Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the hide-and-seek department: The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered its first new exoplanet, TWA 7b -- a young, low-mass planet about 100 times the mass of Earth, making it the lightest planet ever directly imaged beyond the solar system. Space.com reports: TWA 7b was discovered in the debris rings that surround the low-mass star CE Antilae, also known as TWA 7, located around 111 light-years from Earth. CE Antilae is a very young star, estimated to be around just a few million years old. If that seems ancient, consider the sun, a "middle-aged" star, is around 4.6 billion years old.
[...] The disk of CE Antilae is divided into three distinct rings, one of which is narrow and bounded by two empty "lanes" mostly devoid of matter. When imaging this ring, the JWST spotted an infrared-emitting source, which the team of astronomers determined is most likely a young exoplanet. They then used simulations that confirmed the formation of a thin ring and a "hole" exactly where this planet is positioned, corresponding to JWST observations. The research has been published in the journal Nature.
Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the here-we-go-again department: U.S. lawmakers have reintroduced the bipartisan Open App Markets Act, aiming to curb Apple and Google's control over mobile app stores by promoting competition, supporting third-party marketplaces and sideloading, and safeguarding developer rights. AppleInsider reports: The Open App Markets Act seeks to do a number of things, including:
- Protect developers' rights to tell consumers about lower prices and offer competitive pricing;
- Protect sideloading of apps;
- Promote competition by opening the market to third-party app stores, startup apps, and alternative payment systems;
- Make it possible for developers to offer new experiences that take advantage of consumer device features;
- Give consumers greater control over their devices;
- Prevent app stores from disadvantaging developers; and
- Establish safeguards to preserve consumer privacy, security, and safety.
This isn't the first time we've seen this bill, either. In 2021, Senators Blumenthal, Klobuchar, and Blackburn had attempted to put forth the original version of the Open App Markets Act.However, the initial bill never made it to the floor for an office vote. Thanks to last-minute efforts by lobbying groups and appearances from chief executives, the bill eventually stalled out.
While the two bills are largely similar, the revised version introduces several key differences. Notably, the new version includes new carve-outs aimed at protecting intellectual property and addressing potential national security concerns.There's also a new clause that would prohibit punitive actions against developers for enabling remote access to other apps. The clause addition harkens back to the debacle between Apple and most game streaming services -- though in 2024, Apple loosened its App Store guidelines to allow cloud gaming and emulation.
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the every-tab-an-island department: Psylo, a new privacy-focused iOS browser by Mysk, aims to defeat digital fingerprinting by isolating each browser tab with its own IP address, unique fingerprinting defenses, and proxy-based encryption. "Psylo stands out as it is the only WebKit-based iOS browser that truly isolates tabs," Tommy Mysk told The Register. "It's not only about separate storage and cookies. Psylo goes beyond that."
"This is why we call tabs 'silos.' It applies unique anti-fingerprinting measures per silo, such as canvas randomization. This way two Psylo tabs opening the same website would appear as though they originated on two different devices to the opened website." From the report: The company claims Psylo therefore offers better privacy than a VPN because the virtual networks mask the user's IP address but generally don't alter the data used for fingerprinting. Psylo, for example, will adjust the browser's time zone and browser language to match the geolocation of each proxy, resulting in more entropy that means fingerprints created by gathering data from silos will appear to be different.
The Mysk devs' post states that some privacy-focused browsers like Brave also implement anti-fingerprinting measures like canvas randomization, but those are more effective on the desktop macOS app due to Apple's iOS restrictions. They claim that they were able to achieve better results on iOS by using a client-side JavaScript solution. Mysk designed Psylo to minimize the information available to its maker. It doesn't log personally identifiable information or browsing data that the curious could use to identify the user, the company claims, noting that it also doesn't have customer payment information, which is handled by Apple. There are no user accounts, only randomized identifiers to indicate active subscriptions. According to Tommy Mysk, the only subscriber data kept is bandwidth usage, which is necessary to prevent abuse.
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Posted by BeauHD from Slashdot
From the compare-and-contrast department: An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Nearly a decade ago, Ars testing found that Valve's "Steam Machines"-era version of SteamOS performed significantly worse than Windows when SteamOS's Linux game ports were tested on the same hardware as their Windows counterparts. Today, though, Ars testing on the Lenovo Legion Go S finds recent games generally run at higher frame rates on SteamOS 3.7 than on Windows 11. [...]
