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This week Moderna "said it is on track to report early data from a late-stage trial of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine next month, reports Reuters, "offering the clearest timeline yet for when the world will know whether it is effective." The company, one of the front-runners in the global race to produce vaccines to protect against COVID-19, said an independent data monitoring committee is expected to conduct an interim review of its ongoing 30,000-person trial in November... The company said it is preparing to distribute the vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, and expects to be able to produce 20 million doses by the end of the year, and between 500 million and 1 billion in 2021. Moderna said infection rates in the trial were on track with expectations... Moderna said it expects two-month follow-up safety data, as required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in the second half of November, after which it will file for an emergency use authorization.

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"Development of Pyston, a variant of the Python runtime that uses just-in-time compilation to speed up the execution of Python programs, is back on again," reports InfoWorld — after a hiatus that began in 2017: Picking up where Dropbox left off, a new development team has released Pyston 2.0. Pyston provides what is ultimately intended to be a drop-in replacement for the standard Python runtime, CPython. It's compatible with Python 3.8, so programs that runs with that version of Python should run as-is on Pyston... One of the goals of the project was to remain as close as possible to the original implementation of CPython, since many third-party projects make assumptions about CPython behavior. Thus Pyston 2.0 began with the existing CPython codebase and added features from Pyston 1.0 that worked well, such as caching attributes and JITting. Pyston's JIT no longer uses LLVM, but DynASM to emit assembly directly... [U]nlike the original Pyston incarnation, the new version is closed-source for the time being, as its new stewards determine their business model.

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"BDY electronics, a Chinese laptop manufacturer, has unveiled an all-new 13.3-inch laptop sporting Longsoon's new Dragon Core 3A4000 quad-core 14nm CPU," reports Tom's Hardware: The biggest feature of this laptop is the CPU, featuring Longsoon's latest 14nm quad-core 3A4000 CPU. Longsoon claims the CPU is 100% faster than the previous generation 3A3000 and is comparable in performance to AMD's "Excavator" cores used in the A8-7680 Godavari architecture. Of course, this demonstrates how far behind Longsoon is from TSMC and Intel in performance, speed, and efficiency of its latest node. However, the chairman of Loongsoon Technologies, Hu Weiwu, says, "14nm and 28nm (for its GPU node) is enough for 90% of applications.," so it appears the company isn't too worried about catching up to the performance leaders like Intel and AMD. Due to this laptop being in the Chinese market, Windows is not supported at all. It only runs Chinese "domestic operating systems" that are typically modified versions of Linux. Fortunately, this does mean you can install any Linux flavor you want on the laptop, which can be handy if you don't want to run China-specific apps only. Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm points out that Loongson's upcoming 3a5000 CPU "will be a 12nm CPU that is 50% faster than the 3A4000."

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CNN reports: Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is the only moon in our solar system that has a thick atmosphere. It's four times denser than Earth's. And now, scientists have discovered a molecule in it that has never been found in any other atmosphere. The particle is called cyclopropenylidene, or C3H2, and it's made of carbon and hydrogen. This simple carbon-based molecule could be a precursor that contributes to chemical reactions that may create complex compounds. And those compounds could be the basis for potential life on Titan. The molecule was first noticed as researchers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array of telescopes in Chile. This radio telescope observatory captures a range of light signatures, which revealed the molecule among the unique chemistry of Titan's atmosphere. The study published earlier this month in the Astronomical Journal... "We're trying to figure out if Titan is habitable," said Rosaly Lopes, a senior research scientist and Titan expert at JPL, in a statement. "So we want to know what compounds from the atmosphere get to the surface, and then, whether that material can get through the ice crust to the ocean below, because we think the ocean is where the habitable conditions are."

