Events in the genome of Welwitschia have given it the ability to survive in an unforgiving desert for thousands of years. From a report: The longest-lived leaves in the plant kingdom can be found only in the harsh, hyperarid desert that crosses the boundary between southern Angola and northern Namibia. A desert is not, of course, the most hospitable place for living things to grow anything, let alone leafy greens, but the Namib Desert -- the world's oldest with parts receiving less than two inches of precipitation a year -- is where Welwitschia calls home. In Afrikaans, the plant is named "tweeblaarkanniedood," which means "two leaves that cannot die." The naming is apt: Welwitschia grows only two leaves -- and continuously -- in a lifetime that can last millenniums. "Most plants develop a leaf, and that's it," said Andrew Leitch, a plant geneticist at Queen Mary University of London. "This plant can live thousands of years, and it never stops growing. When it does stop growing, it's dead." Some of the largest plants are believed to be over 3,000 years old, with two leaves steadily growing since the beginning of the Iron Age, when the Phoenician alphabet was invented and David was crowned King of Israel. By some accounts, Welwitschia is not much to look at. Its two fibrous leaves, buffeted by dry desert winds and fed on by thirsty animals, become shredded and curled over time, giving Welwitschia a distinctly octopus-like look. One 19th-century director of Kew Gardens in London remarked, "it is out of the question the most wonderful plant ever brought to this country and one of the ugliest." But since it was first discovered, Welwitschia has captivated biologists including Charles Darwin and the botanist Friedrich Welwitsch after whom the plant is named: It is said that when Welwitsch first came across the plant in 1859, "he could do nothing but kneel down on the burning soil and gaze at it, half in fear lest a touch should prove it a figment of the imagination." In a study published last month in Nature Communications, researchers report some of the genetic secrets behind Welwitschia's unique shape, extreme longevity and profound resilience.

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A recovery mission off Vietnam's coast showed how advances in technology have given new reach to the Pentagon's search for American war dead. From a report: On a July morning in 1967, two American B-52 bombers collided over the South China Sea as they approached a target in what was then South Vietnam. Seven crew members escaped, but rescue units from the Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard were unable to find six other men, including a navigator from New York, Maj. Paul A. Avolese. It wasn't until last year that scientists scanning the seafloor found one of the B-52s and recovered Major Avolese's remains. "It was very humbling to be diving a site that turned out as hallowed ground, and realizing that maybe we were in a position to help bring closure back to families that had been missing this lost aviator," said Eric J. Terrill, one of two divers who descended to the wreck. Scientists say the recovery highlights a shift in the Pentagon's ability to search for personnel still missing from the Vietnam War. For decades, such efforts have mainly focused on land in former conflict zones. But in this case, American investigators looked at an underwater site near Vietnam's long coastline, using high-tech robots. Their use of that technology is part of a larger trend. Robotic underwater and surface vehicles are "rapidly becoming indispensable tools for ocean science and exploration," said Rear Adm. Nancy Hann, who manages a fleet of nine aircraft and 16 research and survey vessels for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "They have proven to be a force multiplier when it comes to mapping the seafloor, locating and surveying wrecks and other sunken objects, and collecting data in places not easily accessed by ships and other vehicles," Admiral Hann said. One reason for the new focus on Vietnam's undersea crash sites is that many land-based leads have been exhausted, said Andrew Pietruszka, the lead archaeologist for Project Recover, a nonprofit organization. The group worked on the recent recovery mission with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, or D.P.A.A., the arm of the Pentagon tasked with finding and returning fallen military personnel. "Over time, a lot of the really good land cases and sites they've already done, they've already processed them," said Mr. Pietruszka, a former forensic archaeologist for D.P.A.A. who now works for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. "Now the majority of sites that haven't been looked at are falling in that underwater realm," he added.

