There is a mysterious phenomenon in which strong radio signals arrive periodically from space, yet their source remains completely unknown. Known as “long-period radio transients” (LPTs), these phenomena are observed as radio bursts that repeat at intervals ranging from several minutes to several hours. Only a dozen or so examples have been discovered within the Milky Way, and their physical nature has long remained a mystery.

Previous research has suggested that candidates for the source of LPTs include neutron stars known as magnetars, which rotate extremely slowly, and binary systems consisting of white dwarfs with companion stars. However, the magnetar hypothesis faces the problem of contradicting existing theoretical models.

On the other hand, while a few cases suggesting a connection to white dwarf binaries have been reported, there had been no cases in which the accretion process was directly confirmed to be actually occurring.

Against this backdrop, an international research team led by the University of Sydney in Australia conducted a sky-survey using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope and identified the true nature of a mysterious object named ASKAP J174508.9-505149. These observational results are said to be the strongest evidence to date pointing to LPT as one of the sources of this phenomenon.

“For the first time we have pinpointed the origin of these signals,” said Kovi Rose, a doctoral student at the University of Sydney’s School of Physics and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, in a press release. “We’ve been able to show that the source for one of these transients comes from a white dwarf actively pulling material from a companion star.”

A White Dwarf and a Companion Star

Rose and his research team confirmed through spectroscopic observations that ASKAP J1745-5051 exhibits hydrogen emission lines (the Balmer series) and helium emission lines (HeI and HeII). In particular, the strong HeII emission line is known as an optical feature characteristic of “magnetic cataclysmic variables.”

Cataclysmic variables is a general term for close binary systems in which a white dwarf accretes matter from a companion star. Among these, those in which the white dwarf possesses a strong magnetic field and gas accretes along magnetic field lines are called “magnetic cataclysmic variables.”

Furthermore, analysis of the radial velocities of the Balmer series emission lines revealed that the orbital period of this binary system is approximately 1.368 hours, which was confirmed to match the repetition period of the radio pulses, approximately 1.345 hours. Furthermore, based on the orbital period, the companion star’s mass was estimated to be approximately 0.096 times that of the sun, and its radius approximately 0.13 times that of the sun, indicating that it corresponds to an M6-class red dwarf.

In other words, ASKAP J1745-5051 is a binary system in which a white dwarf and a red dwarf orbit each other at an extremely close distance. A white dwarf is the high-density remnant of a star that has reached the end of its life; although it is about the size of Earth, its mass is comparable to that of the sun. Its companion, the red dwarf, is larger but less dense, with a mass of only about one-tenth that of the Sun. The two stars orbit each other in a short period of just over one hour.

The UK government announced that it will be implementing a social media ban for all those aged under 16 years old next year.

While there are still many unanswered questions, the government has listed the social media platforms that will be included in the ban. Alongside the perhaps expected platforms such as Instagram, X, Snapchat and Facebook however is YouTube. Many are surprised to see YouTube included in the ban, as the platform is self-described as a video-sharing platform rather than social media.

So, why has the government chosen to ban YouTube for under-16s? When will the ban come into full effect?

We answer everything you need to know about why YouTube is included in the UK social media ban, plus provide more information about the ban as a whole. For a broader look at the ban, visit our dedicated UK social media ban explainer, while our Home Editor Dave Ludlow explains why he thinks the ban is a good idea. 

The government has stated that YouTube will be included in the UK social media ban for under 16s. In addition, live-streaming will also be restricted for those under 16 too.

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What about YouTube Kids – is that also banned?

Although the government hasn’t officially stated whether or not YouTube Kids is included in the ban, it is widely thought that it will not be banned. As reported by a so-called Whitehall Insider to the The Sun, “YouTube Kids won’t be covered.” 

YouTube Kids is essentially a filtered iteration of the standard YouTube platform, and promises to only include age-appropriate videos so children should be able to explore it freely without risk of coming across harmful content. Plus, YouTube Kids includes parental controls that allows parents to set time limits, check what kids have been watching and more.

Why is standard YouTube included but YouTube Kids excluded?

We should note that the government hasn’t explicitly stated that YouTube Kids has been excluded from the ban. However, we would assume that the decision to exclude YouTube Kids is due to the fact it only allows age-appropriate videos on the platform, and is equipped with plenty of parental controls to ensure parents and guardians can keep an eye on their children’s screen time and general use of the app.

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However, many have criticised the government’s decision to include YouTube in the ban as many children use the tool purely for educational content. While YouTube Kids does promise to include “educational how-tos” and arts and crafts videos, there are many videos that although technically are family friendly and don’t contain any harmful content, won’t be included within YouTube Kids. 

Having said that, it’s worth noting that the parent account that controls YouTube Kids can share videos directly from YouTube into the YouTube Kids app.

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When does the YouTube ban take effect for under-16s?