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In 1962 Sean Connery became the first actor to appear in movies as secret agent James Bond, and according to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 was "The best of the many Bonds, by far." An anonymous reader writes: Connery influenced the character deeply. The Huffington Post once wrote that James Bond wasn't Scottish until Sean Connery played the role. Ian Fleming was still writing his series of James Bond novels, and "After seeing Connery in Dr. No and thinking the actor did a superb job, Fleming wrote Connery's heritage into the character. In the book You Only Live Twice, Fleming wrote that James Bond's father was Scottish and was from the town of Glencoe. Coincidentally, Connery would film Highlander in Glencoe decades later." Sir Sean Connery — he was also knighted in the year 2000 — performed many other iconic roles throught his long career, even playing the father of Harrison Ford's character in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Leaving Bond behind, Connery appeared in many historical dramas, including the World War II movies The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far, as well as The Man Who Would Be King, The Name of the Rose, and (in 2003) The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. But throughout his life he was always in demand for high-quality action films, from The Hunt for Red October to The Rock, even co-starring with Catherine Zeta-Jones in the romantic caper film Entrapment at the age of 69. And in Terry Gilliam's movie Time Bandits, Connery appears as more than one character, hinting that beneath the individual roles lay some timeless embodiment of strength and goodness itself.

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"We believe that youtube-dl has substantial non-infringing uses," argues the non-profit Software Freedom Conservancy. But while that software faces a DMCA takedown notice from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), GitHub's owner Microsoft is also a paying member of the RIAA. The Software Freedom Conservancy argues that this leaves Microsoft "stuck between their industry association's abuses of the law and the needs of FOSS projects for which they provide infrastructure." While under current law (which we object to), complying with the takedown notice is admittedly the fastest way to limit Microsoft's liability, we view Microsoft's membership in the RIAA as a much bigger liability to our community, now that Microsoft controls GitHub. We call on Microsoft to resign from the RIAA and remove their conflict of interest in this matter. This is an important opportunity for Microsoft to stand up for the values of software freedom... To build a strong community of FOSS developers, we need confidence that our software hosting platforms will fight for our rights. While we'd prefer that Microsoft would simply refuse to kowtow to institutions like the RIAA and reject their DMCA requests, we believe in the alternative Microsoft can take the easy first step of resigning from RIAA in protest. We similarly call on all RIAA members who value FOSS to also resign.

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"Many patients of a large psychotherapy clinic in Finland have been contacted individually by a blackmailer, after their data was stolen," reports the BBC: The data appears to have included personal identification records and notes about what was discussed in therapy sessions. Vastaamo is a nationwide practice with about 20 branches and thousands of patients. The clinic has advised those affected to contact the police. It said it believed the data had been stolen in November 2018, with a further potential breach in March 2019... About 300 records have already been published on the dark web, according to the Associated Press news agency. On its website, the clinic calls the attack "a great crisis". It has set up a helpline and is offering all victims one free therapy session, the details of which will not be recorded. According to the article, the blackmailer claims Vastaamo refused to pay the 40 bitcoin ransom — so they are instead blackmailing individual patients. And one patient even complained that while his therapist took notes in a physical notebook, "he had not been told these would be uploaded to a server."

