Three months of mirror alignment gets under way
The first photons of starlight have travelled through the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and been detected by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.
This is a milestone, albeit not yet the imagery expected once the alignment and commissioning of the observatory and its payloads is complete. It marks the transition of the JWST from technological tour de force to an actual telescope.
The first images expected from the JWST will likely be blurry as engineers gradually fine tune the telescope, matching expectations based on repeated rehearsals on Earth.
There are seven steps before the first crowd-pleasing pictures can be taken. With deployment complete, the spacecraft’s star trackers are used to point the spacecraft while engineers tilt the 18 mirror segments to create an “image array” using a bright, isolated star (HD 84406) as the target.
The next step is Segment Alignment, where most of the “large” positioning errors of the mirror segments are corrected. Then Image Stacking occurs to ensure each segment image falls in precisely the same place to create one unified image.
- Sure, the James Webb Space Telescope is cool and all. But try making one out of Lego
- James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its new home – an orbit almost a million miles from Earth
- Almost there: James Webb Space Telescope frees its mirrors and prepares for insertion
- The James Webb Space Telescope has only gone and deployed its primary mirror
Coarse and Fine Phasing come next. “The segments,” explained NASA, “need to be lined up with each other with an accuracy smaller than the wavelength of the light.” This is conducted three times, with a round of Fine Phasing following each round of Coarse Phasing.
The alignment is subsequently extended to the rest of the instruments before a final correction is done (although a few iterations of all the steps might be needed before completion) and the other instruments can be commissioned.
“To put this in perspective, if the Webb primary mirror were the size of the United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and the team would need to line the height of those Texas-sized segments up with each other to an accuracy of about 1.5 inches,” NASA said.
Definitely one for The Register’s Online Standards Converter.
The whole process is expected to take approximately three months, after which the JWST’s 18 primary mirror segments should work together as a single mirror and deliver the data scientists have been waiting years for. ®
Other stories you might like
-
US House passes bill to boost chip manufacturing and R&D
Draft law enters final stages, proposes $52bn injection
On Friday the US House of Representatives passed a bill that will to equip America to boost semiconductor production and lift its economy to better compete better with China.
The law bill, called America Competes Act of 2022, includes $52bn in funding to help semiconductor companies build new factories, and to fund research and development.
The draft legislation also earmarks $45bn in funding to boost the supply chain and alleviate problems related to chip shortages, which have hit key sectors, such as consumer electronics and automotive.
Continue reading
-
This is going well: Meta adds anti-grope buffer zone around metaverse VR avatars
Removing characters’ hands evidently not enough to halt harassment
Meta Platforms Inc, better known for its controversial turn as Facebook, says its mission is to, “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” But not too close, it seems.
The mega-corp wants to keep people apart in its metaverse. The ad biz, besotted with virtual reality now that it can no longer move fast and break things with impunity in the real world, has committed to cartoon social distancing.
Henceforth, avatars in its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues will be able to approach no closer than four feet – as that distance would be rendered to whatever scale fits the viewer’s display screen – to prevent virtual molestation.
Continue reading
-
Apple, Broadcom allowed to press Ctrl-Z on billion-dollar Wi-Fi patent payout to Caltech
Appeals court orders do-over for damages calculation
Apple and Broadcom won a new trial to recalculate damages arising from a six-year-old legal battle over Wi-Fi patents developed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday upheld the 2020 verdict that Apple and Broadcom infringed two Caltech patents. But it vacated an infringement finding for a third patent, which will be retried, and also vacated $1.1bn in damages levied against the two companies.
In 2016, Caltech sued Apple and Broadcom, which made Wi-Fi chips used in Apple iPhones at the time. The university accused the two companies of infringing three US patents (7,116,710, 7,421,032 and 7,916,781).
Continue reading
-
Western Australia Health taps SAP and Deloitte for AU$220m SaaS HR system over 10 years
Now, don’t do a Queensland
SAP and Deloitte have together won a deal worth AU$220m ($155m) to implement a new SaaS-based HR system for Western Australia Health.
