A worrying number of UK authorities are still unaware of the impending switch-off of 2G and 3G mobile networks, according to Local Government Association (LGA) figures. From a report: While 38 percent of respondents were fully aware, 27 percent were only partially aware, and 7 percent had no idea at all that the axe would be falling by 2033 at the latest. The numbers worsened when the researchers spoke to respondents in senior management. Almost half (48 percent) were "partially aware" the UK's 2G and 3G mobile networks were due to be switched off and 14 percent were not at all aware.

The actual switch-off will happen over the next few years. UK mobile operators have told government they do not intend to offer 2G and 3G mobile networks past 2033 at the latest, and there is a high likelihood that some networks will be shut down earlier. The UK government said it welcomes plans to end services ahead of time. Vodafone, for example, intends to pull the plug on 3G once and for all from January 2024. Although most consumers, with their 4G and 5G devices, will likely be unaware of the end when it comes, the same cannot be said of local authorities. According to the survey, almost two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) reported that their authority was still using devices or services reliant on 2G and 3G networks.

When hurricane Larry made landfall in the Atlantic in 2021, it was depositing over 100,000 microplastics per square meter of land per day. The findings have been published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment. Wired reports: As hurricane Larry curved north in the Atlantic in 2021, sparing the eastern seaboard of the United States, a special instrument was waiting for it on the coast of Newfoundland. Because hurricanes feed on warm ocean water, scientists wondered whether such a storm could pick up microplastics from the sea surface and deposit them when it made landfall. Larry was literally a perfect storm: Because it hadn't touched land before reaching the island, anything it dropped would have been scavenged from the water or air, as opposed to, say, a highly populated city, where you'd expect to find lots of microplastics. [...]

The instrument in a clearing on Newfoundland was quite simple: a glass cylinder, holding a little bit of ultrapure water, securely attached to the ground with wooden stakes. Every six hours before, during, and after the hurricane, the researchers would come and empty out the water, which would have collected any particles falling -- both with and without rain -- on Newfoundland. "It's just a place that experiences a lot of extreme weather events," says Earth scientist Anna Ryan of Dalhousie University, lead author of the paper. "Also, it's fairly remote, and it's got a pretty low population density. So you don't have a bunch of nearby sources of microplastics."

The team found that even before and after Larry, tens of thousands of microplastics fell per square meter of land per day. But when the hurricane hit, that figure spiked up to 113,000. "We found a lot of microplastics deposited during the peak of the hurricane," says Ryan, "but also, overall deposition was relatively high compared to previous studies." These studies were done during normal conditions, but in more remote locations, she says. The researchers also used a technique known as back trajectory modeling -- basically simulating where the air that arrived at the instrument had been previously. That confirmed that Larry had picked up the microplastics at sea, lofted them into the air, and dumped them on Newfoundland. [...] The Newfoundland study notes that Larry happened to pass over the garbage patch of the North Atlantic Gyre, where currents accumulate floating plastic.

NASA has successfully beamed an ultra-high definition streaming video from a record-setting 19 million miles away. The Deep Space Optical Communications experiment, as it is called, is part of a NASA technology demonstration aimed at streaming HD video from deep space to enable future human missions beyond Earth orbit. From a NASA press release: The [15-second test] video signal took 101 seconds to reach Earth, sent at the system's maximum bit rate of 267 megabits per second (Mbps). Capable of sending and receiving near-infrared signals, the instrument beamed an encoded near-infrared laser to the Hale Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, where it was downloaded. Each frame from the looping video was then sent "live" to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, where the video was played in real time.

The laser communications demo, which launched with NASA's Psyche mission on Oct. 13, is designed to transmit data from deep space at rates 10 to 100 times greater than the state-of-the-art radio frequency systems used by deep space missions today. As Psyche travels to the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, the technology demonstration will send high-data-rate signals as far out as the Red Planet's greatest distance from Earth. In doing so, it paves the way for higher-data-rate communications capable of sending complex scientific information, high-definition imagery, and video in support of humanity's next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.