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Europe "now accounts for 46% of global coronavirus cases," reports ABC News, "and nearly a third of total related deaths." Dr. Jean-Francois Delfraissy, a senior French physician and the president of the scientific council that reports to the government, warned that the country has "lost control of the epidemic," after health authorities reported more than 52,000 new cases. He said that the council estimates that the true figure could well be closer to 100,000 daily cases, accounting for asymptomatic cases and those who haven't been tested... Fearing both the economic price of national lockdowns and the political backlash from citizens increasingly wearied of the restrictions on their livelihoods, government officials around Europe have been reluctant to shutter businesses to the extent that they did in the spring. The Guardian reports that Apple "will temporarily close 17 of its 20 stores in France from Oct. 30, as the country goes into a fresh one-month lockdown due to a resurgence of coronavirus cases." Meanwhile, CNN reports that Taiwan "just marked its 200th consecutive day without a locally transmitted case of the disease," due partly to mass testing but also quick and effective contact tracing. Taiwan's landmark achievement comes in a week when France and Germany are enacting new lockdowns and the United States identified a record 88,000-plus cases in a day. The state of Florida, which has a similar population size to Taiwan, with approximately 21 million people, identified 4,188 cases on Wednesday alone.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Amazon.com said it now has about 1 million employees after hiring 250,000 workers in the third quarter, part of a growth spurt driven by booming ecommerce sales during the coronavirus pandemic and a milestone for a company founded in 1995 by Jeff Bezos as an online bookseller. Despite its rapid ascent, Amazon still has fewer workers than the nation's biggest private employer, Walmart, which has 2.2 million global workers. Even so, Amazon's explosive growth underscores the historic shift in financial might from manufacturers such as General Motors, U.S. Steel and General Electric. In the 1950s, these three corporations were the country's biggest employers, with a combined workforce of more than 1 million employees at the time. Today, the three employ about 400,000 workers as the U.S. economy has shed factory jobs in favor of service-oriented work. In a conference call on Thursday, Amazon Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsky said the company hired "a lot more people to support the strong customer demand." After hiring 250,000 full-time and part-time workers in the quarter ended in September, Amazon has hired another 100,000 workers in October, he said. The jobs pay a minimum of $15 an hour and include benefits such as health insurance, retirement benefits and parental leave, he added.

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Apple said on Friday that it's replacing AirPods Pro headphones that have sound problems. CNBC reports: These problems include a static or crackling sound that increases in loud environments and issues with active noise cancellation. Apple said AirPods Pro made after October 2020 don't have the problems. Owners who experience problems can contact Apple online or make an appointment at an Apple store to get their AirPods Pro replaced for free. Only devices that are confirmed to have the issue will be replaced. The replacement applies only to the buds, not the charging case. Apple's not offering a similar program for other AirPod models.

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schwit1 writes: SpaceX will not recognize international law on Mars, according to the Terms of Service of its Starlink internet project. Elon Musk's space company will instead reportedly adhere to a set of "self-governing principles" that will be defined at the time of Martian settlement. Musk revealed plans to create a self-sustaining city on Mars last week, though no timeframe is yet to be put in place for its development. Any future colony created by SpaceX would likely use constellations of Starlink satellites orbiting the planet to provide internet connection to people and machines on the surface. "For services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other colonization spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities," the governing law section states. "Accordingly, disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement." Space systems engineer Erwan Beauvois said SpaceX's position was reminiscent of a declaration put forward by the Earthlight Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to preparing for the expansion of humanity beyond Earth. The Declaration of the Rights and Responsibilities of Humanity in the Universe states that space should be "considered free, by all, for all and to all."

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: The U.S. and UK produce more plastic waste per person than any other major countries, according to new research. The analysis also shows the U.S. produces the most plastic waste in total and that its citizens may rank as high as third in the world in contributing to plastic pollution in the oceans. Previous work had suggested Asian countries dominated marine plastic pollution and placed the U.S. in 20th place, but this did not account for U.S. waste exports or illegal dumping within the country. Data from 2016, the latest available, show that more than half of the plastic collected for recycling in the U.S. was shipped abroad, mostly to countries already struggling to manage plastic waste effectively. The researchers said years of exporting had masked the U.S.'s enormous contribution to plastic pollution. The latest study, published in the journal Science Advances, used World Bank data on waste generation in 217 countries. It focused on the U.S. and used additional data on littering and illegal dumping within the country and on contamination by exported plastic, which is likely to be dumped rather than recycled. The researchers found the U.S. produced the most plastic waste by World Bank reckoning, at 34m tonnes in 2016, but the total increased to 42m tonnes when the additional data was considered. India and China were second and third, but their large populations meant their figures for per capita plastic waste was less than 20% of that of U.S. consumers. Among the 20 nations with the highest total plastic waste production, the UK was second to the U.S. per capita, followed by South Korea and Germany. "When the researchers estimated how much of each country's plastic waste ends up in the oceans, Indonesia and India ranked highest," the report adds. "The U.S. ranked between third and eleventh, depending on the assumptions made about waste leakage into the environment. The analysis found that up to 1 million tons of exported U.S. plastic waste ended up as marine pollution."