The public health organisation is looking for a single cloud-based system for employee records, position management, payroll, and rostering.
SAP Australia is set to get AU$53m ($37m) in software subscriptions while Deloitte will get AU$166m ($117m) for the implementation, according to a procurement notice. The contracts are scheduled to be in place until 2032 in the first instance, with the option to extend until 2042.
Continue reading
-
Suspected Chinese spies break into cloud accounts of News Corp journalists
Read all about it – Beijing probably already has
Online work accounts of News Corporation journalists were broken into by snoops seemingly with ties to China, it was claimed today.
Rupert Murdoch’s empire announced the security breach on Friday, describing it as a “persistent cyber-attack,” and saying it had hired Mandiant to figure out what happened. It is believed the intruders were seeking messages, files and other internal information for Beijing’s spymasters.
The intrusion was discovered on January 20, the corporation’s flagship British newspaper The Times reported this afternoon. The cyber-attack “included the targeting of emails and documents of some employees, including journalists,” wrote defense editor Larisa Brown.
Continue reading
-
The future of work is hybrid, says Cisco, so here’s Wi-Fi 6E access points and Private 5G
‘The remote worker will no longer be a minority’
Cisco has rolled out new technologies including Wi-Fi 6E access points and Private 5G services to help organisations adapt to hybrid work scenarios.
Businesses of all sizes have had to adjust to major transitions over the past two years, and these have reshaped IT plans and operations. Adopting a hybrid work strategy with staff working from home, at the office, or anywhere calls for ubiquitous wireless connectivity, Switchzilla says.
But what is hybrid work? In a blog post, Greg Dorai, VP for Cisco’s secure-access product portfolio, said that every organisation has to define what it means for them.
Continue reading
-
Experiments and hidden features: Microsoft plans Windows Insiders shakeup
Beta gang might get new toys before Dev Channel and look – a new logo
Microsoft is shaking up the Windows Insider programme once again, answering complaints that the Dev Channel doesn’t get enough toys while also admitting there could well be some playthings for enthusiasts willing to go hunting.
Windows Insider boss Amanda Langowski followed up the “new era of the PC” push of Panos Panay with a missive aimed at the volunteers who sit at the sharp, pointy end of the Windows testing machine: the Insiders.
Boasting that more people were running preview builds of Windows 10 than Windows 11 (not entirely unexpected, considering the enthusiast nature of many Insiders), Langowski reminded fans that the Dev Channel was where engineers would try out new ideas that might never make it to production or have long lead items, while the Beta Channel was closer to what would actually turn up on a customer’s desktop.
Continue reading
-
Polly wants a snapper? Parrot swipes GoPro for sweet views of New Zealand’s Fiordland
Oi, kea!
Video An endangered parrot native to New Zealand’s alpine region went full David Attenborough on a family enjoying Fiordland National Park by swooping off with their GoPro camera as they tried to film it.
Having just finished a trek along the park’s Kepler Track, the Verheuls from Dunedin were joined at a viewing spot by some kea, ground-nesting parrots who call the mountainous region home.
The camera was set down on the balcony’s edge for a close-up, which proved to be a mistake when the inquisitive and intelligent bird grabbed it in its beak and took off – recording a rather marvellous kea’s-eye view of the forested hillside as it went.
Continue reading
-
Facebook fined peanuts after Giphy staff quit and firm didn’t tell UK competition regulators
£1.5m fine is 0.005% of social network’s profits
British competition regulators have again fined Facebook, this time 0.005 per cent of its annual profits, for ignoring them – a move that’s bound to have CEO Mark Zuckerberg sobbing for mercy.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first locked horns with Facebook in 2020, when it demanded more information on the company’s proposed $400m buy of Giphy. The sale was subsequently denied clearance last last year.
The latest £1.5m ($2.03m) fine was imposed after three key staffers left Giphy. The CMA had imposed a legal order on Facebook owner Meta (2021 profit: $39bn) forcing the US giant to reveal if any “staff in positions of executive or managerial responsibility and/or whose performance affects the viability of the business” resigned.
