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Submission + - Applied Materials Sued in China Over Alleged Trade Secret Theft (msn.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Top US chip-equipment supplier Applied Materials Inc. was sued by a rival in China over alleged trade secret theft, a further escalation in the technology war between the world’s two largest economies. Beijing E-Town Semiconductor Technology Co. filed a lawsuit with the Beijing Intellectual Property Court against Applied Materials accusing the later "illegally obtained, used and revealed its core technologies related to the application of plasma source in treating the surface of wafers," according to a company statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Applied Materials earlier hired two employees who were privy to the Beijing company’s proprietary plasma technologies from E-Town’s fully owned US subsidiary, Mattson, and filed a patent application crediting the duo as inventors with the National Intellectual Property Administration in China. “The patent application violated the rules of China’s Anti-Unfair Competition Law, and it infringes on trade secrets, and has caused significant damage to the plaintiff’s intellectual property and economic interests,” E-Town said in the filing, adding that Applied Materials is also suspected of marketing and selling the technologies involved in the case to Chinese customers. E-Town is asking the court to demand that Applied Materials stop using its trade secrets and destroy related materials. It’s also seeking about 100 million yuan ($13.9 million) in recompense for damage.

Submission + - China solves "tunnel boom" problem with MagLev trains (theguardian.com) 1

Submitted by Epeeist
Epeeist writes: The newest version of the maglev train is capable of travelling at 600km/h (about 370mph). However, the train’s engineers have wrestled with the problem of the shock waves which occur as the train exits the mouth of a tunnel. These are colloquially known as a “tunnel boom”

Researchers have discovered that placing innovative soundproofing buffers at tunnel mouths can reduce "tunnel boom" shock waves by up to 96%.

This opens the possibility of a future line connecting the capital, Beijing, with Shanghai, reducing journey times from 4.5 hours to 2.5 hours, about the duration of a domestic flight between the two cities.

In China, the cost of a high-speed rail ticket is cheaper than air travel (¥600 compared with ¥1,200), unlike in many other countries. Flights emit on average seven times more CO2 than high-speed rail by distance travelled, representing a big potential carbon saving.

Submission + - Russia: Commercial satellite providing help to the Ukraine are now targets (behindtheblack.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Russia this week informed regulators at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) that it now considers all European and American private satellite constellations "legitimate targets to be destroyed" if they provide any help to the Ukraine.

Russia tells ITU that GPS/Galileo/GNSS nav commercial broadcast sats helping Ukraine militarily should expect interference. Same for EutelsatGroup, OneWeb, Starlink constellations, which Russia has said are 'legitimate targets to be destroyed.

There is more at the full article, but that is behind a subscription paywall.

Russia's announcement here is probably in response to Trump's more bellicose statements recently about Putin and Russia.

I suspect Russia will begin by trying to jam these constellations. Let us hope it does not go farther than that.

Submission + - Ireland tries kites instead of windmills (www.rte.ie)

Submitted by piojo
piojo writes: Tired of windmills? Kitepower has deployed 60 square meter kites to harvest wind energy on the western coast of Ireland. The giant kites fly in a figure 8 pattern, unspooling a tether to rotate a drum with 2.4-4 tons of force. When the tether has played out, the configuration of the kite is shifted to catch less wind and the tether is reeled back in.

This mobile system fits in a 20 foot container and is targeted at remote locations.

Submission + - Wemo support ends in 2026 as Belkin abandons cloud-connected smart home devices (nerds.xyz)

Submitted by BrianFagioli
BrianFagioli writes: Well, folks, it’s finally happening. Sadly, Belkin is ending support for a long list of older Wemo smart home devices, and while I wish I could say I’m surprised, I’m not. I had a gut feeling this was coming.

As of January 31 2026, dozens of Wemo products will lose access to the Wemo app and any cloud-connected features. That includes Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa integration. Remote control and voice commands will stop working. These devices will only function locally if they were set up with Apple HomeKit ahead of the cutoff.

To be honest, this doesn’t shock me. The devices had become increasingly unreliable. Updates were scarce. Bugs went unfixed. Belkin seemed to be ignoring Wemo for years. I eventually gave up and threw out the Wemo devices I had purchased. I switched to TP-Link’s Tapo line and haven’t looked back.