The UK government has stated that the social media ban for under 16s, which will include YouTube, should be implemented in Spring 2027. This will follow the first set of regulations which should be laid out by the end of the year. 

What other platforms are included in the ban?

At the time of writing, the government has said that alongside YouTube, the social media ban will include Instagram, X, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat. Messaging apps like Whatsapp and Signal are not expected to be included. 

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Although YouTube is described as a video-sharing platform, it is commonly considered as being a social networking service. This is mainly due to the fact that users can easily interact with others, whether that’s through replying to comments and polls or responding to channels’ posts. So, while it’s not quite as clearcut as the likes of Facebook or X, it’s still undeniably a way to communicate with others. 

Most importantly, the government sees YouTube as a form of social media which is why the platform has decided to include it in the upcoming ban.

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Prime Day is officially only a few hours away. But while the Amazon sale promises to be packed with cheap tech and gadgets, a refined workspace deserves stylish gear and pure craftsmanship. With that in mind, I’ve curated a round-up of 12 premium desk accessories that exude luxury and timeless style.

• Shop Amazon’s Prime Day deals

In this guide, I’m not chasing the deepest discounts, but prioritizing high-performance essentials. The focus here is on exquisite builds, clever engineering, and uncompromising utility when crafting a workspace that’s as powerfully practical as it is visually flawless.

Alongside some of my favorite deals on luxury office desk accessories, I’ve included high-end professional gear that’s perfectly designed – even if there’s no savings to be had.

For more savings on workspace upgrades, see my real-time coverage of the best Prime Day home office deals you can buy.

from the hallucination-nation dept

What do EFF staffers Sarah Chen, Javier Morales, Caitlin Chin, Emma Rodriguez, and Mikko Kopponen have in common? 

For one thing, they don’t exist. 

For another, all have been quoted as EFF experts in articles published in the past two months on a site called News-USA Today, which describes itself as “an independent news publisher focused on clear, accurate, and useful journalism.” 

Uh… 

(Please don’t confuse this site with USA Today, in which real EFF experts are accurately quoted on a regular basis.) 

News-USA Today is hardly the only slagheap that’s hallucinating or fabricating EFF personnel and quotes; as we wrote last September, media companies large and small are using AI to generate news content because it’s cheaper than paying for journalists’ salaries, but that savings can come at the cost of the outlets’ reputations— assuming they care about reputation at all. 

But this many fake EFF sources in two months? That’s making a play for the championship title of bogus news content. 

News-USA Today’s site proclaims, “Our goal is simple: give readers the facts and the context they need to make informed decisions.” It then defines its mission:

• “Deliver timely, factual reporting grounded in verifiable sources and public documents.”
• “Make complex topics understandable without losing nuance or accuracy.”
• “Serve the public interest by surfacing stories that affect lives, institutions, and communities.”
• “Maintain a clear separation between news, analysis, opinion, and sponsored content.” 

Attempts to reach contacts listed on the site went unanswered. In fact, after we reached out to them, they published a story on June 9 with quotes from Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Jared Cohen — who also doesn’t exist. 

As we noted last year, EFF is all about having our words spread far and wide. Per our copyright policy, any and all original material on the EFF website may be freely distributed at will under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY), unless otherwise noted.  

However, we don’t want disreputable sites making up words (or false identities!) for us, whether or not they’re using AI. False quotations that misstate our positions damage the trust that the public and reputable media outlets have in us.  

The best thing a news consumer can do is invest a little time and energy to learn how to discern the real from the fake. It’s unfortunate that it’s the public’s burden to put in this much effort, but while we’re adjusting to new tools and a new normal, a little effort now can go a long way.   

As we’ve noted before in the context of election misinformation, the nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica ha

s published a handy guide about how to tell if what you’re reading is accurate or “fake news,” as has FactCheck.org. 

Republished from the EFF’s Deeplinks blog.

Filed Under: ai, ai slop, hallucinations, slop journalism

Companies: eff

Over the weekend, AMD said it planned to do just that in a firmware update scheduled for release next month. More often than not, the chipmaker refers to TSME as Memory Guard.

“Regarding certain non-PRO Ryzen 9000-series desktop processors, a BIOS option to enable Memory Guard was previously available but was removed in a recent update,” AMD said in an email. “Based on valuable community feedback, we will reinstate this option in an upcoming BIOS release in July.”

The company has yet to explain why it removed the protection. Critics speculate that AMD dropped it in an attempt to steer customers toward more costly CPUs.

It’s possible, though, that there were less nefarious reasons, such as the difficulty of continued support as chip designs changed. Another possibility is that AMD made the move for performance reasons. Encrypting and decrypting data in memory creates latency. Slowdowns are the enemy of gamers, one of the more popular customer segments using the 9000-line of Ryzen processors. Since many gamers already voluntarily disabled TSME and had little need for it in the first place, AMD may not have considered the change of much consequence.