Continue reading
-
EU digital sovereignty project Gaia-X hands out ID tech contracts
Swiss, German and Indian companies ready the blockchain for Self-Sovereign Identity
The Gaia-X project has awarded work to a consortium including Vereign and DAASI International that takes it one step closer to realising Self Sovereign Identity technology.
A goal of Gaia-X is to reduce the dependency of European companies and governments on US technology providers via a federated European data infrastructure.
Just four months ago, French cloud hosting outfit Scaleway decided to leave the consortium, claiming: “Gaia-X as a construct is only reinforcing the status quo, which is that dominating players will keep dominating.”
Continue reading
-
Open-source Kubernetes tool Argo CD has a high-severity path traversal flaw: Patch now
Craft Helm chart, receive secrets
A zero-day vulnerability in open-source Kubernetes development tool Argo lets malicious people steal passwords from git-crypt and other sensitive information by simply uploading a crafted Helm chart.
Charts are the actual packaging format of ubiquitous tool-for-managing-Kubernetes applications Helm.
The vuln, tracked as CVE-2022-24438, exists in Argo CD, a widely used open-source continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. Patched versions available from the project’s maintainers are 2.19, 2.2.4 and 2.3.0.
Continue reading
Three months of mirror alignment gets under way
The first photons of starlight have travelled through the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and been detected by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.
This is a milestone, albeit not yet the imagery expected once the alignment and commissioning of the observatory and its payloads is complete. It marks the transition of the JWST from technological tour de force to an actual telescope.
The first images expected from the JWST will likely be blurry as engineers gradually fine tune the telescope, matching expectations based on repeated rehearsals on Earth.
There are seven steps before the first crowd-pleasing pictures can be taken. With deployment complete, the spacecraft’s star trackers are used to point the spacecraft while engineers tilt the 18 mirror segments to create an “image array” using a bright, isolated star (HD 84406) as the target.
The next step is Segment Alignment, where most of the “large” positioning errors of the mirror segments are corrected. Then Image Stacking occurs to ensure each segment image falls in precisely the same place to create one unified image.
- Sure, the James Webb Space Telescope is cool and all. But try making one out of Lego
- James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its new home – an orbit almost a million miles from Earth
- Almost there: James Webb Space Telescope frees its mirrors and prepares for insertion
- The James Webb Space Telescope has only gone and deployed its primary mirror
Coarse and Fine Phasing come next. “The segments,” explained NASA, “need to be lined up with each other with an accuracy smaller than the wavelength of the light.” This is conducted three times, with a round of Fine Phasing following each round of Coarse Phasing.
The alignment is subsequently extended to the rest of the instruments before a final correction is done (although a few iterations of all the steps might be needed before completion) and the other instruments can be commissioned.
“To put this in perspective, if the Webb primary mirror were the size of the United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and the team would need to line the height of those Texas-sized segments up with each other to an accuracy of about 1.5 inches,” NASA said.
Definitely one for The Register’s Online Standards Converter.
The whole process is expected to take approximately three months, after which the JWST’s 18 primary mirror segments should work together as a single mirror and deliver the data scientists have been waiting years for. ®
Other stories you might like
-
US House passes bill to boost chip manufacturing and R&D
Draft law enters final stages, proposes $52bn injection
On Friday the US House of Representatives passed a bill that will to equip America to boost semiconductor production and lift its economy to better compete better with China.
The law bill, called America Competes Act of 2022, includes $52bn in funding to help semiconductor companies build new factories, and to fund research and development.
The draft legislation also earmarks $45bn in funding to boost the supply chain and alleviate problems related to chip shortages, which have hit key sectors, such as consumer electronics and automotive.
Continue reading
-
This is going well: Meta adds anti-grope buffer zone around metaverse VR avatars
Removing characters’ hands evidently not enough to halt harassment
Meta Platforms Inc, better known for its controversial turn as Facebook, says its mission is to, “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” But not too close, it seems.
