Author name: Beth Washington

google-gets-an-error-corrected-quantum-bit-to-be-stable-for-an-hour

Google gets an error-corrected quantum bit to be stable for an hour

Computer science, Google, logical qubits, Physics, quantum computing, quantum error correction, quantum mechanics, Science / /

Using almost the entire chip for a logical qubit provides long-term stability.

Google’s new Willow chip is its first new generation of chips in about five years. Credit: Google

On Monday, Nature released a paper from Google’s quantum computing team that provides a key demonstration of the potential of quantum error correction. Thanks to an improved processor, Google’s team found that increasing the number of hardware qubits dedicated to an error-corrected logical qubit led to an exponential increase in performance. By the time the entire 105-qubit processor was dedicated to hosting a single error-corrected qubit, the system was stable for an average of an hour.

In fact, Google told Ars that errors on this single logical qubit were rare enough that it was difficult to study them. The work provides a significant validation that quantum error correction is likely to be capable of supporting the execution of complex algorithms that might require hours to execute.

A new fab

Google is making a number of announcements in association with the paper’s release (an earlier version of the paper has been up on the arXiv since August). One of those is that the company is committed enough to its quantum computing efforts that it has built its own fabrication facility for its superconducting processors.

“In the past, all the Sycamore devices that you’ve heard about were fabricated in a shared university clean room space next to graduate students and people doing kinds of crazy stuff,” Google’s Julian Kelly said. “And we’ve made this really significant investment in bringing this new facility online, hiring staff, filling it with tools, transferring their process over. And that enables us to have significantly more process control and dedicated tooling.”

That’s likely to be a critical step for the company, as the ability to fabricate smaller test devices can allow the exploration of lots of ideas on how to structure the hardware to limit the impact of noise. The first publicly announced product of this lab is the Willow processor, Google’s second design, which ups its qubit count to 105. Kelly said one of the changes that came with Willow actually involved making the individual pieces of the qubit larger, which makes them somewhat less susceptible to the influence of noise.

All of that led to a lower error rate, which was critical for the work done in the new paper. This was demonstrated by running Google’s favorite benchmark, one that it acknowledges is contrived in a way to make quantum computing look as good as possible. Still, people have figured out how to make algorithm improvements for classical computers that have kept them mostly competitive. But, with all the improvements, Google expects that the quantum hardware has moved firmly into the lead. “We think that the classical side will never outperform quantum in this benchmark because we’re now looking at something on our new chip that takes under five minutes, would take 1025 years, which is way longer than the age of the Universe,” Kelly said.

Building logical qubits

The work focuses on the behavior of logical qubits, in which a collection of individual hardware qubits are grouped together in a way that enables errors to be detected and corrected. These are going to be essential for running any complex algorithms, since the hardware itself experiences errors often enough to make some inevitable during any complex calculations.

This naturally creates a key milestone. You can get better error correction by adding more hardware qubits to each logical qubit. If each of those hardware qubits produces errors at a sufficient rate, however, then you’ll experience errors faster than you can correct for them. You need to get hardware qubits of a sufficient quality before you start benefitting from larger logical qubits. Google’s earlier hardware had made it past that milestone, but only barely. Adding more hardware qubits to each logical qubit only made for a marginal improvement.

That’s no longer the case. Google’s processors have the hardware qubits laid out on a square grid, with each connected to its nearest neighbors (typically four except at the edges of the grid). And there’s a specific error correction code structure, called the surface code, that fits neatly into this grid. And you can use surface codes of different sizes by using progressively more of the grid. The size of the grid being used is measured by a term called distance, with larger distance meaning a bigger logical qubit, and thus better error correction.

(In addition to a standard surface code, Google includes a few qubits that handle a phenomenon called “leakage,” where a qubit ends up in a higher-energy state, instead of the two low-energy states defined as zero and one.)

The key result is that going from a distance of three to a distance of five more than doubled the ability of the system to catch and correct errors. Going from a distance of five to a distance of seven doubled it again. Which shows that the hardware qubits have reached a sufficient quality that putting more of them into a logical qubit has an exponential effect.

“As we increase the grid from three by three to five by five to seven by seven, the error rate is going down by a factor of two each time,” said Google’s Michael Newman. “And that’s that exponential error suppression that we want.”

Going big

The second thing they demonstrated is that, if you make the largest logical qubit that the hardware can support, with a distance of 15, it’s possible to hang onto the quantum information for an average of an hour. This is striking because Google’s earlier work had found that its processors experience widespread simultaneous errors that the team ascribed to cosmic ray impacts. (IBM, however, has indicated it doesn’t see anything similar, so it’s not clear whether this diagnosis is correct.) Those happened every 10 seconds or so. But this work shows that a sufficiently large error code can correct for these events, whatever their cause.

That said, these qubits don’t survive indefinitely. One of them seems to be a localized temporary increase in errors. The second, more difficult to deal with problem involves a widespread spike in error detection affecting an area that includes roughly 30 qubits. At this point, however, Google has only seen six of these events, so they told Ars that it’s difficult to really characterize them. “It’s so rare it actually starts to become a bit challenging to study because you have to gain a lot of statistics to even see those events at all,” said Kelly.

Beyond the relative durability of these logical qubits, the paper notes another advantage to going with larger code distances: it enhances the impact of further hardware improvements. Google estimates that at a distance of 15, improving hardware performance by a factor of two would drop errors in the logical qubit by a factor of 250. At a distance of 27, the same hardware improvement would lead to an improvement of over 10,000 in the logical qubit’s performance.

