such as oil companies, buy these credits so that they can emit more CO2 than they'd otherwise be allowed to under state law. Theoretically, the exchange should balance out emissions to prevent an overall increase in CO2 in the atmosphere. The Air Resources Board accepted Mass Audubon's project into its program, requiring the nonprofit to preserve its forests over the next century instead of heavily logging them. The nonprofit received more than 600,000 credits in exchange for its promise. The vast majority were sold through intermediaries to oil and gas companies, records show. On paper, the deal was a success. The fossil fuel companies were able to emit more CO2 while abiding by California's climate laws. Mass Audubon earned enough money to acquire additional land for preservation, and to hire new staff working on climate change. But it didn't work out as well for the climate.

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Clubhouse finally has an Android app that you can download from the Play Store -- provided you live in the U.S. From a report: The voice-based social network launched its beta Android app on Play Store for users in the U.S. on Sunday, and said it will gradually make the new app available in other English-speaking countries and then the rest of the world. The social network, valued at about $4 billion in its most recent fundraise, launched as an iPhone-only app last year. The app quickly gained popularity last year, attracting several high-profile celebrities, politicians, investors, and entrepreneurs. Clubhouse began developing the Android app early this year and started to test the beta version externally this month. In a town hall earlier Sunday, the startup said availability on Android has been the most requested product feature. "Our plan over the next few weeks is to collect feedback from the community, fix any issues we see and work to add a few final features like payments and club creation before rolling it out more broadly," the team wrote. As Clubhouse struggles to maintain its growth -- data from mobile insight firms including AppMagic suggests that Clubhouse installs have drastically dropped in recent months -- the Android app could prove pivotal in boosting the startup's reach across the globe.

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First, I love there's new interest in outlining software.

But there's too much lock-in in the developing systems.

This is everyone's business who wants to use these systems for collaboration. I like to use one editor, other people may like to use another. Key point: We should be able to collaborate even though we use different writing and organizing tools.

Same with the backends which can be used to provide beautiful tree visualizations, or networks, presentation slide shows, blogs. There are many different ways of rendering structures created by outliners. You should be able to innovate here without having to write your own outliner! It would be like having to use a different text editor just because you got a new printer. These things should work together. If we've learned one thing about tech over the decades it's that locking people in to using one vendor's tools stops growth. We should compete on the basis of price, performance and features, not lock-in. Users and devs should demand no lock-in. Long-term it means what holds promise now will devolve into a complete mess of things that don't work together.

There should be simple APIs to connect any outline editor with any back-end used for storage, graphic displays, data crunching.

I promise that all my editors and storage system will be connected through simple, open APIs. There will be no lock-in for users or devs.

I challenge anyone developing idea organizing software and back-ends to to the same.

Users and developers should demand it.

The criminal hacking group suspected of being behind the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline, which was shut down as a precaution in response, has published a new statement on its dark web site saying it is "apolitical." From a report: "We are apolitical, we do not participate in geopolitics, do not need to tie us with a defined government and look for other our motives," the statement from the DarkSide ransomware group reads. The statement did not explicitly point to the Colonial Pipeline incident, but it was titled "About the latest news." Various outlets have reported that U.S. officials and private industry say DarkSide is behind the ransomware event. Dmitry Smilyanets, a cyber threat intelligence expert from cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, tweeted a screenshot of the statement on Monday. Motherboard verified the statement is available on DarkSide's dark web site. "Our goal is to make money, and not creating problems for society," the statement continues. The statement also indicated that the group may be making changes to how it operates and chooses targets. "From today we introduce moderation and check each company that our partners want to encrypt to avoid social consequences in the future," it read.

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Forty-four attorneys general sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg asking him to abandon plans to create a version of Instagram for children under 13. From a report: "Facebook has historically failed to protect the welfare of children on its platforms," according to the letter, signed by attorneys general from New York and Massachusetts, among others. "The attorneys general have an interest in protecting our youngest citizens, and Facebook's plans to create a platform where kids under the age of 13 are encouraged to share content online is contrary to that interest."

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Sony Group warned a group of analysts the PlayStation 5 will remain in short supply through 2022, suggesting the company will be constrained in its ability to boost sales targets for its latest games console. From a report: While reporting financial results in late April, the Japanese conglomerate said it had sold 7.8 million units of the console through March 31, and it is aiming to sell at least 14.8 million units in the current fiscal year. That would keep it on pace to match the trajectory of the popular PlayStation 4, which has sold in excess of 115.9 million units to date. In a briefing after those results, Sony told analysts it is challenging to keep up with strong demand. The PS5 has been difficult to find in stock since its release in November, in part because of shortages in components such as semiconductors, and the company hasn't given an official estimate for when it expects supply to normalize. "I don't think demand is calming down this year and even if we secure a lot more devices and produce many more units of the PlayStation 5 next year, our supply wouldn't be able to catch up with demand," Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said at the briefing, according to several people who attended and asked not to be named as it wasn't public.

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Pentagon officials are considering pulling the plug on the star-crossed JEDI cloud-computing project, which has been mired in litigation from Amazon and faces continuing criticism from lawmakers. From a report: The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract was awarded to Microsoft in 2019 over Amazon, which has contested the award in court ever since. A federal judge last month refused the Pentagon's motion to dismiss much of Amazon's case. A few days later, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said the department would review the project. "We're going to have to assess where we are with regard to the ongoing litigation around JEDI and determine what the best path forward is for the department," Ms. Hicks said at an April 30 security conference organized by the nonprofit Aspen Institute. Her comments followed a Pentagon report to Congress, released before the latest court ruling, that said another Amazon win in court could significantly draw out the timeline for the program's implementation. "The prospect of such a lengthy litigation process might bring the future of the JEDI Cloud procurement into question," the Jan. 28 report said. Ms. Hicks and other Pentagon officials say there is a pressing need to implement a cloud program that serves most of its branches and departments. The JEDI contract, valued at up to $10 billion over 10 years, aims to allow the Pentagon to consolidate its current patchwork of data systems, give defense personnel better access to real-time information and put the Defense Department on a stronger footing to develop artificial-intelligence capabilities that are seen as vital in the future.

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Slashgear reports that a security researcher was able to reprogram one of Apple's new AirTags, "but the process and the end result might not yet be worth the worry." Like any electronic device, especially "smart" ones, the Apple AirTag has a microcontroller that orchestrates its activities... In a nutshell, Stack Smashing "hacked" the AirTag microcontroller to modify its firmware and make it do something other than what it is designed to. That, at least for now, meant linking to a different URL when an NFC-enabled phone "taps" the tracker. Normally, it would link to found.apple.com in order to initiate the Lost Mode process. This hack could be used to make phones go to some nefarious website but getting to that point might not exactly be straightforward. The security researcher hasn't disclosed yet the process but he admits bricking at least two AirTags to get there. Unless the tracker's firmware can be modified remotely over the air, the only way you'll get a hacked AirTag would be if you acquired it through other parties. This AirTag hack might actually be less worrying than the debug menu that Apple may have accidentally left enabled before shipping the trackers. Fortunately, that might be something that is easily fixed with a firmware update...

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