The mega-corp wants to keep people apart in its metaverse. The ad biz, besotted with virtual reality now that it can no longer move fast and break things with impunity in the real world, has committed to cartoon social distancing.
Henceforth, avatars in its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues will be able to approach no closer than four feet – as that distance would be rendered to whatever scale fits the viewer’s display screen – to prevent virtual molestation.
Continue reading
-
Apple, Broadcom allowed to press Ctrl-Z on billion-dollar Wi-Fi patent payout to Caltech
Appeals court orders do-over for damages calculation
Apple and Broadcom won a new trial to recalculate damages arising from a six-year-old legal battle over Wi-Fi patents developed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday upheld the 2020 verdict that Apple and Broadcom infringed two Caltech patents. But it vacated an infringement finding for a third patent, which will be retried, and also vacated $1.1bn in damages levied against the two companies.
In 2016, Caltech sued Apple and Broadcom, which made Wi-Fi chips used in Apple iPhones at the time. The university accused the two companies of infringing three US patents (7,116,710, 7,421,032 and 7,916,781).
Continue reading
-
Western Australia Health taps SAP and Deloitte for AU$220m SaaS HR system over 10 years
Now, don’t do a Queensland
SAP and Deloitte have together won a deal worth AU$220m ($155m) to implement a new SaaS-based HR system for Western Australia Health.
The public health organisation is looking for a single cloud-based system for employee records, position management, payroll, and rostering.
SAP Australia is set to get AU$53m ($37m) in software subscriptions while Deloitte will get AU$166m ($117m) for the implementation, according to a procurement notice. The contracts are scheduled to be in place until 2032 in the first instance, with the option to extend until 2042.
Continue reading
-
Suspected Chinese spies break into cloud accounts of News Corp journalists
Read all about it – Beijing probably already has
Online work accounts of News Corporation journalists were broken into by snoops seemingly with ties to China, it was claimed today.
Rupert Murdoch’s empire announced the security breach on Friday, describing it as a “persistent cyber-attack,” and saying it had hired Mandiant to figure out what happened. It is believed the intruders were seeking messages, files and other internal information for Beijing’s spymasters.
The intrusion was discovered on January 20, the corporation’s flagship British newspaper The Times reported this afternoon. The cyber-attack “included the targeting of emails and documents of some employees, including journalists,” wrote defense editor Larisa Brown.
Continue reading
-
The future of work is hybrid, says Cisco, so here’s Wi-Fi 6E access points and Private 5G
‘The remote worker will no longer be a minority’
Cisco has rolled out new technologies including Wi-Fi 6E access points and Private 5G services to help organisations adapt to hybrid work scenarios.
Businesses of all sizes have had to adjust to major transitions over the past two years, and these have reshaped IT plans and operations. Adopting a hybrid work strategy with staff working from home, at the office, or anywhere calls for ubiquitous wireless connectivity, Switchzilla says.
But what is hybrid work? In a blog post, Greg Dorai, VP for Cisco’s secure-access product portfolio, said that every organisation has to define what it means for them.
Continue reading
-
Experiments and hidden features: Microsoft plans Windows Insiders shakeup
Beta gang might get new toys before Dev Channel and look – a new logo
Microsoft is shaking up the Windows Insider programme once again, answering complaints that the Dev Channel doesn’t get enough toys while also admitting there could well be some playthings for enthusiasts willing to go hunting.
Windows Insider boss Amanda Langowski followed up the “new era of the PC” push of Panos Panay with a missive aimed at the volunteers who sit at the sharp, pointy end of the Windows testing machine: the Insiders.
Boasting that more people were running preview builds of Windows 10 than Windows 11 (not entirely unexpected, considering the enthusiast nature of many Insiders), Langowski reminded fans that the Dev Channel was where engineers would try out new ideas that might never make it to production or have long lead items, while the Beta Channel was closer to what would actually turn up on a customer’s desktop.