Note that none of this will ever get the error rate to zero. Instead, we just need to get the error rate to a level where an error is unlikely for a given calculation (more complex calculations will require a lower error rate). “It’s worth understanding that there’s always going to be some type of error floor and you just have to push it low enough to the point where it practically is irrelevant,” Kelly said. “So for example, we could get hit by an asteroid and the entire Earth could explode and that would be a correlated error that our quantum computer is not currently built to be robust to.”

Obviously, a lot of additional work will need to be done to both make logical qubits like this survive for even longer, and to ensure we have the hardware to host enough logical qubits to perform calculations. But the exponential improvements here, to Google, suggest that there’s nothing obvious standing in the way of that. “We woke up one morning and we kind of got these results and we were like, wow, this is going to work,” Newman said. “This is really it.”

Nature, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08449-y  (About DOIs).

Photo of John Timmer

John is Ars Technica’s science editor. He has a Bachelor of Arts in Biochemistry from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley. When physically separated from his keyboard, he tends to seek out a bicycle, or a scenic location for communing with his hiking boots.

Google gets an error-corrected quantum bit to be stable for an hour Read More »

itch.io-platform-briefly-goes-down-due-to-“ai-driven”-anti-phishing-report

Itch.io platform briefly goes down due to “AI-driven” anti-phishing report

AI, gaming / /

The itch.io domain was back up and running by 7 am Eastern, according to media reports, “after the registrant finally responded to our notice and took appropriate action to resolve the issue.” Users could access the site throughout if they typed the itch.io IP address into their web browser directly.

Too strong a shield?

BrandShield’s website describes it as a service that “detects and hunts online trademark infringement, counterfeit sales, and brand abuse across multiple platforms.” The company claims to have multiple Fortune 500 and FTSE100 companies on its client list.

In its own series of social media posts, BrandShield said its “AI-driven platform” had identified “an abuse of Funko… from an itch.io subdomain.” The takedown request it filed was focused on that subdomain, not the entirety of itch.io, BrandShield said.

“The temporary takedown of the website was a decision made by the service providers, not BrandShield or Funko.”

The whole affair highlights how the delicate web of domain registrars and DNS servers can remain a key failure point for web-based businesses. Back in May, we saw how the desyncing of a single DNS root server could cause problems across the entire Internet. And in 2012, the hacking collective Anonymous highlighted the potential for a coordinated attack to take down the entire DNS system.

Itch.io platform briefly goes down due to “AI-driven” anti-phishing report Read More »

2025-lamborghini-urus-se-first-drive:-the-total-taurean-package

2025 Lamborghini Urus SE first drive: The total taurean package

car review, Cars, Features, First drive, Lamborghini Urus, plug-in hybrid / /

A 789-horsepower Goldilocks moment

Adding electric power and a battery turns the Urus from hit-or-miss to just right.

The original Urus was an SUV that nobody particularly wanted, even if the market was demanding it. With luxury manufacturers tripping over themselves to capitalize on a seemingly limitless demand for taller all-around machines, Lamborghini was a little late to the party.

The resulting SUV has done its job, boosting Lamborghini’s sales and making up more than half of the company’s volume last year. Even so, the first attempt was just a bit tame. That most aggressive of supercar manufacturers produced an SUV featuring the air of the company’s lower, more outrageous performance machines, but it didn’t quite deliver the level of prestige that its price demanded.

The Urus Performante changed that, adding enough visual and driving personality to make itself a legitimately exciting machine to drive or to look at. Along the way, though, it lost a bit of the most crucial aspect of an SUV: everyday livability. On paper, the Urus SE is just a plug-in version of the Urus, with a big battery adding some emissions-free range. In reality, it’s an SUV with more performance and more flexibility, too. This is the Urus’ Goldilocks moment.

the front half of an orange Lamborghini Urus

If you’re looking for something subtle, you shouldn’t be looking at an Urus. Credit: Tim Stevens

The what

The Urus SE starts with the same basic platform as the other models in the line, including a 4.0 L turbocharged V8 that drives all four wheels through an eight-speed automatic and an all-wheel-drive system.

All that has received a strong dose of electrification, starting with a 25.9 kWh battery pack sitting far out back that helps to offset the otherwise nose-heavy SUV while also adding a playful bit of inertia to its tail. More on that in a moment.

That battery powers a 189 hp (141 kW) permanent-magnet synchronous electric motor fitted between the V8 and its transmission. The positioning means it has full access to all eight speeds and can drive the car at up to 81 mph (130 km/h). That, plus a Lamborghini-estimated 37 miles (60 km) of range, means this is a large SUV that could feasibly cover a lot of people’s commutes emissions-free.

Lamborghini urus engine bay

The V8 lives here. Credit: Tim Stevens

But when that electric motor’s power is paired with the 4.0 V8, the result is 789 hp (588 kW) total system power delivered to all four wheels. And with the electric torque coming on strong and early, it not only adds shove but throttle response, too.

Other updates

At a glance, the Urus SE looks more or less the same as the earlier renditions of the same SUV. Look closer, though, and you’ll spot several subtle changes, including a hood that eases more gently into the front fenders and a new spoiler out back that Lamborghini says boosts rear downforce by 35 percent over the Urus S.

Far and away the most striking part of the car, though, are the 22-inch wheels wrapped around carbon-ceramic brakes. They give this thing the look of a rolling caricature of a sport SUV in the best way possible. On the body of the machine itself, you’ll want to choose a properly eye-catching color, like the Arancio Egon you see here. I’ve been lucky to drive some pretty special SUVs over the years, and none have turned heads like this one did when cruising silently through a series of small Italian towns.

