Aggregator

American Airlines plans to install SpaceX's Starlink Wi-Fi on more than 500 narrow-body Airbus aircraft starting early next year. It does not, however, have any immediate plans to change providers on its Boeing fleet, which currently uses a mix of Viasat and Panasonic. CNBC reports: American in January rolled out free in-flight Wi-Fi for members of its frequent flyer program, following United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and others. Delta in March said it would use Amazon Leo for in-flight Wi-Fi for hundreds of jets starting in 2028. United, Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines, which merged with Hawaiian Airlines in 2024, have selected Starlink. The move is a big win for SpaceX as it prepares for a potentially massive IPO next month. SpaceX said Starlink and its connectivity business generated $11.39 billion in revenue last year, accounting for 61% of the company's total sales.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Aerodynamic drag is a major "barrier" in high-speed airplanes, automobiles, and bullet trains. This is because a design with less aerodynamic drag allows the aircraft to move at higher speeds with less energy. When an aircraft or car body moves at high speed, a thin layer of air called the "boundary layer" is formed on its surface. This boundary layer has two states: laminar flow, in which air flows in an orderly fashion, and turbulent flow, which involves turbulence. The longer the air stays in the laminar flow state with low friction, the smaller the air resistance becomes, but as the air speed increases, it transitions to turbulent flow. The key to reducing aerodynamic drag is how to delay this transition to turbulence. For more than 80 years, the principle of "the surface of an object must be smooth" has been the basic premise of aeronautical engineering throughout the world in order to suppress the transition to turbulence and reduce aerodynamic drag. This premise was based on the results of a 1940 study by Ichiro Tani, a Japanese aerodynamicist who quantitatively demonstrated the relationship between "surface roughness" (an indicator of the state of the machined surface) and turbulent transition, arguing that surface roughness, which was unavoidable with the manufacturing technology of the time, prevented laminar flow from being realized. However, in 1989 Tani reinterpreted the experimental data on rough-surface pipes obtained by fluid engineer Johann Nikulase in the 1930s, bringing a new perspective that "roughness may not necessarily only promote turbulent transition and increase fluid resistance." Inheriting this idea, a research group led by Yasuaki Kohama of Tohoku University experimentally demonstrated in the 1990s that fibrous rough surfaces, which have fine fibrous irregularities on their surface, have the effect of delaying transition under certain conditions. The same Tohoku University research team recently announced a discovery that significantly advances this trend. Aiko Yakino, associate professor at Tohoku University's Institute of Fluid Science, and her research group were the first in the world to demonstrate that aerodynamic drag can be reduced by up to 43.6 percent simply by applying distributed micro-roughness (DMR), a surface roughness so fine and irregular that it cannot be distinguished by the naked eye. This technology is fundamentally different from the "rivulet (shark skin) process," which is known as a typical aerodynamic drag reduction technology. The rivulet process mimics the fine longitudinal grooves in shark skin, and by carving grooves approximately 0.1 mm wide along the direction of airflow, it aligns the vortices that occur near the wall surface of turbulent airflow areas. DMR, on the other hand, delays the switch from laminar to turbulent flow by means of random and minute irregularities. The flow zones it affects and the mechanisms it employs are based on completely different concepts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hobbyist CNCDan is trying to build a real-world version of Windows' classic 3D Pinball for Windows -- Space Cadet, using 3D-printed flippers, bumpers, LEDs, slingshots, and a raised playfield modeled after the original virtual table. But in bringing the digital table into the real world, CNCDan has already run into several physical challenges the software never had to contend with... Ars Technica reports: After scaling and skewing the on-screen, perspective-shifted view of the Space Cadet playfield onto a 1-meter-tall table, he ended up with a rectangular playfield just 56 cm wide. That's on the smaller side for commercial pinball tables and maps to playfield bumpers that are just 53 mm wide -- way smaller than any prebuilt bumpers that are commercially available. Once CNCDan dealt with issues with unreliable plastic microswitches for those tiny bumpers (Hall effect magnets seemed to help), he ran into a separate problem with the even smaller bumpers on the raised playfield. The wiring for those bumpers had to be arranged very carefully to avoid blocking a kickback return alley underneath, a positioning problem that the original designers of the virtual table didn't have to consider at all. CNCDan also ended up adding a physical mechanism to simulate the short delay 3D Space Cadet players may remember, when the ball dropped down a hole from the raised playfield back to the flippers below. CNCDan says he's currently looking for artists to help him with a hand-drawn re-creation of the original Space Cadet playfield, which he doesn't want to use AI for. "I'm sure [AI] can do it, but I'd much rather give this job to a real human being," he said in the video.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Internet access has started to be restored in Iran after being cut off almost three months ago, the country's first vice-president has said. "The first step toward free and regulated access to cyberspace has been taken," Mohammad Reza Aref wrote on X on Tuesday. Internet monitoring groups Netblocks and Kentik reported "partial" restoration around 13:00 GMT, though the latter warned most networks were still down. The Iranian government cut internet access following the launch of US and Israeli attacks on February 28. Officials suggested the aim was to prevent surveillance, espionage and cyber-attacks. It is one of the longest-running national internet shutdowns ever recorded worldwide. A content creator from Tehran told the BBC that he had been able to connect to the internet using his home WiFi on Tuesday. "The main point is, some of my income will come back," he said. Netblocks said it was unclear whether the internet return would be sustained, and told the BBC it was consistent with what it had seen when previous blackouts were lifted -- where restoration could take hours. "Access is not universally back to its original state, with some regional variation," said the global internet tracker's research director Isik Mater on Tuesday. She added that there were signs of "more extensive filtering" than prior to January -- when a similar blackout was imposed during the regime's deadly crackdown on anti-government protests -- "including additional restrictions to messaging apps like WhatsApp."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The “Mac Nano” is a very small Linux computer powered by the Raspberry Pi CM0, built by Sipeed community developers. Not a lot of information appears to be out – check out this post on X (formerly Twitter).