Continue reading
-
Polly wants a snapper? Parrot swipes GoPro for sweet views of New Zealand’s Fiordland
Oi, kea!
Video An endangered parrot native to New Zealand’s alpine region went full David Attenborough on a family enjoying Fiordland National Park by swooping off with their GoPro camera as they tried to film it.
Having just finished a trek along the park’s Kepler Track, the Verheuls from Dunedin were joined at a viewing spot by some kea, ground-nesting parrots who call the mountainous region home.
The camera was set down on the balcony’s edge for a close-up, which proved to be a mistake when the inquisitive and intelligent bird grabbed it in its beak and took off – recording a rather marvellous kea’s-eye view of the forested hillside as it went.
Continue reading
-
Facebook fined peanuts after Giphy staff quit and firm didn’t tell UK competition regulators
£1.5m fine is 0.005% of social network’s profits
British competition regulators have again fined Facebook, this time 0.005 per cent of its annual profits, for ignoring them – a move that’s bound to have CEO Mark Zuckerberg sobbing for mercy.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first locked horns with Facebook in 2020, when it demanded more information on the company’s proposed $400m buy of Giphy. The sale was subsequently denied clearance last last year.
The latest £1.5m ($2.03m) fine was imposed after three key staffers left Giphy. The CMA had imposed a legal order on Facebook owner Meta (2021 profit: $39bn) forcing the US giant to reveal if any “staff in positions of executive or managerial responsibility and/or whose performance affects the viability of the business” resigned.
Continue reading
-
EU digital sovereignty project Gaia-X hands out ID tech contracts
Swiss, German and Indian companies ready the blockchain for Self-Sovereign Identity
The Gaia-X project has awarded work to a consortium including Vereign and DAASI International that takes it one step closer to realising Self Sovereign Identity technology.
A goal of Gaia-X is to reduce the dependency of European companies and governments on US technology providers via a federated European data infrastructure.
Just four months ago, French cloud hosting outfit Scaleway decided to leave the consortium, claiming: “Gaia-X as a construct is only reinforcing the status quo, which is that dominating players will keep dominating.”
Continue reading
-
Open-source Kubernetes tool Argo CD has a high-severity path traversal flaw: Patch now
Craft Helm chart, receive secrets
A zero-day vulnerability in open-source Kubernetes development tool Argo lets malicious people steal passwords from git-crypt and other sensitive information by simply uploading a crafted Helm chart.
Charts are the actual packaging format of ubiquitous tool-for-managing-Kubernetes applications Helm.
The vuln, tracked as CVE-2022-24438, exists in Argo CD, a widely used open-source continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. Patched versions available from the project’s maintainers are 2.19, 2.2.4 and 2.3.0.
Continue reading
Three months of mirror alignment gets under way
The first photons of starlight have travelled through the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and been detected by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.
This is a milestone, albeit not yet the imagery expected once the alignment and commissioning of the observatory and its payloads is complete. It marks the transition of the JWST from technological tour de force to an actual telescope.
The first images expected from the JWST will likely be blurry as engineers gradually fine tune the telescope, matching expectations based on repeated rehearsals on Earth.
There are seven steps before the first crowd-pleasing pictures can be taken. With deployment complete, the spacecraft’s star trackers are used to point the spacecraft while engineers tilt the 18 mirror segments to create an “image array” using a bright, isolated star (HD 84406) as the target.
The next step is Segment Alignment, where most of the “large” positioning errors of the mirror segments are corrected. Then Image Stacking occurs to ensure each segment image falls in precisely the same place to create one unified image.
- Sure, the James Webb Space Telescope is cool and all. But try making one out of Lego
- James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its new home – an orbit almost a million miles from Earth
- Almost there: James Webb Space Telescope frees its mirrors and prepares for insertion
- The James Webb Space Telescope has only gone and deployed its primary mirror
Coarse and Fine Phasing come next. “The segments,” explained NASA, “need to be lined up with each other with an accuracy smaller than the wavelength of the light.” This is conducted three times, with a round of Fine Phasing following each round of Coarse Phasing.