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Hackers have attacked and shut down the IT systems of the company that manages COVID-19 vaccination appointments for the Lazio region surrounding Rome, the regional government said on Sunday. From a report: "A powerful hacker attack on the region's CED (database) is under way," the region said in a Facebook posting. It said all systems had been deactivated, including those of the region's health portal and vaccination network, and warned the inoculation programme could suffer a delay. "It is a very powerful hacker attack, very serious... everything is out. The whole regional CED is under attack," Lazio region's health manager Alessio D'Amato said.

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How much is your palm print worth? If you ask Amazon, it's about $10 in promotional credit if you enroll your palm prints in its checkout-free stores and link it to your Amazon account. From a report: Last year, Amazon introduced its new biometric palm print scanners, Amazon One, so customers can pay for goods in some stores by waving their palm prints over one of these scanners. By February, the company expanded its palm scanners to other Amazon grocery, book and 4-star stores across Seattle. Amazon has since expanded its biometric scanning technology to its stores across the U.S., including New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Texas. The retail and cloud giant says its palm scanning hardware "captures the minute characteristics of your palm -- both surface-area details like lines and ridges as well as subcutaneous features such as vein patterns -- to create your palm signature," which is then stored in the cloud and used to confirm your identity when youâ(TM)re in one of its stores.

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Google has provided tens of millions of pounds of funding to academics investigating issues closely related to its business model. From a report: A recent scientific paper proposed that, like Big Tobacco in the Seventies, Big Tech thrives on creating uncertainty around the impacts of its products and business model. One of the ways it does this is by cultivating pockets of friendly academics who can be relied on to echo Big Tech talking points, giving them added gravitas in the eyes of lawmakers. Google highlighted working with favourable academics as a key aim in its strategy, leaked in October 2020, for lobbying the EU's Digital Markets Act -- sweeping legislation that could seriously undermine tech giants' market dominance if it goes through. Now, a New Statesman investigation can reveal that over the last five years, six leading academic institutes in the EU have taken tens of millions of pounds of funding from Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft to research issues linked to the tech firms' business models, from privacy and data protection to AI ethics and competition in digital markets. While this funding tends to come with guarantees of academic independence, this creates an ethical quandary where the subject of research is also often the primary funder of it. The New Statesman has also found evidence of an inconsistent approach to transparency, with some senior academics failing to disclose their industry funding. Other academics have warned that the growing dependence on funding from the industry raises questions about how tech firms influence the debate around the ethics of the markets they have created.

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When Microsoft unveiled its Windows 365 Cloud PC desktop-as-a-service product last month, officials said they'd release pricing on the day the service became generally available, August 2. As promised, the company has published pricing, and it ranges from $20 per user per month for the lowest end SKU, to $162 per user per month for the most expensive one. From a report: Windows 365 is available in two editions: Windows 365 Business and Windows 365 Enterprise. The Windows 365 Business SKUs are capped at 300 users per organization. The $20 per user per month Business price is for a single virtual core, 2 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage -- and requires the Windows Hybrid Benefit. (Hybrid Benefits are Microsoft's Bring-Your-Own license model, which allows customers to apply existing (or new) licenses toward the cost of a product.) Without the Hybrid Benefit discount, that same SKU is $24 per user per month. At the high end, the Business SKU with eight virtual cores, 32 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage costs $162 per user per month --- or $158 per user per month with the Windows Hybrid Benefit. The Enterprise SKUs for Windows 365 are priced similarly. A single virtual core, 2 GB of RAM and 64 GV of storage will go for $20 per user per month. At the high end, the 8 virtual core, 32 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage SKU will go for $158 per user per month.

