"An international team of physicists have come up with a way to generate antimatter in the lab," reports Popular Mechanics, theoretically "allowing them to recreate conditions that are similar to those near a neutron star." This setup, at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) research laboratory in Germany, involves two high-intensity laser beams that can generate a jet of antimatter, as outlined in a paper published earlier this summer in the journal Communications Physics. That could make antimatter-based research far more accessible for scientists around the world... it's tremendously difficult to recreate a neutron star's extreme conditions in terms of the science and logistics — imagine if a sugar cube weighed as much as Mount Everest in your laboratory! Two, scientists want to make antimatter for further analysis in the lab... So how did the researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf figure out how to generate antimatter? They're using opposing lasers in a setup they're referring to as a laser pincer... There's a tiny piece of plastic that both lasers shoot toward. As the lasers destroy the plastic, they send clouds of electrons toward each other... By smashing particles together between two lasers, scientists can begin to approach the intensely concentrated gravity and matter of a neutron star... In this case, scientists are still speculating that the laser pincers will work, with support from a computer simulation that has helped them test and confirm their theory. Now, the next step is to begin building the rig that will really fire the lasers. "[C]olleagues are developing a platform that can be used to experimentally test whether the magnetic fields actually form as our simulations predict," HZDR physicist Toma Toncian says. Thanks to Slashdot reader Third Position for submitting the article!

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On Monday RockDoctor (Slashdot reader #15,477) wrote: Regular readers may remember recurring concerns over the instability of the island of La Palma, in the Canaries archipelago [population: 85,000]. Estimates of the threat ranged from 100 megadeaths (from tsunami impacts on the coasts of about a dozen countries bordering the Atlantic — including the eastern seaboard of America) down to a 10- to 30- metre tsunami with a few thousand deaths in the Canaries and other Atlantic islands (Madeira, Azores). To bring relaxation and good cheer, today we have the news that the volcano at the centre of these concerns is erupting for the first time in 50 years. While a hundred or so houses have so far been destroyed and around 5000 people evacuated from the path of the lava flow, some people are more sanguine — Spain's Tourism Minister considers the eruption a "great attraction", and indeed recent eruptions in Hawaii did see a significant amount of "Volcano tourism". To be honest, I'm rather tempted myself — Etna studiously did not erupt during my last holiday there. Or should I wait for Vesuvius to go off again? Here's an update. "Seven days after a volcano on La Palma erupted, lava flow and ash continue to spread shutting down the local airport and leaving hundreds without a home," according to one newspaper report (with several photos of the aftermath). "As of Friday, almost 6,000 people have evacuated. "The government is working to locate emergency housing for the affected families as researchers are unsure when the ash and lava flow will stop." Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports, "scientists said another volcanic vent opened up, exposing islanders to possible new dangers." The intensity of the eruption that began Sept. 19 has increased in recent days, prompting the evacuation of three additional villages on the island, part of Spain's Canary Islands archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean off northwest Africa... Emergency crews pulled back from the volcano Friday as explosions sent molten rock and ash over a wide area...

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When I find myself replying to a reply on Twitter with "Are you really that stupid?" I just block them instead.

"Harassment and abuse are all too common on the modern internet," writes the New York Times. "Yet it was supposed to be different in Germany." In 2017, the country enacted one of the world's toughest laws against online hate speech. It requires Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to remove illegal comments, pictures or videos within 24 hours of being notified about them or risk fines of up to 50 million euros, or $59 million. Supporters hailed it as a watershed moment for internet regulation and a model for other countries. But an influx of hate speech and harassment in the run-up to the German election, in which the country will choose a new leader to replace Angela Merkel, its longtime chancellor, has exposed some of the law's weaknesses... Some critics of the law say it is too weak, with limited enforcement and oversight. They also maintain that many forms of abuse are deemed legal by the platforms, such as certain kinds of harassment of women and public officials. And when companies do remove illegal material, critics say, they often do not alert the authorities or share information about the posts, making prosecutions of the people publishing the material far more difficult. Another loophole, they say, is that smaller platforms like the messaging app Telegram, popular among far-right groups, are not subject to the law. Free-expression groups criticize the law on other grounds. They argue that the law should be abolished not only because it fails to protect victims of online abuse and harassment, but also because it sets a dangerous precedent for government censorship of the internet. To address concerns that companies were not alerting the authorities to illegal posts, German policymakers this year passed amendments to the law. They require Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to turn over data to the police about accounts that post material that German law would consider illegal speech. The Justice Ministry was also given more powers to enforce the law... Facebook and Google have filed a legal challenge to block the new rules, arguing that providing the police with personal information about users violates their privacy. An activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in Berlin tells the Times the law could encourage companies to remove offensive-but-legal speech. And Twitter shared a statement with additional concerns. "Threats, abusive content and harassment all have the potential to silence individuals. However, regulation and legislation such as this also has the potential to chill free speech by emboldening regimes around the world to legislate as a way to stifle dissent and legitimate speech." Yet Germany's experience may ultimately influence policy across Europe, the Times points out, since German officials "are playing a key role in drafting one of the world's most anticipated new internet regulations, a European Union law called the Digital Services Act, which will require Facebook and other online platforms to do more to address the vitriol, misinformation and illicit content on their sites."

