News: 1717375441

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

China lands probe Chang'e-6 on the far side of the Moon

(2024/06/03)


ASIA IN BRIEF China's Chang'e-6 Probe has landed on the far side of the Moon on Sunday.

State media [1]reported that an "autonomous visual obstacle avoidance system" assessed the "brightness and darkness of the lunar surface" and found a safe place for the probe to land.

The lander then "hovered about 100 meters above the safe landing area and used a laser 3D scanner to detect obstacles on the lunar surface to select the final landing site."

[2]

Chinese authorities have published the video below that shows Chang'e-6 touching down.

[3]

[4]

[5]Youtube Video

The craft is the first to land in this region of the Moon, making its mission to retrieve samples of great interest and importance.

[6]

The landing caps a busy week in space for China – it also launched a CERES-1 commercial rocket carrying four satellites from a ship positioned off from the coast of Shandong province in the Yellow Sea.

The rocket launched last Wednesday on its 12th flight mission, according to [7]state-sponsored media . CERES-1 is a small satellite launch vehicle developed by the Chinese commercial space company Galactic Energy.

Singapore releases open source AI safety toolkit

Singapore last week launched an open source toolkit for app developers to test generative AI safety, called [8]Project Moonshot .

The toolkit allows businesses to rate their LLM applications against specific benchmarks – including whether they can understand local languages, slang or cultural nuance. Moonshot also tests whether LLMs can be enticed to produce violent or offensive content.

"It can test both foundation models and AI applications built on top of these models," explained minister for communications and information Josephine Teo.

[9]

"It helps organizations building AI systems to more easily test and compare results so as to identify weaknesses that they can fix," she added.

[10]Twitter 'supersharers' of fake news tend to be older Republican women

[11]Google finally addresses those bizarre AI search results

[12]Codd almighty! Has it been half a century of SQL already?

[13]The Canon Cat – remembering the computer that tried to banish mice

[14]Windows Subsystem for Linux gets enterprise friendly and plans a settings interface

China stops influencers flaunting wealth

Some Chinese social media influencers who focus their content on ostentatious and over the top displays of wealth have found themselves suspended from their platforms of choice.

The suspensions are a result of a campaign on platforms like Douyin, Weibo, and Xiaohongshu to crack down on the behavior, reported [15]state-sponsored media . A warning of the crackdown was even posted on Sina Weibo on May 15.

Huawei's HarmonyOS NEXT details leaked

Huawei's new HarmonyOS NEXT interfaces have been [16]leaked on Weibo ahead of the Huawei Developer Conference (HDC). The conference marks the start of the operating system's beta test – perhaps on laptops in addition to smartphones.

India fines Satya Nadella over LinkedIn ties

India's Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has [17]issued [PDF] fines totalling INR 2.7 million ($32,000) to LinkedIn India and nine individuals – including parent company Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella – for violating significant beneficial ownership (SBO) norms. Accusations includes that LinkedIn was less than truthful about the business's holding structure.

"All the officers, including the non-executive directors, are liable for this violation due to the presumption of clear knowledge on the part of each of such directors about the holding structure of the company," stated the document.

APAC Dealbook

Recent alliances and deals spotted by The Register across the region last week include:

Nvidia, Tribe, and Digital Industry Singapore (DISG) [18]launched a global AI startup accelerator last Wednesday called Ignition AI accelerator.

The Singapore-based accelerator begins with $3 million in the kitty to guide 15 startups through a four-month program that is designed to bring them toward market readiness.

Grab [19]revealed a deal with OpenAI that will see the superapp access generative AI for accessibility, customer support and mapping.

The company will also deploy a pilot ChatGPT for its employees to boost productivity.

ST Telemedia Global Data Centres [20]announced its Southeast datacenters are now AI ready.

"AI clusters are already operational in STT GDC's datacenters in both Singapore and Thailand today, with additional AI clusters expected to be operational in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia within the next two years," declared the biz.