Uploaded before launch, the short ultra-high definition video features an orange tabby cat named Taters, the pet of a JPL employee, chasing a laser pointer, with overlayed graphics. The graphics illustrate several features from the tech demo, such as Psyche's orbital path, Palomar's telescope dome, and technical information about the laser and its data bit rate. Tater's heart rate, color, and breed are also on display. There's also a historical link: Beginning in 1928, a small statue of the popular cartoon character Felix the Cat was featured in television test broadcast transmissions. Today, cat videos and memes are some of the most popular content online. "Despite transmitting from millions of miles away, it was able to send the video faster than most broadband internet connections," said Ryan Rogalin, the project's receiver electronics lead at JPL. "In fact, after receiving the video at Palomar, it was sent to JPL over the internet, and that connection was slower than the signal coming from deep space. JPL's DesignLab did an amazing job helping us showcase this technology -- everyone loves Taters."

Bill McGuire is professor emeritus of climate hazards at University College London. He also writes on CNN that it's "essential" to laugh in the face of the climate crisis: If you don't laugh, you will cry, and that marks the beginning of a very slippery slope. As civilization faces a threat that dwarfs that of every war ever fought combined, and the outcome of the latest climate COP offers little hope, it's something we need — not only to remember — but to actively adopt as a weapon in our armoury to fight for a better future for our children and their children. They say that laughter is the best medicine, but weaponised comedy has the potential to do more than just make us feel good. Not only can it help inform and educate about global heating and the climate breakdown it is driving, but also to encourage and bolster action...

This is why ventures like "Climate Science Translated," which I took part in earlier this year, are so important. The British-based project — brainchild of ethical insurer Nick Oldridge and the climate communications outfit Utopia Bureau — teams climate scientists up with comedians, who 'translate' the science into bite-sized, funny and pretty irreverent chunks that can be understood, digested and appreciated by anyone.
You can see four of the videos on their web site. "Climate science is complicated," each video begins. "So we're translating it into human."

For example, last month Dr. Friederike Otto, senior lecturer on climate science at London's Imperial College, created a new video with comedian Nish Kumar: Dr. Otto: Human-caused climate change is fundamentally changing the fabric of the weather as we know it. It's leading to events which we've simply never seen before.

Comedian Kumar: Translation: Weather used to be clouds. Now we've made it into a sort of Rottweiler on steroids that wants to chew everyone's head off.

Dr. Otto: The continuing increase in global average temperature is already causing higher probabilities of extreme rainfall and flash flooding, as well more intense storms, prolonged droughts, record-breaking heatwaves, and wildfires.

Kumar: Very soon climate scientists are just going to ditch their graphs and point out the window with an expression that says, "I fucking told you!"

Dr. Otto: This is not a problem just for our children and grandchildren. This is an immediate threat to all our lives.

Kumar: I don't know if you're familiar with the film The Terminator, but if someone came from the future to warn us of this threat, they'd have travelled from next Wednesday.
And three weeks ago a follow-up video came from earth systems science professor Mark Maslin from London's University College, teaming up with comedian Jo Brand: Professor Maslin: We are heading for unknown territory if we trigger tipping points — irreversible threshholds which shift our entire ecosystem into a different state.

Comedian Brand: If you liked climate crisis, you're going to love climate complete fucking collapse...

Professor Maslin: The irony is solar and wind power are now over 10 times cheaper than oil and gas. We can still prevent much of the damage, and end up in a better place for everyone.

Brand: With wind and sun power, we save money, and don't die. It's a pretty strong selling point.

Professor Maslin: Most people actually are in favor of urgent action. The reason governments are not transitioning fast enough is because the fossil fuel industry has a grip on many politicians. In fact, governments subsidize them with our taxpayer money — over $1 trillion a year, according to the IMF.

Brand: We are paying a bunch of rich dudes one trillion dollars a year to fuck up our future. I'd do it for that money. When can I start?
Each video ends with the words "All Hands On Deck Now", urging action by voting, contacting your representative, joining a local group, and protesting.

Climate hazard professor Bill McGuire writes on CNN that he hopes to see a growing movement: As Kiri Pritchard-McLean pointedly observes: "If comedians are helping scientists out, you know things aren't going well...." There is even a "Sustainable Stand-up" course aimed at teaching comedy beginners about how climate and social issues can be addressed in their shows, and which has run in 11 countries.