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While it's been argued that Linux has four different "birthdays," last Friday saw the 30th anniversary of Linux's very, very first release — version 0.01. That special first release "was never publicly announced, and I only emailed a handful of people in private about the upload," Torvalds remembered on the Linux kernel mailing list. He no longer has copies of those announcement emails, "so there's no real record of that. The only record of the date is in the Linux-0.01 tar-file itself, I suspect." "Alas, the dates in that tar-file are for the last modification dates, not the actual creation of the tar-file," Torvalds wrote, "but it does seem to have happened around 7:30pm (Finnish time), so the exact anniversary was technically a couple of hours ago." So when the exact moment arrived for its 30th anniversary, Torvalds couldn't resist sharing the moment on the Linux kernel mailing list. "Just thought I'd mention it, since while unannounced, in many ways this is the true 30th anniversary date of the actual code."

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Google used its "huge financial muscle" to illegally hurt competitors, the Competition Commission of India found after an antitrust investigation. But now Reuters says Google is suing the commission — for leaking the results of that investigation to the press: "We cooperated fully and maintained confidentiality throughout the investigative process, and we hope and expect the same level of confidentiality from the institutions we engage with," Google's statement added... India's antitrust authority ordered a probe in 2019, saying Google appeared to have leveraged its dominance to reduce device makers' ability to opt for alternate versions of its mobile operating system and force them to pre-install Google apps. Its 750-page report subsequently found the mandatory pre-installation of apps "amounts to imposition of unfair condition on the device manufacturers" in violation of India's competition law. The report, which has been seen by Reuters but which is not public, also found the company leveraged the position of its Play Store app store to protect its dominance.

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I like that they use my Rules for standards-makers as guidelines for the work. It was my hope that future developers wouldn't have to repeat all the pointless arguments about what matters.

I just got a link to "A wholistic RSS namespace for podcasting." I wasn't even aware that it existed. No one tells me anything.

"The global semiconductor shortage that has paralyzed automakers for nearly a year shows signs of worsening," reports the Washington Post, "as new coronavirus infections halt chip assembly lines in Southeast Asia, forcing more car companies and electronics manufacturers to suspend production." A wave of delta-variant cases in Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines is causing production delays at factories that cut and package semiconductors, creating new bottlenecks on top of those caused by soaring demand for chips... Demand for the components is soaring as more consumer goods become computerized, but supply is scarce because semiconductor factories are extremely expensive and time-consuming to build... The debacle is likely to cost the auto industry $450 billion in global sales from the start of the crisis through the end of 2022, according to Seraph Consulting. Martin Daum, chief executive of the Daimler AG division that makes trucks and buses, described the problem as intensifying. "Until the second quarter we were able to manage the situation quite well at Daimler Truck," Daum said Wednesday. "But since summer the semiconductor situation has worsened for us. Our production in Germany and the U.S. was affected, which led to a situation in which we could deliver fewer vehicles to our customers." Even automakers such as Toyota and Hyundai, which planned for potential shortages and initially managed to avoid crippling shutdowns, are starting to encounter problems. Toyota this month was forced to slash production at 14 factories in Japan over a lack of semiconductors. Some of the cuts will continue into October due to a lack of components from Southeast Asia, Toyota has said. Ford and General Motors in recent months have been suspending production for weeks at a time at more than a dozen North American factories... [T]he problem is hurting industries beyond autos. "This is having an impact all across the economy, with automobiles, yes, but even beyond that, into medical devices, networking equipment — we're hearing regularly from companies that cannot get the supply they need," one of the Biden administration officials said... Some chipmakers have taken steps to help auto manufacturers. Taiwan's TSMC, which produces a type of chip called a microcontroller that is widely used by automakers, said it is increasing output of the components by 60 percent this year compared with 2020. GlobalFoundries is adding manufacturing equipment to a factory near Albany, N.Y., to increase output for all types of chips, and recently broke ground on a $4 billion expansion of its factory in Singapore, with financial support from the Singaporean government. Globally, chip factories have increased their production capacity by 8 percent since early 2020 and plan to boost it by over 16 percent by the end of 2022, according to the U.S.-based Semiconductor Industry Association. Global spending on semiconductor manufacturing equipment is likely to grow by more than 30 percent this year to $85 billion, showing that chipmakers are expanding production, according to C.J. Muse, a semiconductor analyst at Evercore ISI. But that comes after chip companies had "underinvested over the last five years," he said... Intel on Friday will break ground on two new chip factories in Arizona, on which it plans to spend $20 billion.