wiredmikey shares a report from SecurityWeek: Anthropic says its Claude Mythos model discovered thousands of severe vulnerabilities across more than 1,000 open source software (OSS) projects. According to the AI giant, Mythos Preview has identified more than 23,000 potential vulnerabilities. Of these, 1,900 have been reviewed by external security firms, and 1,726 have been confirmed, including over 1,000 rated "high" or "critical" severity. The findings are still being reviewed, and Anthropic estimates that nearly 3,900 critical and high-severity vulnerabilities will be confirmed based only on current findings. As the scans are ongoing, the company believes the number of severe vulnerabilities may reach 6,200. Anthropic says more than 1,100 unverified findings have been reported to vendors, and 75 issues with a critical or high severity rating have been patched. Vendors have published 65 security advisories. "The number of patches is still relatively low for three reasons. First, we're still early in the 90-day window that's set out in our Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure policy: we expect many more patches to land soon," the AI company explained. "Second, we are likely to be undercounting patches because some vulnerabilities are patched without a public advisory: in those cases, we're reliant on scanning for the patches ourselves using Claude. Third, the low volume of patches reflects a genuine problem: even at our relatively slow pace of disclosures, Mythos Preview is adding to an already-overloaded security ecosystem," it added.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The guidelines for using AI tools when contributing to CPython has just been updated. They are a must read, whether you’re an existing or aspiring contributor. tl;dr: you’re still responsible for what you submit See more in the Python Developer’s Guide. Via LinkedIn.

Spain has temporarily blocked Polymarket and Kalshi while it investigates whether the prediction-market platforms are violating gambling laws by operating without a license. Engadget reports: The country's ministry in charge of consumer affairs said it blocked the websites as a precautionary measure pending an official investigation. This investigation will determine if the platforms violate Spain's gambling laws. It's set to complete within the next four months and could mandate that these companies require specific administrative licenses to operate.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Small Things Retro blog presents the fifth installment of the 80386 series. The FPGA CPU is now far enough along to run real software, and this post is about how it works. z386 is a 386-class CPU built around the original Intel microcode, in the same spirit as z8086. The core is not an instruction-by-instruction emulator in […]