As you can see in the included charts, SteamOS showed noticeable frame rate improvements in four of the five games tested. Only Borderlands 3 showed comparable performance across both operating systems, with Windows eking out ever-so-slightly higher frame rates in that game's benchmarks. For the other four tested games, the stock Lenovo Windows drivers were sometimes significantly worse than those included with SteamOS. When playing Returnal at "High" graphics presets and 1920x1200 resolution, for instance, changing from Lenovo's Windows drivers to SteamOS meant the difference between a hard-to-take 18 FPS average and a downright decent 33 FPS average. Sideloading the updated Asus drivers showed a noticeable improvement in Windows performance across all tested games and even brought Homeworld 3's "Low" graphics benchmark test to practical parity with SteamOS. In all other cases, though, even these updated drivers resulted in benchmark frame rates anywhere from 8 percent to 36 percent lower than those same benchmarks on SteamOS.
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Posted by from MMO Champion
Mists of Pandaria Classic: Profession Updates
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
The mists surrounding Pandaria will soon lift, and with it, players will begin their transition from the shattered lands of the Cataclysm to the mystical lands of the Pandaren. To help with this transition, we’ve pulled together a refresher on what you can expect from professions.
Harmonius Prospects
Danky
Spirit of Harmony Vendor
In Mists of Pandaria Classic, players encounter a new material known as the Spirit of Harmony. Crafters of any stripe will find it has many uses. By now, any experienced crafter is used to filling bags with a variety of materials such as Primal Life, Primal Fire, Primal Earth, etc. but in Mists of Pandaria, it’s all about Spirit of Harmony (in combination with the usual materials, like ore, leather, and gems). Much like with other Primals, Motes of Harmony can be combined (10 to 1) to create one Spirit of Harmony.
Spirit of Harmony is a Bind on Pickup (or “BoP” to veterans) crafting material that can be found on every lootable creature in every zone in Pandaria—from dungeons to the outdoor world.
In addition to serving as a core crafting ingredient, Spirits of Harmony can also be used to purchase a variety of additional bonuses or materials that your character may need. While not every profession will get equal value out of them, most everyone will need to collect them for one reason or another.
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Posted by msmash from Slashdot
From the stranger-things department: Overfishing has led to a collapse in the eastern Baltic cod population, but over the past three decades the size of the fish themselves has also been dramatically and mysteriously shrinking. From a report: Now scientists have uncovered genomic evidence that intensive fishing has driven rapid evolutionary changes that have contributed to these fish roughly halving in average body length since the 1990s. The "shrinking" of cod, from a median mature body length of 40cm in 1996 to 20cm in 2019, has a genetic basis and human activities have left a profound mark on the population's DNA, the study concluded.
[...] The dramatic shrinking of cod has been a source of concern for several decades, but it was not clear to what extent the phenomenon has been driven by environmental factors such as hypoxic conditions caused by algal blooms, pollution and more extreme marine seasonal temperature changes. [...] The study used an archive of tiny ear bones, called otoliths, of 152 cod, caught in the Bornholm Basin between 1996 and 2019. Otoliths -- a bit like tree rings -- record annual growth, making them valuable biological timekeepers.
Posted by from MMO Champion
Journey Through the Wandering Isle and Take on the Way of the Monk
Originally Posted by Blizzard
(
Blue Tracker /
Official Forums)
With the release of the Mists of Pandaria pre-expansion patch, a new race—Pandaren—along with a new class—the Monk—become available. As a new Pandaren, you’ll start your adventure on the Wandering Isle and begin learning about this noble race and culture.
The Myth and Magic of the Wandering Isle
The Wandering Isle is the breathtaking starting zone for Pandaren players, offering a distinctive experience unlike any other in World of Warcraft. This is no ordinary landmass—but a living turtle named Shen-zin Su that roams the vast oceans of Azeroth. This unique starting zone serves as the birthplace and cultural hub of the Pandaren. According to lore, Shen-zin Su’s unending journey symbolizes the Pandaren’s connection to nature and their quest for enlightenment.
The isle is a lush and vibrant ecosystem, teeming with cherry blossom trees, bamboo forests, serene temples, and bustling villages. Designed to reflect a harmony between nature and civilization, it embodies the Pandaren philosophy of balance. Despite its idyllic appearance, the Wandering Isle is far from a utopia, and it is here that players begin their journey to uncover the troubles brewing beneath its surface.
Choosing Your Path: Meet the Pandaren
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Once you add the balloons into the model, it makes forecasting easier overall--the forecast is always 'cold and dark, with minimal solar-driven convection.' 