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EFF.org has the story: For the last month, civil liberties and human rights organizations, researchers, and customers have demanded that Apple cancel its plan to install photo-scanning software onto devices. This software poses an enormous danger to privacy and security. Apple has heard the message, and announced that it would delay the system while consulting with various groups about its impact. But in order to trust Apple again, we need the company to commit to canceling this mass surveillance system. The delay may well be a diversionary tactic. Every September, Apple holds one of its big product announcement events, where Apple executives detail the new devices and features coming out. Apple likely didn't want concerns about the phone-scanning features to steal the spotlight. But we can't let Apple's disastrous phone-scanning idea fade into the background, only to be announced with minimal changes down the road. To make sure Apple is listening to our concerns, EFF turned to an old-school messaging system: aerial advertising. During Apple's event, a plane circled the company's headquarters carrying an impossible-to-miss message: "Apple, don't scan our phones!" The evening before Apple's event, protestors also rallied nationwide in front of Apple stores. The company needs to hear us, and not just dismiss the serious problems with its scanning plan. A delay is not a cancellation, and the company has also been dismissive of some concerns, referring to them as "confusion" about the new features. Apple's iMessage is one of the preeminent end-to-end encrypted chat clients. End-to-end encryption is what allows users to exchange messages without having them intercepted and read by repressive governments, corporations, and other bad actors. We don't support encryption for its own sake: we fight for it because encryption is one of the most powerful tools individuals have for maintaining their digital privacy and security in an increasingly insecure world. Now that Apple's September event is over, Apple must reach out to groups that have criticized it and seek a wider range of suggestions on how to deal with difficult problems, like protecting children online... The world, thankfully, has moved towards encrypted communications over the last two decades, not away from them, and that's a good thing. If Apple wants to maintain its reputation as a pro-privacy company, it must continue to choose real end-to-end encryption over government demands to read user's communication. Privacy matters now more than ever. It will continue to be a selling point and a distinguishing feature of some products and companies. For now, it's an open question whether Apple will continue to be one of them.

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Newsweek reports: Chris Pratt is in a celebratory mood, following the announcement that he's set to voice lead character Mario in an animated movie adaptation of the enduring video game Super Mario Bros. The Guardians of the Galaxy star joins a star-studded cast in the movie, which includes Charlie Day as his brother Luigi, Anya Taylor-Joy [from The Queen's Gambit] as Princess Peach, Keegan-Michael Key [co-creator of Key & Peele] as Toad, and Jack Black as villainous turtle Bowser... Also included in the cast are Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong and Fred Armisen [from SNL and Portlandia], who will take on the role of his grandfather, Cranky Kong.... The producers said that the actors were selected for their ability to capture the spirit of each of their characters, per Variety. Kotaku adds that future-voice-of-Mario Chris Pratt "isn't exactly instilling confidence right now." "It's ah me, ah Mario," he said in an Instagram video posted last night in the exact same voice I would use if I were pretending to be Chris Pratt pretending to be Mario. "That's not the voice, you'll have to wait to hear the voice, but we've been working hard at it and I'm really excited to announce that I'm the voice of that video game that I dreamed of playing as a kid." For decades, Mario has been voiced in the games by Charles Martinet who is also not Italian but is an theatrically trained and experienced voice actor who specializes in accents and dialects. He will be involved in the new movie in some way, but at this point just as another avenue for Nintendo to troll longtime fans, it seems.

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Google Photos' Locked Folder feature, which lets you hide sensitive photos and videos from your main library and secure them in a passcode- or biometric-protected folder, is coming to all devices running Android 6 and above. The Verge reports: The feature was released exclusively on newer Pixel phones in June. Google hasn't provided an exact date for when the feature is releasing more widely, noting only that it's "rolling out soon." When it announced the feature onstage at Google I/O in May, Google gave the wholesome example of the feature being used by parents hiding photos of a newly purchased puppy from their children. But I think it's fair to say that most people are going to have very different photos stored in their Locked Folder. I don't know about you, but in all the times I've had to wrench my phone out of someone's hand to stop them scrolling through my photos, it's never been because of a puppy picture.