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Researchers have identified cells in the human brain that are responsible for episodic memories. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. NPR reports: The cells are called time cells, and they place a sort of time stamp on memories as they are being formed. That allows us to recall sequences of events or experiences in the right order. "By having time cells create this indexing across time, you can put everything together in a way that makes sense," says Dr. Bradley Lega, the study's senior author and a neurosurgeon at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Time cells were discovered in rodents decades ago. But the new study is critical because "the final arbitrator is always the human brain," says Dr. Gyorgy Buzsaki, Biggs Professor of Neuroscience at New York University. Buzsaki is not an author of the study but did edit the manuscript. Lega and his team found the time cells by studying the brains of 27 people who were awaiting surgery for severe epilepsy. As part of their pre-surgical preparation, these patients had electrodes placed in the hippocampus and another area of the brain involved in navigation, memory and time perception. In the experiment, the patients studied sequences of 12 or 15 words that appeared on a laptop screen during a period of about 30 seconds. Then, after a break, they were asked to recall the words they had seen. Meanwhile, the researchers were measuring the activity of individual brain cells. And they found a small number that that would fire at specific times during each sequence of words. "The time cells that we found, they are marking out discrete segments of time within this approximately 30-second window," Lega says. These time stamps seemed to help people recall when they had seen each word, and in what order, he says. And the brain probably uses the same approach when we're reliving an experience like falling off a bike. The results help explain why people who have damage to the hippocampus may experience odd memory problems, Buzsaki says.

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In Shanghai's latest effort to preserve historic structures, engineers have relocated an 85-year-old, five-story building in its entirety using new technology dubbed the "walking machine." CNN reports: [E]ngineers attached nearly 200 mobile supports under the five-story building, according to Lan Wuji, chief technical supervisor of the project. The supports act like robotic legs. They're split into two groups which alternately rise up and down, imitating the human stride. Attached sensors help control how the building moves forward, said Lan, whose company Shanghai Evolution Shift developed the new technology in 2018. "It's like giving the building crutches so it can stand up and then walk," he said. A timelapse shot by the company shows the school inching laboriously along, one tiny step at a time. According to a statement from the Huangpu district government, the Lagena Primary School was constructed in 1935 by the municipal board of Shanghai's former French Concession. It was moved in order to make space for a new commercial and office complex, which will be completed by 2023. Workers had to first dig around the building to install the 198 mobile supports in the spaces underneath, Lan explained. After the pillars of the building were truncated, the robotic "legs" were then extended upward, lifting the building before moving forward. Over the course of 18 days, the building was rotated 21 degrees and moved 62 meters (203 feet) away to its new location. The relocation was completed on October 15, with the old school building set to become a center for heritage protection and cultural education. The project marks the first time this "walking machine" method has been used in Shanghai to relocate a historical building, the government statement said.