Still, I’m upset. Wemo helped shape the early days of the smart home boom. It had promise. But that promise slowly fizzled out. Now longtime customers are left with hardware that’s about to lose the features it was sold with.

Belkin says devices that work with Apple HomeKit will continue to function if configured before the shutdown. Some newer models that use Thread will also survive and keep working through HomeKit without relying on the Wemo cloud. These include the Wemo Smart Plug with Thread and the Wemo Smart Video Doorbell.

If your Wemo product is still under warranty after January 31 2026, Belkin says you might be eligible for a partial refund. But for everything else, they’re basically telling users to recycle them. That’s a hard pill to swallow if you spent money expecting long-term functionality.

While I understand that supporting unprofitable products isn’t sustainable, this situation still highlights a bigger issue with cloud-dependent tech. Once a company pulls the plug, your smart gear becomes useless. That’s why I now recommend choosing devices that continue to work offline or with open standards.

This Wemo shutdown should be a wake-up call for anyone building a smart home in 2025. Make sure your devices won’t stop working just because a company changes its priorities.

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Printer recommendation for family with kids in elementary school? 3

Submitted by jalvarez13
jalvarez13 writes: My venerable HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus is showing its age and it has become expensive to operate due to the cost of the original cartridges. I tried some alternative cartidges but the printer rejects them.

Now that schools still require kids to print stuf at home (mine are in 2nd and 4th grade), and my wife also needs to use the priner, I think it may be wise to invest in a good quality printer that has a lower cost per page (maybe laser?).

I that context, I'd love to have unbiased information about brand quality, printing technology, cost efficiency, and other factors that I might have missed. Any thoughts?

Submission + - Peking U. Just Made the World's Fastest Transistor and It Is Not Made of Silicon (zmescience.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: The new transistor runs 40% faster and uses less power.

With a slender sheet of lab-grown bismuth and an architecture unlike anything inside today’s silicon chips, they’ve built what they call the world’s fastest and most efficient transistor. Not only does it outperform the best processors made by Intel and TSMC, but it also uses less energy doing so. And most important of all, there’s no trace of silicon involved.

This two-dimensional, silicon-free transistor represents a radical rethinking of what chips can be and how they can be made.

Rather than silicon, the Peking University team built their transistor using bismuth oxyselenide (BiOSe) for the channel, and bismuth selenite oxide (BiSeO) as the gate material.

These materials are part of a class known as two-dimensional semiconductors — atomically thin sheets with exceptional electrical properties. Bismuth oxyselenide, in particular, offers something silicon struggles with at ultra-small sizes: speed.

Electrons move through it faster, even when packed into tiny spaces. It also has a higher dielectric constant, meaning it can hold and control electric charge more efficiently. That makes for faster switching, reduced energy loss, and — very importantly — a lower chance of overheating.

“This reduces electron scattering and current loss, allowing electrons to flow with almost no resistance, akin to water moving through a smooth pipe,” Peng explained.

The interface between these materials is also smoother than that of common semiconductor-oxide combinations used in industry today. That means fewer defects and less electrical noise.

All of this adds up to stunning results. According to the team, their transistor can run 40% faster than today’s most advanced 3-nanometer silicon chips — and it does so while using 10% less energy.

Submission + - How Meta monetises the migrant crisis (openrightsgroup.org)

Submitted by Shakes Fist
Shakes Fist writes: Research by ORG found that fraudulent adverts offering fake identity documents are still being run on Facebook. This is despite Meta claiming it had stamped out the problem after previous media coverage exposed the issue months ago.

Now ORG has discovered that these scams have not gone away.

Submission + - Tesla Sued for Algorithmic Odometer Manipulation (jalopnik.com)

Submitted by Mr_Blank
Mr_Blank writes: A multiple-Tesla owner in Northern California is suing the automaker, claiming the odometers incorrectly measures mileage using a faulty algorithm which ups the supposed miles driven from 15% to 117%. The lawsuit alleges Tesla does this to close out warranties early on their products. The lawsuit, however, stands on a filed patent which may or may not be in use in Tesla vehicles.In the instance of their Model Y,Hinton says they drove 6,086 miles but the Tesla recorded 13,228 miles. The lawsuit is based on a patent that Tesla filed for a seemingly tricky form of recording mileage. The patent calls for a "miles-to-electrical energy conversion factor" that would take in factors like charging behavior and road conditions into the calculation of miles traveled instead of a direct recording of miles traveled.The lawsuit alleges Tesla is using this technology instead of mechanical or electrical systems that faithfully record miles traveled, in order to shorten warranties based on miles-driven in the cars.