When security researchers want to understand what a modern processor is really doing with the kind of detail that determines whether attacks like Spectre and Meltdown are possible, they usually run their experiments on top of an operating system that was never built for the job. They open up macOS or Linux, patch the kernel […]

AUDIODiWHY looks to use an ATTINY1616 microcontroller for ADSR (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release – the basis for audio synthesizers) by  using TJimmyChonga‘s earlevel C++ library. It which abstracts analog synthesizer ADSR functionality into a compact C++ library. Looking over the code, I guessed it might be easy to use an ATTINY1616 —that’s a <$1USB MCU, folks–to create an […]

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Ride-share drivers for app-based companies such as Uber and Lyft have unionized in Massachusetts, forming what state officials and labor leaders said was the first officially recognized organization in the U.S. to represent such gig workers. The newly formed App Drivers Union received certification from the Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations on Friday to represent nearly 70,000 ride-share drivers operating as independent contractors in the state. "It changes the game for ride-share workers across this country," Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat, said at a rally with drivers and labor activists in Boston on Tuesday. The certification occurred after voters in November 2024 approved a ballot measure that created a novel framework to allow drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft to organize and bargain collectively over pay and benefits. That vote followed a years-long, nationwide battle over whether ride-share drivers should be considered independent contractors or employees entitled to benefits and wage protections.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The symbol of wealth from the 80s just how you remember it – comically large. The Motorola DynaTAC was the first commercial cell phone and, adjusted for inflation, cost nearly $13,000. The phone was…substantial. Riffing on the size, Arnov Sharma built the Motorola DynaTAC MAX. Currently the massive phone works as a sound board and […]

FRANK HDMI Sound is a small HDMI video and audio driver for the Raspberry Pi RP2350, packaged as a Pico SDK library. It outputs 640x480p60 video from a 320×240 palette-indexed framebuffer and embeds 32 kHz stereo PCM in the HDMI data-island stream. No external DAC, no separate audio path. The TMDS encoding core is based […]

Voice Stick turns an M5Stack StickS3 into a Bluetooth push-to-talk input device for macOS. Hold the front button on the StickS3 to record. When you release it, the macOS menu bar app sends the audio to ASR, shows the recognized text, and pastes the final result into the currently focused input field after a short […]

WCH-Serial-ISP provides WCH Serial ISP programming for use with WCH CH32V203 ICs under an MIT license. This microcontroller series can be programmed using a WCH-link USB debug adapter. Or by resetting the chip into its bootloader (hold BOOT0 high) and a USB or Serial connection to the host software (WCHISPTool). Both programming options are undocumented […]

"Following months of public debate and protests against American IT giant Kyndryl's proposed acquisition of Solvinity, a Dutch cloud provider that hosts the Netherlands' online identity platform, the Dutch government has decided to block the acquisition," writes longtime Slashdot reader rastakid. "The deal triggered fears that it would mean that 'DigiD' data would fall under foreign control, and could be demanded by U.S. authorities." Politico reports: In a letter to the national parliament published on Tuesday, State Secretary for Digital Economy Willemijn Aerdts said the national authority charged with screening investments had advised the government to block the acquisition. The purchase was seen as posing "a possible risk to the public interest." The government on Monday decided to adopt the advice and block the acquisition, Aerdts said. "The Netherlands attaches great value to the presence of foreign, especially U.S.-based tech companies, and their added value to the Dutch economy and digital infrastructure, but it maintains, at the same time, an independent investment screening framework aimed at protecting the public interest and which applies equally to all investors, independent of their country of origin," the letter read. Kyndryl said in a statement it was "extremely disappointed" about the decision. "The politicization of this process has overshadowed the clear and important benefits this transaction would have brought to Solvinity's customers and Dutch citizens." Further reading: Challenges Face European Governments Pursuing 'Digital Sovereignty'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Racket sports are all the rage these days – people are (aggressively) enthusiastic about Pickleball, tennis courts are booked night and day (suddenly everyone has a USTA rating?). It only makes sense badminton would be next to step into the spotlight. This project from maker Navin Khambhala uses LEDs to add an extra element of […]