Researchers from the City University of Hong Kong have developed a special antenna that can control all five important aspects of electromagnetic waves using computer software. Interesting Engineering reports: The antenna, which they have named 'microwave universal metasurface antenna,' is capable of dynamically, simultaneously, independently, and precisely manipulating all the essential properties of electromagnetic waves through software control. [...] The antenna adjusts how strong the waves are, their timing, frequency, direction, and even the way they vibrate, all at the same time. It's the first time anyone has made an antenna that can do all these things simultaneously, marking a significant breakthrough in this field.

The antenna is special because it can be used in advanced information systems, like the ones we might have in the future. It's great for handling a lot of data and keeping that data very safe. It can also transfer power wirelessly, meaning it can charge devices without physical connections. One cool thing about this antenna is that it can control the direction of its signals, adding an extra layer of privacy and security. This makes it a good choice for communication systems where we want to ensure nobody can eavesdrop or secretly listen in on our conversations.

Although demonstrated in the microwave band, the UMA's concept can be expanded to terahertz frequencies using specific technologies, enabling applications in augmented reality, holography, integrated sensing and communications for 6G, quantum optics, and quantum information science, noted the researchers in their study. The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: A NASA telescope has captured the biggest solar flare in years, which temporarily knocked out radio communication on Earth. The sun spit out the huge flare on Thursday, resulting in two hours of radio interference in parts of the U.S. and other sunlit parts of the world. Scientists said it was the biggest flare since 2017. Multiple pilots reported communication disruptions, with the impact felt across the country, said the government's Space Weather Prediction Center.

Scientists are now monitoring this sunspot region and analyzing for a possible outburst of plasma from the sun, also known as a coronal mass ejection, directed at Earth. The eruption occurred in the far northwest section of the sun, according to the center. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the action in extreme ultraviolet light, recording the powerful surge of energy as a huge, bright flash. Launched in 2010, the spacecraft is in an extremely high orbit around Earth, where it constantly monitors the sun. The sun is nearing the peak of its 11-year or so solar cycle. Maximum sunspot activity is predicted for 2025.

NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft is, once again, having trouble transmitting any scientific or systems data back to Earth. "The 46-year-old spacecraft is capable of receiving commands, but a problem seems to have arisen with the probe's computers," reports Space.com. Slashdot readers quonset and ArchieBunker shared the news. From the report: Voyager 1's flight data system (FDS), which collects onboard engineering information and data from the spacecraft's scientific instruments, is no longer communicating as expected with the probe's telecommunications unit (TMU), according to a NASA blog post on Dec. 12. When functioning properly, the FDS compiles the spacecraft's info into a data package, which is then transmitted back to Earth using the TMU. Lately, that data package has been "stuck," the blog post said, "transmitting a repeating pattern of ones and zeros." Voyager's engineering team traced the problem back to the FDS, but it could be weeks before a solution is found. In May 2022, Voyager 1 experienced transmitting issues for several months before a workaround was found. Meanwhile, Voyager 2 experienced an unplanned "communications pause" earlier this year after a routine sequence of commands triggered a 2-degree change in the spacecraft's antenna orientation. This prevented it from receiving commands or transmitting data back to Earth until NASA fixed the issue a week later.

The Federal Communications Commission has taken a step toward prohibiting early termination fees charged by cable and satellite TV providers. From a report: If given final approval, the FCC action would also require cable and satellite providers to provide a prorated credit or rebate to customers who cancel before a billing period ends. The new rules are being floated in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that the FCC voted to approve this week in a 3-2 vote, with both Republicans dissenting. The NPRM seeks public comment on the proposed rules and could lead to a final vote in a few months or so.

"Today's action proposes to adopt customer service protections that prohibit cable operators and DBS (Direct Broadcast Satellite) providers from imposing a fee for the early termination of a cable or DBS video service contract," the FCC said. "Additionally, the NPRM recommends the adoption of customer service protections to require cable and DBS providers to grant subscribers a prorated credit or rebate for the remaining whole days in a monthly or periodic billing cycle after the subscriber cancels service."

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said, "Consumers are tired of these junk fees. They now have more choices when it comes to video content. But these friction-filled tactics to keep us subscribing to our current providers are aggravating and unfair. So today we kick off a rulemaking to put an end to these practices." Cable lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association opposes the plan and said it will submit comments to support "consumer choice and competitive parity."