Things are far more same-y on the inside. At first blush, nothing has changed inside the Urus SE, and that’s OK. You have a few new hues of Technicolor hides to choose from—the car you see here is outfitted in a similarly pungent orange to its exterior color, making it a citrus dream through and through. The sports seats aren’t overly aggressive, offering more comfort than squeeze, but I’d say that’s just perfect.

Buttons and touchscreens vie with less conventional controls inside the Urus. Tim Stevens

But that’s all much the same as prior Urus versions. The central infotainment screen is slightly larger at 12.3 inches, and the software is lightly refreshed, but it’s the same Audi-based system as before. A light skinning full of hexagons makes it look and feel a little more at home in a car with a golden bull on the nose.

Unfortunately, while the car is quicker than the original model, the software isn’t. The overall experience is somewhat sluggish, especially when moving through the navigation system. Even the regen meter on the digital gauge cluster doesn’t change until a good half-second after you’ve pressed the brake pedal, an unfortunate place for lag.

The Urus SE offers six drive modes: Strada (street), Sport, Corsa (track), Sabbia (sand), Terra (dirt), and Neve (snow). There’s also a seventh, customizable Ego mode. As on earlier Urus models, these modes must be selected in that sequence. So if you want to go from Sport back to Strada, you need to cycle the mode selector knob five times—or go digging two submenus deep on the touchscreen.

Those can be further customized via a few buttons added beneath the secondary drive mode lever on the right. The top button enables standard Hybrid mode, where the gasoline and electric powertrains work together as harmoniously as possible for normal driving. The second button enters Recharge mode, which instructs the car to prioritize battery charge. The third and lowest button enters Performance mode, which gives you maximum performance from the hybrid system at the expense of charge.

Finally, a quick tug on the mode selector on the right drops the Urus into EV Drive.

Silent running

I started my time in the Urus SE driving into the middle of town, which was full of narrow streets, pedestrian-friendly speed limits, and aggressively piloted Fiats. Slow and steady is the safest way in these situations, so I was happy to sample the Urus’ all-electric mode.

To put it simply, it delivers. There’s virtually no noise from the drivetrain, a near-silent experience at lower speeds that help assuage the stress such situations can cause. The experience was somewhat spoiled by some tire noise, but I’ll blame that on the Pirelli Scorpion Winter 2 tires outfitted here. I can’t, however, blame the tires for a few annoying creaks and rattles, which isn’t exactly what I’d expect from an SUV at this price point.

Though there isn’t much power at your disposal in this mode, the Urus can still scoot away from lights and stop signs quickly and easily, even ducking through small gaps in tiny roundabouts.

Lamborghini Urus cargo area

It might not be subtle, but it can be practical. Credit: Tim Stevens

Dip more than three-quarters of the way into the throttle, though, and that V8 fires up and quickly joins the fun. The hand-off here can be a little less than subtle as power output surges quickly, but in a moment, the car goes from a wheezy EV to a roaring Lamborghini. And unlike a lot of plug-ins that stubbornly refuse to shut their engines off again when this happens, another quick pull of the EV lever silences the thing.

When I finally got out of town, I shifted over to Strada mode, the default mode for the Urus. I found this mode a little too lazy for my tastes, as it was reluctant to shift down unless I dipped far into the throttle, resulting in a bucking bull of acceleration when the eight-speed automatic finally complied.

The car only really came alive when I put it into Sport mode and above.

Shifting to Sport

Any hesitation or reluctance to shift is quickly obliterated as soon as you tug the drive mode lever into Sport. The SUV immediately forgets all about trying to be efficient, dropping a gear or two and making sure you’re never far from the power band, keeping the turbo lag from the V8 to a minimum.

The tachometer gets some red highlights in this mode, but you won’t need to look at it. There’s plenty of sound from the exhaust, augmented by some digital engine notes I found to be more distracting and unnecessary than anything. Most importantly, the overall feel of the car changes dramatically. It leaps forward with the slightest provocation of the right pedal, really challenging the grip of the tires.

In my first proper sampling of the full travel of that throttle pedal, I was surprised at how quickly this latest Urus got frisky, kicking its tail out with an eager wag on a slight bend to the right. It wasn’t scary, but it was just lively enough to make me smile and feel like I was something more than a passenger in a hyper-advanced, half-electric SUV.

Credit: Tim Stevens

In other words, it felt like a Lamborghini, an impression only reinforced as I dropped the SUV down to Corsa mode and really let it fly. The transmission is incredibly eager to drop gears on the slightest bit of deceleration, enough so that I rarely felt the need to reach for the column-mounted shift paddles.

But despite the eagerness, the suspension remained compliant and everyday-livable in every mode. I could certainly feel the (many) imperfections in the rural Italian roads more when the standard air suspension was dialed over to its stiffest, but even then, it was never punishing. And in the softest setting, the SUV was perfectly comfortable despite those 22-inch wheels and tires.

I didn’t get a chance to sample the SUV’s off-road prowess, but the SE carries a torque-vectoring rear differential like the Performante, which should mean it will be as eager to turn and drift on loose surfaces as that other, racier Urus.

Both the Urus Performante and the SE start at a bit over $260,000, which means choosing between the two isn’t a decision to be made on price alone. Personally, I’d much prefer the SE. It offers plenty of the charm and excitement of the Performante mixed with even better everyday capability than the Urus S. This one’s just right.