Submission + - Japanese train station shelter replaced overnight with 3D printed structure (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by cusco
cusco writes: Hatsushima station serves the town of Arida of about 25,000, and around 530 passengers a day board there. Because the population is shrinking when it came time to replace the aging wooden shelter the new structure could be smaller, presenting West Japan Railway with the opportunity to try something new. The company commissioned a new 3D printed shelter from Serendix, who printed the structure in four parts over seven days. The parts were shipped by rail to Hatsushima and a crew assembled them in around six hours, finishing before the first train of the morning at 5:45.

The structure itself is made of mortar, layered like dull-green frosting by a 3D-printing nozzle, reinforced by steel and framed at its edges by concrete. The result is a building that has "earthquake resistance similar to that of reinforced concrete houses," according to West Japan Railway (JR West), and costing about half of what the shelter would cost to build with traditional reinforced concrete. It also has a mandarin orange and scabbardfish [local products] embossed into its sides.

Submission + - SPAM: The Atrocious State Of Binary Compatibility on Linux

Submitted by simpz
simpz writes: VFX company JangaFX has posted a very interesting article on the poor stare of Linux Binary Compatibility and how containerization isn't helping them with with this. They go on to discuss what could be done with GLIBC to help.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - DJI and Other Chinese Companies Move to Eliminate Overtime (chosun.com) 1

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Chinese corporations have begun to improve the long working hours culture represented by the so-called "996" (working from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., 6 days a week). As the Chinese government asks them to address inefficient "internal competition," corporations that already needed management efficiency have started to eliminate overtime. DJI, the world's largest drone maker, has been implementing a "no overtime" policy since the 27th of last month. Accordingly, employees must leave the office after 9 p.m. [without requiring workrs starting at 9 a.m.] The company also eliminated transportation expenses paid for overtime and closed down facilities such as the gym, swimming pool, and badminton court, while also reducing team expenses, in order to foster an early leaving environment. Chinese appliance manufacturer Midea began enforcing a mandatory leaving policy at 6:20 p.m. for office workers. Midea has also initiated the simplification of work methods this year, implementing a "strict prohibition on meetings and formal overtime after hours," and has taken a step further with this policy. Another appliance manufacturer, Haier, mandated two days of rest on weekends starting last month and decided to allow a maximum of 3 hours of overtime during the week. The 996 practice is particularly prominent in large corporations and the internet industry. In 2021, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, one of China's largest e-commerce corporations, stated, "Being able to work 996 is a great blessing" and asked, "If you don't do 996 when you're young, when will you?" China's legislature, the National People's Congress, issued, for the first time, a call to comprehensively [reduce] "internal competition" broadly including chaotic expansion of production capacity, price wars, and zero-sum games. However, reactions from workers regarding these measures by corporations are mixed with some complaint these measures amount to wage cut as overtime pay disappears as well.

Submission + - Musk's Reports of Social Security Payments to the Dead Are Greatly Exaggerated 1

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: While Doge.gov still vows to get to the bottom of an Elon Musk tweet claiming that "there are a lot of vampires collecting Social Security," the AP and others are reporting that Musk's reports of social security payments being made to dead people are greatly exaggerated.

"The Trump administration is falsely claiming that tens of millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving Social Security payments," reports the AP. "It is true that improper payments have been made, including some to dead people. But the numbers thrown out by Musk and the White House are overstated and misrepresent Social Security data. [...] A series of reports from the Social Security Administration’s inspector general in March 2023 and July 2024 state that the agency has not established a new system to properly annotate death information in its database, which included roughly 18.9 million Social Security numbers of people born in 1920 or earlier but were not marked as deceased. This does not mean, however, that these individuals were receiving benefits. The agency decided not to update the database because of the cost to do so, which would run upward of $9 million."

"Know Thy Data," AnnMaria De Mars wrote in a 2016 blog post, "[is] the most important commandment in statistics. [...] It is crucial to understand how your data are coded before you go making stupid statements like the average mother is 3 months old." While it was offered for the likes of her epidemiology students, De Mars' advice would also be well-heeded by the richest person in the world as plays data scientist with the nation's data.

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