Amazon, which launched its first internet satellites in October, says it will use space lasers to ensure reliable broadband coverage even in the middle of the ocean. From a report: The technology will enable a satellite to deliver data to a cruise ship, say, even if the spacecraft isn't in range of an Amazon ground station connected to the internet. Instead, the laser will pass the request on to another satellite that has a clear view of a ground station.

The two prototype satellites successfully tested the technology, which is officially called optical inter-satellite links, Amazon said on Thursday. "If you're going to serve maritime customers, air customers, you have got to be able to get data up to your satellites," said Rajeev Badyal, who leads Amazon's Project Kuiper internet-from-space initiative. "And in the middle of the ocean, it's difficult if not impossible" to install ground stations.

The FTC is considering an investigation into Microsoft's investment in OpenAI to determine if the company broke any antitrust laws. The Register reports: Despite the money poured into it over the years, OpenAI was founded as a non-profit in 2015, and Microsoft's investment does not amount to control of the company. Microsoft chief communications officer Frank X Shaw underlined attempts to dampen down industry talk of a probe: "While details of our agreement remain confidential, it is important to note that Microsoft does not own any portion of OpenAI and is simply entitled to share of profit distributions."

At the end of last week, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched a consultation to ask interested parties to comment on Microsoft's relationship with ChatGPT developer, and if it could be construed as a merger that potentially skews competition. If so, the CMA will itself launch an official inspection.

The Washington Post reports: A prominent disinformation scholar has accused Harvard University of dismissing her to curry favor with Facebook and its current and former executives in violation of her right to free speech.

Joan Donovan claimed in a filing with the Education Department and the Massachusetts attorney general that her superiors soured on her as Harvard was getting a record $500 million pledge from Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg's charitable arm. As research director of Harvard Kennedy School projects delving into mis- and disinformation on social media platforms, Donovan had raised millions in grants, testified before Congress and been a frequent commentator on television, often faulting internet companies for profiting from the spread of divisive falsehoods. Last year, the school's dean told her that he was winding down her main project and that she should stop fundraising for it. This year, the school eliminated her position.
As one of the first researchers with access to "the Facebook papers" leaked by Frances Haugen, Donovan was asked to speak at a meeting of the Dean's Council, a group of the university's high-profile donors, remembers The Columbia Journalism Review : Elliot Schrage, then the vice president of communications and global policy for Meta, was also at the meeting. Donovan says that, after she brought up the Haugen leaks, Schrage became agitated and visibly angry, "rocking in his chair and waving his arms and trying to interrupt." During a Q&A session after her talk, Donovan says, Schrage reiterated a number of common Meta talking points, including the fact that disinformation is a fluid concept with no agreed-upon definition and that the company didn't want to be an "arbiter of truth."

According to Donovan, Nancy Gibbs, Donovan's faculty advisor, was supportive after the incident. She says that they discussed how Schrage would likely try to pressure Douglas Elmendorf, the dean of the Kennedy School of Government (where the Shorenstein Center hosting Donovan's project is based) about the idea of creating a public archive of the documents... After Elmendorf called her in for a status meeting, Donovan claims that he told her she was not to raise any more money for her project; that she was forbidden to spend the money that she had raised (a total of twelve million dollars, she says); and that she couldn't hire any new staff. According to Donovan, Elmendorf told her that he wasn't going to allow any expenditure that increased her public profile, and used a number of Meta talking points in his assessment of her work...

Donovan says she tried to move her work to the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard, but that the head of that center told her that they didn't have the "political capital" to bring on someone whom Elmendorf had "targeted"... Donovan told me that she believes the pressure to shut down her project is part of a broader pattern of influence in which Meta and other tech platforms have tried to make research into disinformation as difficult as possible... Donovan said she hopes that by blowing the whistle on Harvard, her case will be the "tip of the spear."
Another interesting detail from the article: [Donovan] alleges that Meta pressured Elmendorf to act, noting that he is friends with Sheryl Sandberg, the company's chief operating officer. (Elmendorf was Sandberg's advisor when she studied at Harvard in the early nineties; he attended Sandberg's wedding in 2022, four days before moving to shut down Donovan's project.)

The biggest UK mobile phone operators could face total damages of $4.15 billion following class-action claims that they allegedly charged 5 million existing customers "loyalty penalties" over a 16-year period. From a report: Claimant lawyers say they filed court documents at the Competition Appeals Tribunal against Vodafone, EE, Three UK and O2 last week. The claims accuse the phone companies of overcharging on as many as 28.2 million contracts by not reducing the amount customers had to pay after their minimum terms expired, despite them having effectively paid off their mobile devices.