The alignment is subsequently extended to the rest of the instruments before a final correction is done (although a few iterations of all the steps might be needed before completion) and the other instruments can be commissioned.
“To put this in perspective, if the Webb primary mirror were the size of the United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and the team would need to line the height of those Texas-sized segments up with each other to an accuracy of about 1.5 inches,” NASA said.
Definitely one for The Register’s Online Standards Converter.
The whole process is expected to take approximately three months, after which the JWST’s 18 primary mirror segments should work together as a single mirror and deliver the data scientists have been waiting years for. ®
Other stories you might like
-
US House passes bill to boost chip manufacturing and R&D
Draft law enters final stages, proposes $52bn injection
On Friday the US House of Representatives passed a bill that will to equip America to boost semiconductor production and lift its economy to better compete better with China.
The law bill, called America Competes Act of 2022, includes $52bn in funding to help semiconductor companies build new factories, and to fund research and development.
The draft legislation also earmarks $45bn in funding to boost the supply chain and alleviate problems related to chip shortages, which have hit key sectors, such as consumer electronics and automotive.
Continue reading
-
This is going well: Meta adds anti-grope buffer zone around metaverse VR avatars
Removing characters’ hands evidently not enough to halt harassment
Meta Platforms Inc, better known for its controversial turn as Facebook, says its mission is to, “Give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” But not too close, it seems.
The mega-corp wants to keep people apart in its metaverse. The ad biz, besotted with virtual reality now that it can no longer move fast and break things with impunity in the real world, has committed to cartoon social distancing.
Henceforth, avatars in its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues will be able to approach no closer than four feet – as that distance would be rendered to whatever scale fits the viewer’s display screen – to prevent virtual molestation.
Continue reading
-
Apple, Broadcom allowed to press Ctrl-Z on billion-dollar Wi-Fi patent payout to Caltech
Appeals court orders do-over for damages calculation
Apple and Broadcom won a new trial to recalculate damages arising from a six-year-old legal battle over Wi-Fi patents developed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday upheld the 2020 verdict that Apple and Broadcom infringed two Caltech patents. But it vacated an infringement finding for a third patent, which will be retried, and also vacated $1.1bn in damages levied against the two companies.
In 2016, Caltech sued Apple and Broadcom, which made Wi-Fi chips used in Apple iPhones at the time. The university accused the two companies of infringing three US patents (7,116,710, 7,421,032 and 7,916,781).
Continue reading
-
Western Australia Health taps SAP and Deloitte for AU$220m SaaS HR system over 10 years
Now, don’t do a Queensland
SAP and Deloitte have together won a deal worth AU$220m ($155m) to implement a new SaaS-based HR system for Western Australia Health.
The public health organisation is looking for a single cloud-based system for employee records, position management, payroll, and rostering.
SAP Australia is set to get AU$53m ($37m) in software subscriptions while Deloitte will get AU$166m ($117m) for the implementation, according to a procurement notice. The contracts are scheduled to be in place until 2032 in the first instance, with the option to extend until 2042.
Continue reading
-
Suspected Chinese spies break into cloud accounts of News Corp journalists
Read all about it – Beijing probably already has
Online work accounts of News Corporation journalists were broken into by snoops seemingly with ties to China, it was claimed today.
Rupert Murdoch’s empire announced the security breach on Friday, describing it as a “persistent cyber-attack,” and saying it had hired Mandiant to figure out what happened. It is believed the intruders were seeking messages, files and other internal information for Beijing’s spymasters.
The intrusion was discovered on January 20, the corporation’s flagship British newspaper The Times reported this afternoon. The cyber-attack “included the targeting of emails and documents of some employees, including journalists,” wrote defense editor Larisa Brown.
Continue reading
-
The future of work is hybrid, says Cisco, so here’s Wi-Fi 6E access points and Private 5G
‘The remote worker will no longer be a minority’
Cisco has rolled out new technologies including Wi-Fi 6E access points and Private 5G services to help organisations adapt to hybrid work scenarios.