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According to Nikkei, Sony is close to acquiring U.S. anime-streaming service Crunchyroll for more than $957 million. From the report: Sony has its own popular anime, titles like "Demon Slayer" and "Kimetsu no Yaiba," but has been licensing it to streaming services. Sony's Aniplex, the studio behind "Kimetsu no Yaiba," has a variety of content, including movies and music, that is mainly distributed by overseas companies. If the acquisition is realized, global competition for content among companies like Netflix and Hulu will intensify. Crunchyroll was founded in 2006 and has its headquarters in San Francisco. In 2018, AT&T, the U.S. telecommunications giant, became its parent company. Sony recently obtained the exclusive right to negotiate for Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll has 70 million free members and 3 million paying subscribers in more than 200 countries and regions, including the U.S and Europe. Crunchyroll would also give Sony more than 1,000 titles that it can use to vary its offerings.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: The group of Russian hackers accused of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election earlier this year targeted the email accounts of Democratic state parties in California and Indiana, and influential think tanks in Washington and New York, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The attempted intrusions, many of which were internally flagged by Microsoft Corp over the summer, were carried out by a group often nicknamed "Fancy Bear." The hackers' activity provides insight into how Russian intelligence is targeting the United States in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election. The targets identified by Reuters, which include the Center for American Progress, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said they had not seen any evidence of successful hacking attempts. Fancy Bear is controlled by Russia's military intelligence agency and was responsible for hacking the email accounts of Hillary Clinton's staff in the run-up to the 2016 election, according to a Department of Justice indictment filed in 2018. News of the Russian hacking activity follows last month's announcement here by Microsoft that Fancy Bear had attempted to hack more than 200 organizations, many of which the software company said were tied to the 2020 election. Microsoft was able to link this year's cyber espionage campaign to the Russian hackers through an apparent programming error that allowed the company to identify a pattern of attack unique to Fancy Bear, according to a Microsoft assessment reviewed by Reuters. The thrust of espionage operations could not be determined by Reuters. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in August here that Russian operations were attempting to undermine the campaign of presidential candidate Joe Biden.

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Your iPhone got a new button last month, and you may not have even noticed. The Verge reports: No, Apple didn't sneak into your house and secretly superglue a button onto your smartphone. But it did release iOS 14, the latest version of its iPhone software, which includes a feature called Back Tap. Back Tap adds a fascinating new "button" to your phone that blurs the line between hardware and software. Back Tap turns the entire back of your iPhone into a giant touch-sensitive button that you can double or triple tap to trigger specific functions on your phone. There's a good chance that you haven't noticed it yet. Apple slipped the settings for Back Tap into its Accessibility menu. Its intended purpose is to give users more options for interacting with their devices. Most of Back Tap's options reflect that, with settings to open the app switcher, notification menu, or control center; scroll through an app or webpage; trigger Siri; or take a screenshot. But Back Tap also ties into Apple's incredibly robust Shortcuts app, which means you can effectively make those new buttons do almost anything you can imagine. It's a fascinating kind of button: entirely invisible to the naked eye, completely nonfunctional until it's enabled through software, but can be tasked to open, interact with, or accomplish nearly any task on your smartphone with just a quick tap.