2025 Lamborghini Urus SE first drive: The total taurean package Read More »

your-ai-clone-could-target-your-family,-but-there’s-a-simple-defense

Your AI clone could target your family, but there’s a simple defense

AI, AI crime, AI ethics, AI fraud, AI password, Asara Near, audio synthesis, Biz & IT, Deepfakes, fbi, image synthesis, machine learning, safe word, secret word, Twitter, voice cloning, voice synthesis / /

The warning extends beyond voice scams. The FBI announcement details how criminals also use AI models to generate convincing profile photos, identification documents, and chatbots embedded in fraudulent websites. These tools automate the creation of deceptive content while reducing previously obvious signs of humans behind the scams, like poor grammar or obviously fake photos.

Much like we warned in 2022 in a piece about life-wrecking deepfakes based on publicly available photos, the FBI also recommends limiting public access to recordings of your voice and images online. The bureau suggests making social media accounts private and restricting followers to known contacts.

Origin of the secret word in AI

To our knowledge, we can trace the first appearance of the secret word in the context of modern AI voice synthesis and deepfakes back to an AI developer named Asara Near, who first announced the idea on Twitter on March 27, 2023.

“(I)t may be useful to establish a ‘proof of humanity’ word, which your trusted contacts can ask you for,” Near wrote. “(I)n case they get a strange and urgent voice or video call from you this can help assure them they are actually speaking with you, and not a deepfaked/deepcloned version of you.”

Since then, the idea has spread widely. In February, Rachel Metz covered the topic for Bloomberg, writing, “The idea is becoming common in the AI research community, one founder told me. It’s also simple and free.”

Of course, passwords have been used since ancient times to verify someone’s identity, and it seems likely some science fiction story has dealt with the issue of passwords and robot clones in the past. It’s interesting that, in this new age of high-tech AI identity fraud, this ancient invention—a special word or phrase known to few—can still prove so useful.

Your AI clone could target your family, but there’s a simple defense Read More »

lower-cost-sodium-ion-batteries-are-finally-having-their-moment

Lower-cost sodium-ion batteries are finally having their moment

Cars, EVs, sodium batteries, sodium-ion batteries, syndication / /

In contrast, a sodium-ion battery relies on an element—sodium—that you can find in table salt and ocean water.

Among the other benefits, sodium-ion batteries perform better than lithium-ion batteries in extreme cold. CATL has said its new battery works in temperatures as low as -40° Fahrenheit.

Also, a sodium-ion battery has much lower risk of fire. When lithium-ion batteries sustain damage, it can lead to “thermal runaway,” which triggers a dangerous and toxic fire.

The process of manufacturing sodium-ion batteries is similar to that of lithium-ion batteries, or at least similar enough that companies can shift existing assembly lines without having to spend heavily on retooling.

But sodium-ion batteries have some disadvantages. The big one is low energy density compared to lithium-ion. As a result, an EV running on a sodium-ion battery will go fewer miles per charge than a lithium-ion battery of the same size.

“That is just what nature has given us,” Srinivasan said. “From a physics perspective, sodium batteries inherently have lower energy density than lithium batteries.”

A typical sodium-ion battery has an energy density of about 150 watt-hours per kilogram at the cell level, he said. Lithium-ion batteries can range from about 180 to nearly 300 watt-hours per kilogram.

I asked Srinivasan what he makes of CATL’s claim of a sodium-ion battery with 200 watt-hours per kilogram.

“We tend to be skeptical of news releases from companies,” he said. He specified that his comment applies to all battery companies.

Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science, discusses battery research with a materials scientist in one of the energy storage discovery labs at Argonne National Laboratory.

Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science, discusses battery research with a materials scientist in one of the energy storage discovery labs at Argonne National Laboratory. Credit: Argonne National Laboratory

The national labs’ initiative has a five-year timeline, with a goal of developing sodium-ion batteries with energy densities that match or exceed those of today’s iron phosphate-based lithium-ion batteries. Researchers would do this by finding various efficiencies in design and materials.

The project is happening alongside the labs’ ongoing work to develop and improve other kinds of batteries.

Lithium-ion batteries dominate today’s market. This year, global production of lithium-ion batteries was about 1,500 gigawatt-hours, and production of sodium-ion batteries was 11 gigawatt-hours, or less than 1 percent, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

Lower-cost sodium-ion batteries are finally having their moment Read More »

trump-nominates-jared-isaacman-to-become-the-next-nasa-administrator

Trump nominates Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator

artemis, Donald Trump, human spaceflight, jared isaacman, NASA, Science, Space, space policy, spacex / /

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday he has selected Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman and space enthusiast who twice flew to orbit with SpaceX, to become the next NASA administrator.

“I am delighted to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut, as Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA),” Trump posted on his social media platform, Truth Social. “Jared will drive NASA’s mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in space science, technology, and exploration.”

In a post on X, Isaacman said he was “honored” to receive Trump’s nomination.

“Having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history,” Isaacman wrote. “On my last mission to space, my crew and I traveled farther from Earth than anyone in over half a century. I can confidently say this second space age has only just begun.”

Top officials who served at NASA under President Trump and President Obama endorsed Isaacman as the next NASA boss.

“Jared Isaacman will be an outstanding NASA Administrator and leader of the NASA family,” said Jim Bridenstine, who led NASA as administrator during Trump’s first term in the White House. “Jared’s vision for pushing boundaries, paired with his proven track record of success in private industry, positions him as an ideal candidate to lead NASA into a bold new era of exploration and discovery. I urge the Senate to swiftly confirm him.”

Lori Garver, NASA’s deputy administrator during the Obama administration, wrote on X that Isaacman’s nomination was “terrific news,” adding that “he has the opportunity to build on NASA’s amazing accomplishments to pave our way to an even brighter future.”