The claim consists of individual lawsuits against each company, with damages sought of up to $1.76 billion from Vodafone, up to $1.38 billion from EE, up to $637.8 million from Three, and up to $322 million from O2. Claimant lawyers at Charles Lyndon, a law firm, estimate that up to 4.8 million people could be affected. If the case is successful, someone who held a contract with one of the mobile operators could receiveÂup to $2,293. The claims are on an "opt-out" basis, which means all qualifying customers will be automatically included in the claim unless they make a choice not to join.

Networks spent years telling us that 5G would change everything. But the flashiest use cases are nowhere to be found -- and the race to deploy the tech was costly in more ways than one. From a report: At CES in 2021, 5G was just about everywhere you looked. It was the future of mobile communications that would propel autonomous vehicles, remote surgery, and AR into reality. The low latency! The capacity! It'll change everything, we were told. Verizon and AT&T wrote massive checks for new spectrum licenses, and T-Mobile swallowed another network whole because it was very important to make the 5G future happen as quickly as possible and win the race.

CES 2024 is just around the corner, and while telecom executives were eager to shout about 5G to the rafters just a few years ago, you'll probably be lucky to hear so much as a whisper about it this time around. While it's true that 5G has actually arrived, the fantastic use cases we heard about years ago haven't materialized. Instead, we have happy Swifties streaming concert footage and a new way to get internet to your home router. These aren't bad things! But deploying 5G at the breakneck speeds required to win an imaginary race resulted in one fewer major wireless carrier to choose from and lots of debt to repay. Now, network operators are looking high and low for every bit of profit they can drum up -- including our wallets.

If there's a poster child for the whole 5G situation in the US, it's Verizon: the loudest and biggest spender in the room. The company committed $45.5 billion to new spectrum in 2021's FCC license auction -- almost twice as much as AT&T. And we don't have to guess whether investors are asking questions about when they'll see a return -- they asked point blank in the company's most recent earnings call. CEO Hans Vestberg fielded the question, balancing the phrases "having the right offers for our customers" and "generating the bottom line for ourselves," while nodding to "price adjustments" that also "included new value" for customers. It was a show of verbal gymnastics that meant precisely nothing.

Anna Demming reports via Scientific American: [A]lthough so far there's no way to unscramble an egg, in certain carefully controlled scenarios within relatively simple systems, researchers have managed to turn back time. The trick is to create a certain kind of reflection. First, imagine a regular spatial reflection, like one you see in a silver-backed glass mirror. Here reflection occurs because for a ray of light, silver is a very different transmission medium than air; the sudden change in optical properties causes the light to bounce back, like a Ping-Pong ball hitting a wall. Now imagine that instead of changing at particular points in space, the optical properties all along the ray's path change sharply at a specific moment in time. Rather than recoiling in space, the light would recoil in time, precisely retracing its tracks, like the Ping-Pong ball returning to the player who last hit it. This is a "time reflection." Time reflections have fascinated theorists for decades but have proved devilishly tricky to pull off in practice because rapidly and sufficiently changing a material's optical properties is no small task. Now, however, researchers at the City University of New York have demonstrated a breakthrough: the creation of light-based time reflections. To do so, physicist Andrea Alu and his colleagues devised a "metamaterial" with adjustable optical properties that they could tweak within fractions of a nanosecond to halve or double how quickly light passes through. Metamaterials have properties determined by their structures; many are composed of arrays of microscopic rods or rings that can be tuned to interact with and manipulate light in ways that no natural material can. Bringing their power to bear on time reflections, Alu says, revealed some surprises. "Now we are realizing that [time reflections] can be much richer than we thought because of the way that we implement them," he adds. [...]