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Global fitness giant Under Armour announced this morning that it will be selling MyFitnessPal to investment firm Francisco Partners for $345 million, five and a half years after acquiring it for $475 million. The company also announced that it will be winding down the Endomondo platform which it also acquired at the same time for $85 million. TechCrunch reports: In a press release announcing the news, Under Armour said the reason for this decision was to simplify and focus its brand, keeping it aimed at its "target consumer -- the Focused Performer" in the interest of building "a singular, cohesive UA ecosystem." The fact that Under Armour is selling MyFitnessPal at a discount (not even including five years of inflation and stated MyFitnessPal user growth) indicates there's more to this than just maintaining focus. It's definitely true that both MyFitnessPal (which claimed 80 million users in 2015 at the time of acquisition, and has more than 200 million users according to today's press release) and Endomondo were aimed at more casual and entry-level fitness users, who might be working out for the first time, or looking to improve their daily health, but aren't likely training for endurance-sport competitions. Under Armour's overall brand image is more associated with professional athletics, and with an enthusiast/semi-pro clientele (or those aspiring to that designation). What's more likely going on here is that Under Armour sees diminishing value in this segment over the long term... The company is going to continue to own and operate the MapMyFitness platform, which includes MapMyRun and MapMyRide.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: In its first report on its autonomous vehicle operations in Phoenix, Arizona, Waymo said that it was involved in 18 crashes and 29 near-miss collisions during 2019 and the first nine months of 2020. These crashes included rear-enders, vehicle swipes, and even one incident when a Waymo vehicle was T-boned at an intersection by another car at nearly 40 mph. The company said that no one was seriously injured and "nearly all" of the collisions were the fault of the other driver. The report is the deepest dive yet into the real-life operations of the world's leading autonomous vehicle company, which recently began offering rides in its fully driverless vehicles to the general public. ... [I]n this paper, and another also published today, the company is showing its work. Waymo says its intention is to build public trust in automated vehicle technology, but these papers also serve as a challenge to other AV competitors. The two papers take different approaches. The first outlines a multilayered approach that maps out Waymo's approach to safety. It includes three layers: Hardware, including the vehicle itself, the sensor suite, the steering and braking system, and the computing platform; The automated driving system behavioral layer, such as avoiding collisions with other cars, successfully completing fully autonomous rides, and adhering to the rules of the road; Operations, like fleet operations, risk management, and a field safety program to resolve potential safety issues. The second paper is meatier, with detailed information on the company's self-driving operations in Phoenix, including the number of miles driven and the number of "contact events" Waymo's vehicles have had with other road users. This is the first time that Waymo has ever publicly disclosed mileage and crash data from its autonomous vehicle testing operation in Phoenix. Between January and December 2019, Waymo's vehicles with trained safety drivers drove 6.1 million miles. In addition, from January 2019 through September 2020, its fully driverless vehicles drove 65,000 miles. Taken together, the company says this represents "over 500 years of driving for the average licensed US driver," citing a 2017 survey of travel trends by the Federal Highway Administration. "This is a major milestone, we think, in transparency," said Matthew Schwall, head of field safety at Waymo, in a briefing with reporters Wednesday. Waymo claims this is the first time that any autonomous vehicle company has released a detailed overview of its safety methodologies, including vehicle crash data, when not required by a government entity. "Our goal here is to kickstart a renewed industry dialogue in terms of how safety is assessed for these technologies," Schwall said.

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Earlier this month, on land north of Toronto that previously burned in a wildfire, drones hovered over fields and fired seed pods into the ground, planting native pine and spruce trees to help restore habitat for birds. From a report: Flash Forest, the Canadian startup behind the project, plans to use its technology to plant 40,000 trees in the area this month. By the end of the year, as it expands to other regions, it will plant hundreds of thousands of trees. By 2028, the startup aims to have planted a full 1 billion trees. The company, like a handful of other startups that are also using tree-planting drones, believes that technology can help the world reach ambitious goals to restore forests to stem biodiversity loss and fight climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that it's necessary to plant 1 billion hectares of trees -- a forest roughly the size of the entire United States -- to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Existing forests need to be protected while new trees are planted; right now, that isn't working well. "There are a lot of different attempts to tackle reforestation," says Flash Forest cofounder and chief strategy officer Angelique Ahlstrom. "But despite all of them, they're still failing, with a net loss of 7 billion trees every year." Drones don't address deforestation, which is arguably an even more critical issue than planting trees, since older trees can store much more carbon. But to restore forests that have already been lost, the drones can work more quickly and cheaply than humans planting with shovels. Flash Forest's tech can currently plant 10,000 to 20,000 seed pods a day; as the technology advances, a pair of pilots will be able to plant 100,000 trees in a day (by hand, someone might typically be able to plant around 1,500 trees in a day, Ahlstrom says.) The company aims to bring the cost down to 50 cents per tree, or around a fourth of the cost of some other tree restoration efforts. When it begins work at a site, the startup first sends mapping drones to survey the area, using software to identify the best places to plant based on the soil and existing plants. Next, a swarm of drones begins precisely dropping seed pods, packed in a proprietary mix that the company says encourages the seeds to germinate weeks before they otherwise would have. The seed pods are also designed to store moisture, so the seedlings can survive even with months of drought. In some areas, such as hilly terrain or in mangrove forests, the drones use a pneumatic firing device that shoots seed pods deeper into the soil.

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