Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the going-bananas department: The climate crisis is threatening the future of the world's most popular fruit, as almost two-thirds of banana-growing areas in Latin America and the Caribbean may no longer be suitable for growing the fruit by 2080, new research has found. From a report: Rising temperatures, extreme weather and climate-related pests are pummeling banana-growing countries such as Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, reducing yields and devastating rural communities across the region, according to Christian Aid's new report, Going Bananas: How Climate Change Threatens the World's Favourite Fruit.
Bananas are the world's most consumed fruit -- and the fourth most important food crop globally, after wheat, rice and maize. About 80% of bananas grown globally are for local consumption, and more than 400 million people rely on the fruit for 15% to 27% of their daily calories.
Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the how-about-that department: Western Digital has made a strategic investment in German startup Cerabyte, a company developing nearly indestructible ceramic-based data storage technology. The partnership aims to accelerate commercialization of Cerabyte's ceramic-on-glass material, which the company claims can preserve data for 5,000 years.
Cerabyte recently demonstrated its technology's resilience by boiling storage devices in salt water and subjecting them to oven-level heat. The company states its ceramic storage withstands fire, moisture, UV light, radiation, corrosion, and EMP bursts. Beyond durability, Cerabyte aims to enable massive capacity increases as the industry moves toward what it calls the "Yottabyte era," while targeting storage costs below $1 per TB by 2030.
Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the underground-oceans department: Evidence is mounting for "a vast reservoir of liquid water" on Mars, according to a new article by Australian National University professor Hrvoje TkalÄiÄ and geophysics associate professor Weijia Sun from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, announcing their recently published paper.
"Using seismic data from NASA's InSight mission, we uncovered evidence that the seismic waves slow down in a layer between 5.4 and 8 kilometres below the surface, which could be because of the presence of liquid water at these depths."
Mars is covered in traces of ancient bodies of water. But the puzzle of exactly where it all went when the planet turned cold and dry has long intrigued scientists... Billions of years ago, during the Noachian and Hesperian periods (4.1 billion to 3 billion years ago), rivers carved valleys and lakes shimmered. As Mars' magnetic field faded and its atmosphere thinned, most surface water vanished. Some escaped to space, some froze in polar caps, and some was trapped in minerals, where it remains today. But evaporation, freezing and rocks can't quite account for all the water that must have covered Mars in the distant past.
Calculations suggest the "missing" water is enough to cover the planet in an ocean at least 700 metres deep, and perhaps up to 900 metres deep. One hypothesis has been that the missing water seeped into the crust. Mars was heavily bombarded by meteorites during the Noachian period, which may have formed fractures that channelled water underground. Deep beneath the surface, warmer temperatures would keep the water in a liquid state — unlike the frozen layers nearer the surface.
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Posted by EditorDavid from Slashdot
From the breaking-training department: Business Insider tells the story in three bullet points:
- Big Tech companies depend on content made by others to train their AI models.
- Some of those creators say using their work to train AI is copyright infringement.
- The U.S. Copyright Office just published a report that indicates it may agree.
The office released on Friday its latest in a series of reports exploring copyright laws and artificial intelligence. The report addresses whether the copyrighted content AI companies use to train their AI models qualifies under the fair use doctrine. AI companies are probably not going to like what they read...
AI execs argue they haven't violated copyright laws because the training falls under fair use. According to the U.S. Copyright Office's new report, however, it's not that simple. "Although it is not possible to prejudge the result in any particular case, precedent supports the following general observations," the office said. "Various uses of copyrighted works in AI training are likely to be transformative. The extent to which they are fair, however, will depend on what works were used, from what source, for what purpose, and with what controls on the outputs — all of which can affect the market."
The office made a distinction between AI models for research and commercial AI models. "When a model is deployed for purposes such as analysis or research — the types of uses that are critical to international competitiveness — the outputs are unlikely to substitute for expressive works used in training," the office said. "But making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries."
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20 years ago on May 12, 2005, the Xbox 360 and the future of video games was unveiled on MTV, and it was hosted by Elijah Wood. And while going back to this 20 minute show is a bit embarrassing now, it’s wild how Microsoft and Xbox really did see the future coming before the rest of the industry.
It’s been weeks since Joel (Pedro Pascal) met a violent end in HBO’s The Last of Us. People who played The Last of Us Part II knew this was coming, but newcomers have been in a state of mourning since season two’s second episode took away their TV peepaw. Like a lot of players did in 2020, they went into this…
I’ve somehow seen every live-action Star Wars show, all of the movies except Solo, and played many of the video game spin-offs and adaptations, yet I still don’t really consider myself a Star Wars fan. These days it feels like you need a pedantic, encyclopedia-level recall of in-universe minutiae to really call…
A lot happened in this week’s episode of The Last of Us, but one moment that has fans all in their feelings was when Ellie (Bella Ramsey) sang half a line of a Pearl Jam song in an empty Seattle theater. If you’re a fan of the Last of Us games, you know how significant “Future Days” (from the grunge band’s 2013 album L…
Joy-Con mouse controls are one of the biggest innovations in a next-gen console that otherwise looks to be just a bigger, more powerful version of its predecessor. On Monday Nintendo showed off how Switch 2 owners will be able to navigate the home screen with a cursor and it looks neat, but raises the question of just…
How big of an effect can review bombing have on a game? According to Moon Studios, the people behind Ori and the Blind Forest, the consequences could be so serious that it could lead to the closure of the studio. At least, that’s what studio head Thomas Mahler said. Before he said the opposite.
The Weeknd has revealed his true life’s passion... and surprisingly, it’s not music. The “Starboy” musician admitted that his rise to superstardom in the music industry was really just “a little detour” he used to pursue his number one passion.
Ellie finally got a little bit of revenge this week. How are we feeling? Not as cathartic as you thought it was gonna be, huh? HBO’s take on The Last of Us is finally back in the trenches after a few weeks of levity, or at the very least with its grisly revenge plot out of sight and mostly out of mind. It’s been…