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An anonymous reader shares a report: When three Chinese nationals were jailed in Beijing almost a decade ago and accused of selling fake Hewlett-Packard networking gear, it looked like an example of U.S. companies getting what they'd long demanded: aggressive protection of intellectual property in the world's most populous nation. A drawn-out court case heading to trial in Massachusetts paints a much muddier picture. The three, exonerated in China, accuse the former Silicon Valley icon of setting them up. They argue that it was H-P units that conspired to sell counterfeit gear, and then pinned the blame on them. H-P disputes the claims, and is asking a U.S. federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit, saying the story was concocted by Integrated Communications & Technologies Inc., the Massachusetts-based company that employed the three Chinese nationals, to cover up its own criminal behavior. U.S. District Judge Leo T. Sorokin may rule on the dismissal request at any time. If he lets the case continue, a trial is scheduled for February. Western companies have been calling on China for years to combat counterfeiting and take action against those that steal their intellectual property. One of the triggers for former U.S. President Donald Trump's trade war was the technology industry's lobbying of the American government to help protect their IP. A loss for either side in the lawsuit would tarnish its reputation in the world's largest market for computers by marking them as an organization that fraudulently sold counterfeit goods. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative identified China as the "primary source" of counterfeit goods in a 2020 report. With Hong Kong, the document details, China accounts for 92% of the value of fake goods seized by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2019. In this case, the networking gear was made by an affiliate of H-P's in China, exported to India on lease, then sold back into the Chinese market.

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Google announced Monday it will build its own smartphone processor, called Google Tensor, that will power its new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones this fall. From a report: It's another example of a company building its own chips to create what it felt wasn't possible with those already on the market. In this case, Google is ditching Qualcomm. The move follows Apple, which is using its own processors in its new computers instead of Intel chips. And like Apple, Google is using an Arm-based architecture. Arm processors are lower power and are used across the industry for mobile devices, from phones to tablets and laptops. Google Tensor will power new flagship phones that are expected to launch in October. (Google will reveal more details about those phones closer to launch.) That, too, is a strategy shift for Google, which in recent years has focused on affordability in its Pixel devices instead of offering high-end phones. And it shows that Google is again trying to compete directly in the flagship space against Apple and Samsung. The name Google Tensor is a nod to the name of Google's Tensor Processing Unit the company uses for cloud computing. It's a full system on a chip, or SoC, that the company says will offer big improvements to photo and video processing on phones, along with features like voice-to-speech and translation. And it includes a dedicated processor that runs artificial intelligence applications, in addition to a CPU, GPU and image signal processor. It will allow the phone to process more information on the device instead of having to send data to the cloud. Further reading: Google's New Pixel Phones Features a Processor Designed In-House.

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Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain network, is about to undergo a technical adjustment that will significantly alter the way transactions are processed, as well as reduce the supply of the ether token and sharply boost its price. The scheduled coding revamp will go live on Aug. 4. From a report: The upgrade known as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 is similar, analysts said, to a bitcoin "halving" event in which periodic adjustments reduced the supply of bitcoin. Each halving helped propel bitcoin's price to higher records. While bitcoin is the preferred store of value in the digital ecosystem, Ethereum has emerged as the leading financial infrastructure, settling over $12 billion of daily transactions, according to a Grayscale report released in February this year. Andrew Keys, managing partner at DARMA Capital, said ether's current price has yet to factor in the looming software upgrade. He estimates that the expected software adjustment next week, coupled with another upgrade in the first quarter of 2022, should "easily quintuple the price of ether" by next year. On Thursday, ether was up 0.6% at $2,312. EIP-1559 is a software upgrade that fundamentally changes the way transactions are processed on Ethereum by providing clear pricing on transaction fees in ether paid to miners to validate transactions and "burning" a small amount of those tokens. The burned tokens will be permanently taken out of circulation. In token burning, miners would typically send the tokens to specialized addresses that have unobtainable private keys. Without access to a private key, no one can use the tokens, putting them outside the circulating supply. By reducing the number of tokens, the currencies that remain in circulation become rarer and more valuable.