Isaacman, 41, is the founder and CEO of Shift4, a mobile payment processing platform, and co-founded Draken International, which owns a fleet of retired fighter jets to pose as adversaries for military air combat training. If the Senate confirms his nomination, Isaacman would become the 15th NASA administrator, and the fourth who has flown in space.

Trump nominates Jared Isaacman to become the next NASA administrator Read More »

no-more-ev-app-folders:-universal-plug-and-charge-is-due-to-launch-in-2025

No more EV app folders: Universal plug-and-charge is due to launch in 2025

Cars, electrify america, EV charging, EVgo, Ford, General Motors, GM, plug and charge, Rivian, SAE international, Tesla, universal plug and charge / /

To fill a car with gas, you generally just need a credit card or cash. To charge an EV at a DC fast charging station, you need any number of things to work—a credit card reader, an app for that charger’s network, a touchscreen that’s working—and they’re all a little different.

That situation could change next year if a new “universal Plug and Charge” initiative from SAE International, backed by a number of EV carmakers and chargers, moves ahead and gains ground. Launching in early 2025, the network could make charging an EV actually easier than gassing up: plug in, let the car and charger figure out the payment details over a cloud connection, and go.

Some car and charging network combinations already offer such a system through a patchwork of individual deals, as listed at Inside EVs. Teslas have always offered a plug-and-charge experience, given the tight integration between their Superchargers and vehicles. Now Tesla will join the plug-and-charge movement proper, allowing Teslas to have a roughly similar experience at other stations.

The Electric Vehicle Public Key Infrastructure, or EVPKI, has a good number of the major players on board, and it builds on the ISO standard (15118) to make it faster and more secure for cars to be authenticated and authorized to charge at stations. A whole bunch of certificates are in place at every step of the charging process, as detailed in an EVPKI presentation, and the system includes a Certified Trust List. With an open standard and authentication system, there should be room for new charging networks and vehicle makers.

No more EV app folders: Universal plug-and-charge is due to launch in 2025 Read More »

microsoft-reiterates-“non-negotiable”-tpm-2.0-requirement-for-windows-11

Microsoft reiterates “non-negotiable” TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11

Tech, Windows 10, Windows 11, windows 11 24h2 / /

Windows 11 has other system requirements, though they weren’t the focus of this TPM-centric blog post. Windows 11 systems must have Secure Boot enabled, and they have to use a supported processor—an 8th-gen Intel Core CPU, an AMD Ryzen 2000 CPU, or a Qualcomm Snapdragon 850 CPU or newer. In fact, these CPU requirements exclude a couple of generations’ worth of Intel and AMD chips with built-in TPM 2.0 support.

Windows 11 also has nominal requirements for RAM and processor speed, but any system that meets the CPU or TPM requirements will easily clear those bars. If you have a supported CPU and your PC doesn’t appear to support TPM 2.0, you should be able to enable it in your system’s BIOS, either manually or by installing a BIOS update for your motherboard.

Windows 11 can be installed on unsupported systems, either those with an older TPM 1.2 module or no TPM enabled at all. It’s more annoying to install major updates on those systems, and Microsoft reserves the right to pull updates from those systems at any time, but aside from that, Windows 11 usually runs about as well on these PCs as Windows 10 did.

Microsoft reiterates “non-negotiable” TPM 2.0 requirement for Windows 11 Read More »

“nightmare”-zipcar-outage-is-a-warning-against-complete-app-dependency

“Nightmare” Zipcar outage is a warning against complete app dependency

Apps, outage, Software, Tech, Zipcar / /

Zipcar’s rep declined to specify how many people were affected by the outage.

A warning against total app reliance

Zipcar’s app problems have not only cost it money but also traumatized some users who may think twice before using Zipcar again. The convenience of using apps to control physical products only exists if said apps are functioning and prepared for high-volume time periods, such as Thanksgiving weekend.

Despite Zipcar’s claims of a “small percentage” of users being affected, the company’s customer support system seemed overwhelmed. Long wait times coupled with misinformation regarding things like fees make already perturbed customers feel more deserted.

Those are the pitfalls of completely relying on apps for basic functionality. There was a time when Zipcar members automatically received physical “Zipcards” for opening doors. Now, they’re not really advertised, and users have to request one.

A Zipcard.

A Zipcard. Credit: Getty

Zipcars also used to include keys inside of locked cars more frequently. Reducing these physical aspects may have saved the company money but effectively put all of Zipcar’s eggs in one basket.

Nightmarish app problems like the one Zipcar experienced can be a deal-breaker. Just look at Sonos, whose botched app update is costing it millions. Further, turning something like car rentals into a virtually app-only service is a risky endeavor that can quickly overcomplicate simple tasks. Some New Zealand gas stations were out of luck earlier this year, for example, when a Leap Day glitch caused payment processing software to stop working. Gas stations that needed apps for payments weren’t able to make sales, and drivers were inconvenienced.

Apps can simplify and streamline while delivering ingenuity. But that doesn’t mean traditional, app-free measures should be eliminated as backups.

“Nightmare” Zipcar outage is a warning against complete app dependency Read More »

cyber-monday-cybers-into-view,-and-we’ve-got-all-the-cyber-deals

Cyber Monday cybers into view, and we’ve got all the cyber deals

Amazon, black friday, cyber monday, sales, shopping / /

Vende animam tuam pro commercio

The day’s half-over, but we keep adding stuff—come see if anything speaks to you!

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this courier from the swift completion of his appointed rounds. Credit: bowie15 / Getty Images

I hope everyone survived the weekend shopping experience and no one was eaten by ravening bands of deal-hunting nomads as they trekked through Macy’s, or whatever people who actually go outside on Black Friday have to endure. Things are mostly quiet here at the Ars Orbiting HQ—the gift shop on the mess deck is still selling mugs and other merch, if anyone wants some Ars stuff!—but the e-commerce communications panel is beeping and it says we’ve got more deals to show you guys for Cyber Monday!