The device Alu and his collaborators developed is essentially a waveguide that channels microwave-frequency light. A densely spaced array of switches along the waveguide connects it to capacitor circuits, which can dynamically add or remove material for the light to encounter. This can radically shift the waveguide's effective properties, such as how easily it allows light to pass through. "We are not changing the material; we are adding or subtracting material," Alu says. "That is why the process can be so fast." Time reflections come with a range of counterintuitive effects that have been theoretically predicted but never demonstrated with light. For instance, what is at the beginning of the original signal will be at the end of the reflected signal -- a situation akin to looking at yourself in a mirror and seeing the back of your head. In addition, whereas a standard reflection alters how light traverses space, a time reflection alters light's temporal components -- that is, its frequencies. As a result, in a time-reflected view, the back of your head is also a different color. Alu and his colleagues observed both of these effects in the team's device. Together they hold promise for fueling further advances in signal processing and communications -- two domains that are vital for the function of, say, your smartphone, which relies on effects such as shifting frequencies.

Just a few months after developing the device, Alu and his colleagues observed more surprising behavior when they tried creating a time reflection in that waveguide while shooting two beams of light at each other inside it. Normally colliding beams of light behave as waves, producing interference patterns where their overlapping peaks and troughs add up or cancel out like ripples on water (in "constructive" or "destructive" interference, respectively). But light can, in fact, act as a pointlike projectile, a photon, as well as a wavelike oscillating field -- that is, it has "wave-particle duality." Generally a particular scenario will distinctly elicit just one behavior or the other, however. For instance, colliding beams of light don't bounce off each other like billiard balls! But according to Alu and his team's experiments, when a time reflection occurs, it seems that they do. The researchers achieved this curious effect by controlling whether the colliding waves were interfering constructively or destructively -- whether they were adding or subtracting from each other -- when the time reflection occurred. By controlling the specific instant when the time reflection took place, the scientists demonstrated that the two waves bounce off each other with the same wave amplitudes that they started with, like colliding billiard balls. Alternatively they could end up with less energy, like recoiling spongy balls, or even gain energy, as would be the case for balls at either end of a stretched spring. "We can make these interactions energy-conserving, energy-supplying or energy-suppressing," Alu says, highlighting how time reflections could provide a new control knob for applications that involve energy conversion and pulse shaping, in which the shape of a wave is changed to optimize a pulse's signal.

The US broadband industry is protesting a Federal Communications Commission plan to measure the affordability of Internet service. From a report: The FCC has been evaluating US-wide broadband deployment progress on a near-annual basis for almost three decades but hasn't factored affordability into these regular reviews. The broadband industry is afraid that a thorough examination of prices will lead to more regulation of ISPs. An FCC Notice of Inquiry issued on November 1 proposes to analyze the affordability of Internet service in the agency's next congressionally required review of broadband deployment. That could include examining not just monthly prices but also data overage charges and various other fees.

[...] Cable industry lobby group NCTA-The Internet & Television Association complained in a filing released Monday that the Notice of Inquiry's "undue focus on affordability -- or pricing -- is particularly inappropriate." The group, which represents cable providers such as Comcast and Charter, said that setting an affordability benchmark could lead to rate regulation.

Scientists have proposed a framework that they say could unify quantum mechanics and Albert Einstein's theory of general relatively. "Quantum theory and Einstein's theory of general relativity are mathematically incompatible with each other, so it's important to understand how this contradiction is resolved," said Prof Jonathan Oppenheim, a physicist at University College London, who is behind the theory. The Guardian reports: Until now, the prevailing assumption has been that Einstein's theory of gravity must be modified, or "quantized," in order to fit within quantum theory. This is the approach of string theory, which advances the view that spacetime comprises 10, 11 or possibly 26 dimensions. Another leading candidate, advanced by Rovelli and others, is loop quantum gravity, in which spacetime is composed of finite loops woven into an extremely fine fabric. Oppenheim's theory, published in the journal Physical Review X, challenges the consensus by suggesting that spacetime may be classical and not governed by quantum theory at all. This means spacetime, however closely you zoomed in on it, would be smooth and continuous rather than "quantized" into discrete units. However, Oppenheim introduces the idea that spacetime is also inherently wobbly, subject to random fluctuations that create an intrinsic breakdown in predictability.

"The rate at which time flows is changing randomly and fluctuating in time," said Oppenheim, although he clarifies that time would never actually go into reverse. "It's quite mathematical," he added. "Picturing it in your head is quite difficult." This proposed "wobbliness" would result in a breakdown of predictability, which, Oppenheim says, "many physicists don't like." [...]