Hyperscale datacenter operator Yondr Group [21]secured a loan of up to $150 million from International Finance Corporation (IFC) for the construction of a hyperscale campus in Johor, Malaysia.

"Yondr's Johor campus, located in Sedenak Tech Park, will become the largest hyperscale datacenter campus in Southeast Asia with 300MW+ IT load power capacity situated on 72.5 acres of land," proclaimed the company.

"Geographically, Johor is perfectly located due to its proximity to Singapore, offering important interconnectivity routes and scalable digital infrastructure,” it added.

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[1] https://english.news.cn/20240602/65a540dde3f042b98be10a12f8d18b7c/c.html

[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zl0-6nqCXA7nJD2VbyGs5gAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zl0-6nqCXA7nJD2VbyGs5gAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zl0-6nqCXA7nJD2VbyGs5gAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIhzeWfvaeg

[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zl0-6nqCXA7nJD2VbyGs5gAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[7] https://english.news.cn/20240529/f00d7d839986460f93bc589098a71928/c.html

[8] https://www.imda.gov.sg/resources/press-releases-factsheets-and-speeches/factsheets/2024/project-moonshot

[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zl0-6nqCXA7nJD2VbyGs5gAAAIo&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/01/twitter_supersharers_of_fake_news/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/31/google_ai_search_update/

[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/31/fifty_years_of_sql/

[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/31/the_canon_cat/

[14] https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/31/windows_subsystem_for_linux_gets/

[15] https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202405/24/WS664fef4ba31082fc043c8dee.html

[16] https://www.ithome.com/0/770/778.htm

[17] https://www.mca.gov.in/bin/dms/getdocument?mds=san%252BPg76sI9tkgd5lcHzZg%253D%253D&type=open

[18] https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/about-edb/media-releases-publications/new-ai-accelerator-launches-in-singapore-with-industry-support-from-tribe-disg-and-nvidia.html#:~:text=Launched%20today%20at%20the%20Asia,for%20AI%20startups%20to%20thrive.

[19] https://investors.grab.com/news-releases/news-release-details/grab-and-openai-announce-strategic-collaboration-first-its-kind

[20] https://www.sttelemediagdc.com/sg-en/newsroom/st-telemedia-global-data-centres-announces-availability-ai-ready-data-centres-across

[21] https://www.yondrgroup.com/newsroom/press-release/yondr-secures-up-to-150m-of-financing-for-malaysia-site/

[22] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/



Gene Cash

The Japanese billionaire dude cancelled the "DearMoon" thing on Starship, apparently because it's behind schedule. (surprise!)

If he's too used to the "oh no, we're 30 seconds late, we're all fired" Shinkansen train schedules, then Elon Musk's time distortion field will definitely be a culture shock.

This means Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) is staying firmly on Earth. As he's a relatively good science communicator and "space explainer", this is disappointing. I was looking forward to his description of the experience, if he survived.

Brief History Of Linux (#1)
Re-Inventing the Wheel

Our journey through the history of Linux begins ca. 28000 B.C. when a
large all-powerful company called MoogaSoft monopolized the wheel-making
industry. As founder of the company, Billga Googagates (rumored to be the
distant ancestor of Bill Gates) was the wealthiest man in the known world,
owning several large rock huts, an extravagant collection of artwork (cave
paintings), and a whole army of servants and soldiers.

MoogaSoft's unfair business practices were irritating, but users were
unable to do anything about them, lest they be clubbed to death by
MoogaSoft's army. Nevertheless, one small group of hobbyists finally got
fed up and starting hacking their own wheels out of solid rock. Their
spirit of cooperation led to better and better wheels that eventually
outperformed MoogaSoft offerings.

MoogaSoft tried desperately to stop the hobbyists -- as shown by the
recently unearthed "Ooga! Document" -- but failed. Ironically, Billga
Googagates was killed shortly afterwards when one his own 900-pound wheels
crushed him.