Cyber Monday is the thing that happens after Black Friday, where the deals keep going past the weekend and erupt into the next week, like some kind of out-of-control roller coaster of capitalism careening off the rails and into the crowd. Headphones! Power stations! Tablets! More board games! We’ve got so many things for you to buy!

A couple of quick notes: First, we’re going to continue updating this list throughout Monday as things change, so if you don’t see anything that tickles your fancy right now, check back in a few hours! Additionally, although we’re making every effort to keep our prices accurate, deals are constantly shifting around, and an item’s actual price might have drifted from what we list. Caveat emptor and all that.

So, with that out of the way, let’s keep making like *NSYNC and buy, buy, buy!

Laptop and tablet deals

Headphone deals

Home office and computing deals

TV deals

Apple and Apple accessory deals

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Over the weekend, China debuted a new rocket on the nation’s path to the Moon

china, launch, long march, long march 12, moon, Science, Space / /

Depending on how you count them, China now has roughly 18 types of active space launchers.

China’s new Long March 12 rocket made a successful inaugural flight Saturday, placing two experimental satellites into orbit and testing uprated, higher-thrust engines that will allow a larger Chinese launcher in development to send astronauts to the Moon.

The 203-foot-tall (62-meter) Long March 12 rocket lifted off at 9: 25 am EST (14: 25 UTC) Saturday from the Wenchang commercial launch site on Hainan Island, China’s southernmost province. This was also the first rocket launch from a new commercial spaceport at Wenchang, consisting of two launch sites a short distance from a pair of existing launch pads used by heavier rockets primarily geared for government missions.

The two-stage rocket delivered two technology demonstration satellites into a near-circular 50-degree-inclination orbit with an average altitude of nearly 650 miles (about 1,040 kilometers), according to US military tracking data.

The Long March 12 is the newest member of China’s Long March rocket family, which has been flying since China launched its first satellite into orbit in 1970. The Long March rockets have significantly evolved since then and now include a range of launch vehicles of different sizes and designs.

Versions of the Long March 2, 3, and 4 rockets have been flying since the 1970s and 1980s, burning the same toxic mix of hypergolic propellants as China’s early ICBMs. More recently, China debuted the Long March 5, 6, 7, and 8 rockets consuming the cleaner combination of kerosene and liquid oxygen propellants. These new rockets provide China with a spectrum of small, medium, and heavy-lift launch capabilities.

So many rockets

So, why bother with yet another Long March rocket? One reason is that Chinese officials seek a less expensive rocket to deploy thousands of small satellites for the country’s Internet mega-constellations to rival SpaceX’s Starlink network. Another motivation is to demonstrate the performance of upgraded rocket engines, new technologies, and fresh designs, some of which appear to copy SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

Like all of China’s other existing rockets, the Long March 12 configuration that flew Saturday is fully disposable. At the Zhuhai Airshow earlier this month, China’s largest rocket company displayed another version of the Long March 12 with a reusable first stage but with scant design details.

The Long March 12 is powered by four kerosene-fueled YF-100K engines on its first stage, generating more than 1.1 million pounds, or 5,000 kilonewtons of thrust at full throttle. These engines are upgraded, higher-thrust versions of the YF-100 engines used on several other types of Long March rockets.

Models of the Long March rockets on display at the China National Space Administration (CNSA) booth during the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, China, on November 12, 2024. In this image, models of a future reusable version of the Long March 12 (left) and the super-heavy Long March 9 (right) are visible. Credit: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Notably, China will use the YF-100K variant on the heavy-lift Long March 10 rocket in development to launch Chinese astronauts to the Moon. The heaviest version of the Long March 10 will use 21 of these YF-100K engines on its core stage and strap-on boosters. Now, Chinese engineers have tested the upgraded YF-100K in flight, with favorable results from Saturday’s launch.

China is also developing a new crew-rated spacecraft and lunar lander that will launch on Long March 10 rockets, eyeing a human landing on the lunar surface by 2030. The Long March 10 will have a reusable first stage like the Falcon 9, and China is now working on a super-heavy fully reusable rocket that appears to be a clone of SpaceX’s Starship. This Long March 9 rocket, which probably won’t fly until the 2030s, will enable larger-scale sustained lunar exploration by China.

And now, the details

The Long March 12 was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, also known as SAST, one of the two main state-owned organizations in charge of designing and manufacturing Long March rockets. Together with the Beijing-based China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology, SAST is part of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, the largest government-run enterprise overseeing the Chinese space program.

According to SAST, the Long March 12 is capable of delivering a payload of at least 12 metric tons (26,455 pounds) into low-Earth orbit and about half that to a somewhat higher Sun-synchronous orbit. Two kerosene-fueled YF-115 engines power the Long March 12’s upper stage.

The Long March 12 is also China’s first 3.8-meter (12.5-foot) diameter rocket, which is an optimal match between the width of the booster and lift capability, allowing it to be transported by railway to launch sites across China, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency.

China’s older Long March rocket variants are slimmer and generally require engineers to strap together multiple first-stage boosters in a cluster arrangement to achieve performance similar to the Long March 12. The core of the heavy-lift Long March 5 is around 5 meters in diameter and must be transported by sea.