The incident, and AMD’s refusal to discuss it, is emblematic of the public relations landscape that has emerged over the past two decades. Once, Big Tech and corporations in general were willing to acknowledge service and product changes to ensure customers had a predictable experience. They also showed a willingness to admit mistakes and to say how they planned to do better. Now, there’s only silence. As the companies’ power and dominance have mushroomed, their sense of accountability has diminished proportionately.

This won’t make the already-controversial AI training endeavor any more popular.

ON-PREM

The air turns brown when bit barns come to town … deep in the heart of Texas

Never mind the fact that datacenter environmental concerns have come under growing scrutiny across the United States. Microsoft has just inked a deal with fossil fuel giant Chevron to supply one of the largest single-capacity additions to its datacenter fleet with 2.67 gigawatts of natural gas power for a full two decades.

Chevron said today that it signed a two-decade power purchase agreement with Microsoft through its subsidiary Energy Forge One to supply 2.67 GW of power for a new datacenter project in West Texas dubbed Project Kilby. The natural gas turbines to be constructed on the datacenter’s site will sit behind-the-meter (Microsoft gets access to the power without it flowing through the grid first) and will be “among the largest co-located natural gas power and data center developments in the U.S.,” according to Chevron.

Microsoft’s own press release on the matter, which doesn’t mention Chevron or Energy Forge One by name but does admit the new facility “will operate with a co-located natural gas power facility,” identified Pecos as the West Texas location where the bit barn will be built. The self-proclaimed birthplace of the rodeo is also a West Texas hub for agriculture and ranching, among other Texas-sized industries.

Microsoft confirmed to The Register that, despite it not mentioning Chevron in the announcement, the power purchase agreement does concern the Pecos facility. 

The facility will be “one of the largest single-capacity additions” to Microsoft’s datacenter fleet “in our history,” according to Redmond’s release, and the company is trying hard to lean into its desire to be a good neighbor to the people of Pecos as it spends the next few years building the massive facility. 

Shouldn’t good neighbors care about air and water quality?

“We know that being a good neighbor isn’t something you say,” Microsoft wrote in an open letter to the people of Pecos alongside its announcement of the new datacenter. “It’s something you prove over time.” 

That letter and the announcement take pains to point out all the good things Microsoft has done for the communities where it plunked down massive datacenters, and it wants the locals to know that the Pecos facility will be no different. Why, the very fact it’s building multiple gigawatts of natural gas power for itself proves just that! 

Building its own energy infrastructure, says Microsoft, will prevent locals from having to pay more for power. Additionally, the company anticipates eventually connecting its turbines to the grid and serving as a broader energy source, too. 

According to Chevron, the turbines being deployed for the Pecos datacenter include noise and light impact mitigations as well as “selective catalytic reduction” systems that reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. Not eliminate, mind you – just reduce. 

To get an idea of the scale of what Microsoft is planning to deploy with Chevron in Pecos, let’s consider the gas turbine generators that xAI’s Colossus AI datacenter installed in Memphis, Tennessee. That facility saw the installation of just 150 megawatts of gas turbines – roughly one eighteenth the size of Microsoft’s planned Pecos gas plant. 

Even at that small a scale, the xAI datacenter has still become the subject of a lawsuit [PDF] alleging that the facility is belching way too much smog into local communities for the air to be healthy and calling for it to be shut down. Emissions mitigations or not, one can’t imagine the prairie sky around the Pecos datacenter will be as clear and high as it once was after the facility is completed.

It’s worth pointing out that some of the turbines being deployed to Pecos will be manufactured by the deceptively named Solar Turbines, which actually builds gas power systems. According to reports and photographs out of the xAI Memphis facility, Solar Turbines also supplied gas turbines for Colossus. 

Then there’s the water concerns: Microsoft and Chevron both called attention to their plans to minimize water usage in Pecos, which lies in a part of Texas prone to drought and with limited access to fresh, potable water. 

“We are also designing our operations to minimize reliance on freshwater sources by utilizing nonpotable water where possible,” Microsoft noted. The company will rely on closed-loop cooling systems that will “significantly reduce water requirements.” 

As for the gas plant planned for the site, Chevron said that its facility will use “non-potable, brackish groundwater sources for power plant operations” instead of freshwater, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. 

Brackish groundwater, located in massive, salty, underground aquifers, is a major source of water for dry, dusty West Texas, and has been for some time. Desalination of brackish groundwater has been suggested [PDF] as a source of drinking water for the town and the surrounding region, raising questions about whether datacenters and gas power plants sucking it up to cool their jets are sustainable. 

Microsoft didn’t want to answer any of the questions we put to it aside from confirming Chevron’s press release related to the Pecos datacenter; Chevron didn’t respond.  ®

Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need Connections hints.

What should you do once you’ve finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I’ve also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc’s Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.