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AnandTech: An executive visiting various research divisions across the globe isn't necessarily new, but with a focus on social media driving named individuals at each company to keep their followers sitting on the edge of their seats means that we get a lot more insights into how these companies operate. The downside of posting to social media is when certain images exposing unreleased information are not vetted by PR or legal, and we get a glimpse into the next generation of technology. That is what happened over the weekend. EVP and GM of Intel's Client Computing Group, Gregory Bryant, last week spent some time at Intel's Israel R&D facilities in his first overseas Intel trip in of 2021. An early post on Sunday morning, showcasing Bryant's trip to the gym to overcome jetlag, was followed by another later in the day with Bryant being shown the offices and the research. The post contained four photos, but was rapidly deleted and replaced by a photo with three. The photo removed showcases some new information about next-generation Thunderbolt technology. In this image we can see a poster on the wall showcasing '80G PHY Technology,' which means that Intel is working on a physical layer (PHY) for 80 Gbps connections. Off the bat this is double the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4, which runs at 40 Gbps. The second line confirms that this is 'USB 80G is targeted to support the existing USB-C ecosystem,' which follows along that Intel is aiming to maintain the USB-C connector but double the effective bandwidth. The third line is actually where it gets technically interesting. 'The PHY will be based on novel PAM-3 modulation technology.' This is talking about how the 0 and 1s are transmitted -- traditionally we talk about NRZ encoding, which just allows for a 0 or a 1 to be transmitted, or a single bit. The natural progression is a scheme allowing two bits to be transferred, and this is called PAM-4 (Pulse Amplitude Modulation), with the 4 being the demarcation for how many different variants two bits could be seen (either as 00, 01, 10, or 11). PAM-4, at the same frequency, thus has 2x the bandwidth of an NRZ connection.

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The hackers who breached Electronic Arts last month have released the entire cache of stolen data after failing to extort the company and later sell the stolen files to a third-party buyer. From a report: The data, dumped on an underground cybercrime forum on Monday, July 26, is now being widely distributed on torrent sites. According to a copy of the dump obtained by The Record, the leaked files contain the source code of the FIFA 21 soccer game, including tools to support the company's server-side services. The existence of this leak was initially disclosed on June 10, when the hackers posted a thread on an underground hacking forum claiming to be in possession of EA data, which they were willing to sell for $28 million.

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Watching the Olympics is ridiculously hard given that it's 2021 and our entire entertainment system is now computerized and networked. They've had plenty of time to adapt, but the entertainment industry is stuck in the 1980s cable model, where ever they can get away with it. Thankfully Netflix and Amazon helped to budge them. There should be, if everything were sane, a network location I can go to where I see the schedule of the whole event, past, present and future. I can schedule reminders for upcoming events. And go back, like using YouTube to watch events I missed. Instead I have to hunt and peck, and depend on luck, and the programmer's sense of what'll be popular, and endure NBC's business model, like only making some events available on Peacock, a service I don't use and do not want to subscribe to. It's the same mess as with news on the web. I subscribe to services I never watch. There are a hundred thousand shows on and nothing I want to see, and the stuff I do want to see is inaccessible. Come on. Isn't there a person in power somewhere in TV-land who is just as fed up as everyone else must be? Meanwhile we should give up the pretense that these athletes are representing the USA, they are representing NBC and should wear a peacock on their uniforms and salute their flag and their anthem whatever that might be.

Should we be excited about big silos and podcasting? Apple, Spotify, etc. Well if you like the way news works now on the web, I'm sure you'll love what they do to podcasting. On the other hand, what we have now is what most sane users want. So I say resist them if you can.

New header graphic -- Joltin Joe hittin one outta da park.

In a blockbuster deal that rocks the fintech world, Square announced today that it is acquiring Australian buy now, pay later giant Afterpay in a $29 billion all-stock deal. From a report: The purchase price is based on the closing price of Square common stock on July 30, which was $247.26. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022, contingent upon certain closing conditions. It values Afterpay at more than 30% premium to its latest closing price of A$96.66. Square co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement that the two fintech behemoths "have a shared purpose." "We built our business to make the financial system more fair, accessible, and inclusive, and Afterpay has built a trusted brand aligned with those principles," he said in the statement. "Together, we can better connect our Cash App and Seller ecosystems to deliver even more compelling products and services for merchants and consumers, putting the power back in their hands." The combination of the two companies would create a payments giant unlike any other. Over the past 18 months, the buy now, pay later space has essentially exploded, appealing especially to younger generations drawn to the idea of not using credit cards or paying interest and instead opting for the installment loans, which have become ubiquitous online and in retail stores.

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