China’s first Long March 12 rocket on its launch pad before liftoff. Credit: Photo by VCG/VCG via Getty Images

In a post-launch press release, SAST identified several other “technology breakthroughs” flying on the Long March 12 rocket. These include a health management system that can diagnose anomalies in flight and adjust the rocket’s trajectory in real time to compensate for any minor problems. The Long March 12 is also China’s first rocket to use cryogenic helium to pressurize its liquid oxygen tanks, and its tanks are made of an aluminum-lithium alloy to save weight.

The Long March 12 is also the first rocket of its size in the Long March family to be assembled on its side instead of stacked vertically on its launch mount. After integrating the rocket in a nearby hangar, technicians transferred the first Long March 12 to its launch pad horizontally, then raised it vertical with an erector system. This is the same way SpaceX integrates and transports Falcon 9 rockets to the launch pad. SpaceX copied this horizontal integration approach from older Soviet-era rockets, and it offers several advantages, allowing teams to assemble rockets faster without the need for large overhead cranes in tall, cavernous vertical assembly buildings.

A bug or a feature?

We’ve already mentioned the proliferation of different types of Long March rockets, with nine classes of Long March launchers currently in operation. And each of these comes in multiple sub-variants.

This is a starkly different approach from SpaceX, which flies standardized rockets like the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, which almost always fly in the same configuration, regardless of the payload or destination for each mission. The only exception is when SpaceX launches Dragon crew or cargo capsules on the Falcon 9.

Depending on how you count them, China now has roughly 18 different types of active space launchers. This number doesn’t include the Long March 9 or Long March 10, but it counts all the other Long March configurations, plus numerous small- and medium-class rockets fielded by China’s quasi-commercial space industry.

These startups operate with the blessing of China’s government and, in many cases, got their start by utilizing surplus military equipment and investment from Chinese local or provincial governments. However, the Chinese Communist Party has allowed them to raise capital from private sources, and they operate on a commercial basis, almost exclusively to serve domestic Chinese markets.

In some cases, these launch startups compete for commercial contracts directly with the government-backed Long March rocket family. The Long March 12 could be in the mix for launching large batches of spacecraft for China’s planned satellite Internet networks.

Some of these launch companies are working on reusable rockets similar in appearance to SpaceX’s Falcon 9. All of these rockets, government and commercial, are part of an ecosystem of Chinese launchers tasked with hauling military and commercial satellites into orbit.

The Long March 12 launch Saturday was China’s 58th orbital launch attempt of 2024, and no single subvariant of a Chinese rocket has flown more than seven times this year. This is in sharp contrast to the United States, which has logged 142 orbital launch attempts so far this year, 119 of them by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rockets.

There are around a dozen US orbital-class launch vehicle types you might call operational. But a few of these, such as Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL and Minotaur, and NASA’s Space Launch System, haven’t flown for several years.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is now the dominant leader in the US launch industry. Most of the Falcon 9 launches are filled to capacity with SpaceX’s own Starlink Internet satellites, but many missions fly with their payload fairings only partially full. Still, the Falcon 9 is more affordable on a per-kilogram basis than any other US rocket.

In China, on the other hand, none of the commercial launch startups have emerged as a clear leader. When that happens, if China allows the market to function in a truly commercial manner, some of these Chinese rocket companies will likely fold.

However, China’s government has a strategic interest in maintaining a portfolio of rockets and launch sites, same as the US government. For example, Chinese officials said the new launch site at Wenchang, where the Long March 12 took off from over the weekend, can accommodate 10 or more different types of rockets.

Photo of Stephen Clark

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

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How should we treat beings that might be sentient?

Biology, consciousness, ethics, neurobiology, Science, sentience / /

Being aware of the maybe self-aware

A book argues that we’ve not thought enough about things that might think.

What rights should a creature with ambiguous self-awareness, like an octopus, be granted. Credit: A. Martin UW Photography

If you aren’t yet worried about the multitude of ways you inadvertently inflict suffering onto other living creatures, you will be after reading The Edge of Sentience by Jonathan Birch. And for good reason. Birch, a Professor of Philosophy at the London College of Economics and Political Science, was one of a team of experts chosen by the UK government to establish the Animal Welfare Act (or Sentience Act) in 2022—a law that protects animals whose sentience status is unclear.

According to Birch, even insects may possess sentience, which he defines as the capacity to have valenced experiences, or experiences that feel good or bad. At the very least, Birch explains, insects (as well as all vertebrates and a selection of invertebrates) are sentience candidates: animals that may be conscious and, until proven otherwise, should be regarded as such.

Although it might be a stretch to wrap our mammalian minds around insect sentience, it is not difficult to imagine that fellow vertebrates have the capacity to experience life, nor does it come as a surprise that even some invertebrates, such as octopuses and other cephalopod mollusks (squid, cuttlefish, and nautilus) qualify for sentience candidature. In fact, one species of octopus, Octopus vulgaris, has been protected by the UK’s Animal Scientific Procedures Act (ASPA) since 1986, which illustrates how long we have been aware of the possibility that invertebrates might be capable of experiencing valenced states of awareness, such as contentment, fear, pleasure, and pain.

A framework for fence-sitters

Non-human animals, of course, are not the only beings with an ambiguous sentience stature that poses complicated questions. Birch discusses people with disorders of consciousness, embryos and fetuses, neural organoids (brain tissue grown in a dish), and even “AI technologies that reproduce brain functions and/or mimic human behavior,” all of which share the unenviable position of being perched on the edge of sentience—a place where it is excruciatingly unclear whether or not these individuals are capable of conscious experience.

What’s needed, Birch argues, when faced with such staggering uncertainty about the sentience stature of other beings, is a precautionary framework that outlines best practices for decision-making regarding their care. And in The Edge of Sentience, he provides exactly that, in meticulous, orderly detail.