Ultimately, whether the theory is correct is not an aesthetic preference, but a question of whether it is a faithful representation of reality. A second paper, published simultaneously in Nature Communications and led by Dr Zach Weller-Davies, formerly of UCL and now at Canada's Perimeter Institute, proposes an experiment designed to uncover "wobbles" in spacetime through tiny fluctuations in the weight of an object. For example, the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France routinely weigh a 1kg mass, which used to be the 1kg standard. If the fluctuations in measurements of this 1kg mass are smaller than a certain threshold, the theory can be ruled out. "We have shown that if spacetime doesn't have a quantum nature, then there must be random fluctuations in the curvature of spacetime which have a particular signature that can be verified experimentally," said Weller-Davies.

After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer be available to purchase as a magazine. "Cathy Hebert, the communications director for PopSci owner Recurrent Ventures, says the outlet needs to 'evolve' beyond its magazine product, which published its first all-digital issue in 2021," reports The Verge. From the report: PopSci, which covers a whole range of stories related to the fields of science, technology, and nature, published its first issue in 1872. Things have changed a lot over the years, with the magazine switching to a quarterly publication schedule in 2018 and doing away with the physical copies altogether after 2020. In a post on LinkedIn, former PopSci editor Purbita Saha commented on the magazine's discontinuation, stating she's "frustrated, incensed, and appalled that the owners shut down a pioneering publication that's adapted to 151 years worth of changes in the space of a five-minute Zoom call."

"PopSci is a phenomenal brand, and as consumer trends shift it's important we prioritize investment in new formats," Herbert tells The Verge. "We believe that the content strategy has to evolve beyond the digital magazine product. A combination of its news team, along with commerce, video, and other initiatives, will produce content that naturally aligns with PopSci's mission." PopSci will continue to offer articles on its website, along with its PopSci Plus subscription, which offers access to exclusive content and the magazine's archive.

Charter Communications confirmed to Light Reading it will lower the default video streaming resolution for its Unlimited Plus mobile customers to 480p from 720p starting in December. From a report: Charter's default setting for customers on its other By The Gig and Unlimited mobile plans is already set at 480p. The company said its Unlimited Plus mobile customers can change their default streaming setting back from 480p to 720p using the company's My Spectrum App for no extra charge. Further, the change will not affect customers who are connected to Wi-Fi. When customers are on Wi-Fi, the video streaming resolution among Charter's Spectrum Mobile customers is determined by the format of the video content the customer is streaming and the capabilities and settings of their device, according to the company.

Russia has added the spokesman of U.S. technology company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to a wanted list, according to an online database maintained by the country's interior ministry. From a report: Russian state agency Tass and independent news outlet Mediazona first reported that Meta communications director Andy Stone was included on the list Sunday, weeks after Russian authorities in October classified Meta as a "terrorist and extremist" organization, opening the way for possible criminal proceedings against Russian residents using its platforms.

The interior ministry's database doesn't give details of the case against Stone, stating only that he is wanted on criminal charges. According to Mediazona, an independent news website that covers Russia's opposition and prison system, Stone was put on the wanted list in February 2022, but authorities made no related statements at the time and no news media reported on the matter until this week. In March this year, Russia's federal Investigative Committee opened a criminal investigation into Meta.

AI employed by the U.S. military "has piloted pint-sized surveillance drones in special operations forces' missions and helped Ukraine in its war against Russia," reports the Associated Press.

But that's the beginning. AI also "tracks soldiers' fitness, predicts when Air Force planes need maintenance and helps keep tabs on rivals in space." Now, the Pentagon is intent on fielding multiple thousands of relatively inexpensive, expendable AI-enabled autonomous vehicles by 2026 to keep pace with China. The ambitious initiative — dubbed Replicator — seeks to "galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap, and many," Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks said in August. While its funding is uncertain and details vague, Replicator is expected to accelerate hard decisions on what AI tech is mature and trustworthy enough to deploy — including on weaponized systems.'

There is little dispute among scientists, industry experts and Pentagon officials that the U.S. will within the next few years have fully autonomous lethal weapons. And though officials insist humans will always be in control, experts say advances in data-processing speed and machine-to-machine communications will inevitably relegate people to supervisory roles. That's especially true if, as expected, lethal weapons are deployed en masse in drone swarms. Many countries are working on them — and neither China, Russia, Iran, India or Pakistan have signed a U.S.-initiated pledge to use military AI responsibly.