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Paul Ratner writes via Interesting Engineering: Theoretical inventions known as the "UFO patents" have been inflaming worldwide curiosity. A product of the American engineer Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais, the patents were filed during his work for the U.S. Navy and are so ambitious in their scope and imagination that they continue to draw interest despite any clear evidence that they are feasible. The patents include designs for a futuristic hybrid vehicle with a radical propulsion system that would work equally well in the air, underwater, and in space, as well as a compact fusion reactor, a gravitational wave generator, and even a "spacetime modification weapon." The technology involved could impact reality itself, claims its inventor, whose maverick audacity rivals that of Nikola Tesla. How real are these ideas? While you can read the patents for yourself, it's evident that the tech necessary to actually create the devices described is beyond our current capabilities. Yet research into many of these fields has gone on for years, which may explain why the Navy expressed an interest. Another likely influence is the fact that the Chinese government seems to be working to develop similar technology. The fantastical inventions devised by Dr. Pais largely build upon an idea that he calls "The Pais Effect." In his patent write-ups and in an interview with The Drive, he described it as "the generation of extremely high electromagnetic energy fluxes (and hence high local energy densities) generated by controlled motion of electrically charged matter (from solid to plasma states) subjected to accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin, via rapid acceleration transients." This effect amounts to the ability to spin electromagnetic fields to contain a fusion reaction. The electromagnetic energy fields would be so powerful that they could "engineer the fabric of our reality at the most fundamental level," writes Pais. In practical terms, this invention could lead to a veritable revolution in propulsion, quantum communications, and create an abundance of cheaply-produced energy. Certainly, an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence, as posits the Sagan standard. Despite the well-founded unease at Dr. Pais's inventions, the Navy took them seriously enough to run experiments for three years and even found some of them "operable," although the extent of that alleged operability is under debate. In the patent documents, two Navy officials seemed to assert the operability of the inventions. Furthermore, in correspondence with The Drive's "War Zone," Timothy Boulay of NAWCAD, stated that Pais's High Energy Electromagnetic Field Generator was, in fact, tested from 2016 until 2019, at a cost of $508,000. The team working on the project consisted of at least 10 technicians and engineers and put in some 1,600 hours of work. But upon the conclusion of the testing, the Pais Effect "could not be proven," shared Boulay. What happened subsequently with the tested device and further investigations is not known at this point. There are indications in documents obtained by The Drive's WarZone through the Freedom of Information Act that the inventions could be moved to another research department in the Navy or the Air Force, or possibly even to NASA or DARPA, but whether that really happened is not clear. "One of the most attention-grabbing designs by Dr. Pais is the 2018 patent for a cone-shaped craft of unprecedented range and speed," writes Ratner. "Another futuristic patent with far-reaching ramifications is Pais' Plasma Compression Fusion Device. [...] Notes from researchers who worked on vetting Pais' ideas indicate that a possible outcome of the plasma fusion device and the high energy levels it may generate is the 'Spacetime Modification Weapon' (SMW). Research documents refer to it as 'a weapon that can make the Hydrogen bomb seem more like a firecracker, in comparison.'" Pais also has a patent for an electromagnetic field generator, which could create "an impenetrable defensive shield to sea and land as well as space-based military and civilian assets." Another device conceived by Pais that could deflect asteroids is the high-frequency gravitational wave generator.

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spaceman375 shares a report from the BBC: Screenwriter Russell T Davies is to take charge again of Doctor Who, the sci-fi show he helped revive in 2005. Davies, who was the fantasy drama's showrunner until 2009, will take over when Chris Chibnall departs next year. "I'm beyond excited to be back on my favourite show," said Davies, who resumes his role as the show prepares to mark its 60th anniversary in 2023. One of his first responsibilities will be to decide who takes over the Tardis following Jodie Whittaker's exit. The actress is set to hang up her Sonic Screwdriver after one more six-part series and three 2022 specials. Davies revived Doctor Who in its current incarnation with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and remained for David Tennant's time as the Doctor. Steven Moffatt took over when Matt Smith took on the role, staying to supervise Peter Capaldi's stint as TV's indefatigable Time Lord. The success of Doctor Who's relaunch led Davies to create two spin-off shows, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

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