Over more than 300 pages, he outlines three fundamental framework principles and 26 specific case proposals about how to handle complex situations related to the care and treatment of sentience-edgers. For example, Proposal 2 cautions that “a patient with a prolonged disorder of consciousness should not be assumed incapable of experience” and suggests that medical decisions made on their behalf cautiously presume they are capable of feeling pain. Proposal 16 warns about conflating brain size, intelligence, and sentience, and recommends decoupling the three so that we do not incorrectly assume that small-brained animals are incapable of conscious experience.

Surgeries and stem cells

Be forewarned, some topics in The Edge of Sentience are difficult. For example, Chapter 10 covers embryos and fetuses. In the 1980s, Birch shares, it was common practice to not use anesthesia on newborn babies or fetuses when performing surgery. Why? Because whether or not newborns and fetuses experience pain was up for debate. Rather than put newborns and fetuses through the risks associated with anesthesia, it was accepted practice to give them a paralytic (which prevents all movement) and carry on with invasive procedures, up to and including heart surgery.

After parents raised alarms over the devastating outcomes of this practice, such as infant mortality, it was eventually changed. Birch’s takeaway message is clear: When in doubt about the sentience stature of a living being, we should probably assume it is capable of experiencing pain and take all necessary precautions to prevent it from suffering. To presume the opposite can be unethical.

This guidance is repeated throughout the book. Neural organoids, discussed in Chapter 11, are mini-models of brains developed from stem cells. The potential for scientists to use neural organoids to unravel the mechanisms of debilitating neurological conditions—and to avoid invasive animal research while doing so—is immense. It is also ethical, Birch posits, since studying organoids lessens the suffering of research animals. However, we don’t yet know whether or not neural tissue grown in a dish has the potential to develop sentience, so he argues that we need to develop a precautionary approach that balances the benefits of reduced animal research against the risk that neural organoids are capable of being sentient.

A four-pronged test

Along this same line, Birch says, all welfare decisions regarding sentience-edgers require an assessment of proportionality. We must balance the nature of a given proposed risk to a sentience candidate with potential harms that could result if nothing is done to minimize the risk. To do this, he suggests testing four criteria: permissibility-in-principle, adequacy, reasonable necessity, and consistency. Birch refers to this assessment process as PARC, and deep dives into its implementation in chapter eight.

When applying the PARC criteria, one begins by testing permissibility-in-principle: whether or not the proposed response to a risk is ethically permissible. To illustrate this, Birch poses a hypothetical question: would it be ethically permissible to mandate vaccination in response to a pandemic? If a panel of citizens were in charge of answering this question, they might say “no,” because forcing people to be vaccinated feels unethical. Yet, when faced with the same question, a panel of experts might say “yes,” because allowing people to die who could be saved by vaccination also feels unethical. Gauging permissibility-in-principle, therefore, entails careful consideration of the likely possible outcomes of a proposed response. If an outcome is deemed ethical, it is permissible.

Next, the adequacy of a proposed response must be tested. A proportionate response to a risk must do enough to lessen the risk. This means the risk must be reduced to “an acceptable level” or, if that’s not possible, a response should “deliver the best level of risk reduction that can be achieved” via an ethically permissible option.

The third test is reasonable necessity. A proposed response to a risk must not overshoot—it should not go beyond what is reasonably necessary to reduce risk, in terms of either cost or imposed harm. And last, consistency should be considered. The example Birch presents is animal welfare policy. He suggests we should always “aim for taxonomic consistency: our treatment of one group of animals (e.g., vertebrates) should be consistent with our treatment of another (e.g., invertebrates).”

The Edge of Sentience, as a whole, is a dense text overflowing with philosophical rhetoric. Yet this rhetoric plays a crucial role in the storytelling: it is the backbone for Birch’s clear and organized conclusions, and it serves as a jumping-off point for the logical progression of his arguments. Much like “I think, therefore I am” gave René Descartes a foundation upon which to build his idea of substance dualism, Birch uses the fundamental position that humans should not inflict gratuitous suffering onto fellow creatures as a base upon which to build his precautionary framework.

For curious readers who would prefer not to wade too deeply into meaty philosophical concepts, Birch generously provides a shortcut to his conclusions: a cheat sheet of his framework principles and special case proposals is presented at the front of the book.

Birch’s ultimate message in The Edge of Sentience is that a massive shift in how we view beings with a questionable sentience status should be made. And we should ideally make this change now, rather than waiting for scientific research to infallibly determine who and what is sentient. Birch argues that one way that citizens and policy-makers can begin this process is by adopting the following decision-making framework: always avoid inflicting gratuitous suffering on sentience candidates; take precautions when making decisions regarding a sentience candidate; and make proportional decisions about the care of sentience candidates that are “informed, democratic and inclusive.”

You might be tempted to shake your head at Birch’s confidence in humanity. No matter how deeply you agree with his stance of doing no harm, it’s hard to have confidence in humanity given our track record of not making big changes for the benefit of living creatures, even when said creatures includes our own species (cue in global warming here). It seems excruciatingly unlikely that the entire world will adopt Birch’s rational, thoughtful, comprehensive plan for reducing the suffering of all potentially sentient creatures. Yet Birch, a philosopher at heart, ignores human history and maintains a tone of articulate, patient optimism. He clearly believes in us—he knows we can do better—and he offers to hold our hands and walk us through the steps to do so.

Lindsey Laughlin is a science writer and freelance journalist who lives in Portland, Oregon, with her husband and four children. She earned her BS from UC Davis with majors in physics, neuroscience, and philosophy.

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