Businesses of all sizes have had to adjust to major transitions over the past two years, and these have reshaped IT plans and operations. Adopting a hybrid work strategy with staff working from home, at the office, or anywhere calls for ubiquitous wireless connectivity, Switchzilla says.
But what is hybrid work? In a blog post, Greg Dorai, VP for Cisco’s secure-access product portfolio, said that every organisation has to define what it means for them.
Continue reading
-
Experiments and hidden features: Microsoft plans Windows Insiders shakeup
Beta gang might get new toys before Dev Channel and look – a new logo
Microsoft is shaking up the Windows Insider programme once again, answering complaints that the Dev Channel doesn’t get enough toys while also admitting there could well be some playthings for enthusiasts willing to go hunting.
Windows Insider boss Amanda Langowski followed up the “new era of the PC” push of Panos Panay with a missive aimed at the volunteers who sit at the sharp, pointy end of the Windows testing machine: the Insiders.
Boasting that more people were running preview builds of Windows 10 than Windows 11 (not entirely unexpected, considering the enthusiast nature of many Insiders), Langowski reminded fans that the Dev Channel was where engineers would try out new ideas that might never make it to production or have long lead items, while the Beta Channel was closer to what would actually turn up on a customer’s desktop.
Continue reading
-
Polly wants a snapper? Parrot swipes GoPro for sweet views of New Zealand’s Fiordland
Oi, kea!
Video An endangered parrot native to New Zealand’s alpine region went full David Attenborough on a family enjoying Fiordland National Park by swooping off with their GoPro camera as they tried to film it.
Having just finished a trek along the park’s Kepler Track, the Verheuls from Dunedin were joined at a viewing spot by some kea, ground-nesting parrots who call the mountainous region home.
The camera was set down on the balcony’s edge for a close-up, which proved to be a mistake when the inquisitive and intelligent bird grabbed it in its beak and took off – recording a rather marvellous kea’s-eye view of the forested hillside as it went.
Continue reading
-
Facebook fined peanuts after Giphy staff quit and firm didn’t tell UK competition regulators
£1.5m fine is 0.005% of social network’s profits
British competition regulators have again fined Facebook, this time 0.005 per cent of its annual profits, for ignoring them – a move that’s bound to have CEO Mark Zuckerberg sobbing for mercy.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first locked horns with Facebook in 2020, when it demanded more information on the company’s proposed $400m buy of Giphy. The sale was subsequently denied clearance last last year.
The latest £1.5m ($2.03m) fine was imposed after three key staffers left Giphy. The CMA had imposed a legal order on Facebook owner Meta (2021 profit: $39bn) forcing the US giant to reveal if any “staff in positions of executive or managerial responsibility and/or whose performance affects the viability of the business” resigned.
Continue reading
-
EU digital sovereignty project Gaia-X hands out ID tech contracts
Swiss, German and Indian companies ready the blockchain for Self-Sovereign Identity
The Gaia-X project has awarded work to a consortium including Vereign and DAASI International that takes it one step closer to realising Self Sovereign Identity technology.
A goal of Gaia-X is to reduce the dependency of European companies and governments on US technology providers via a federated European data infrastructure.
Just four months ago, French cloud hosting outfit Scaleway decided to leave the consortium, claiming: “Gaia-X as a construct is only reinforcing the status quo, which is that dominating players will keep dominating.”
Continue reading
-
Open-source Kubernetes tool Argo CD has a high-severity path traversal flaw: Patch now
Craft Helm chart, receive secrets
A zero-day vulnerability in open-source Kubernetes development tool Argo lets malicious people steal passwords from git-crypt and other sensitive information by simply uploading a crafted Helm chart.
Charts are the actual packaging format of ubiquitous tool-for-managing-Kubernetes applications Helm.
The vuln, tracked as CVE-2022-24438, exists in Argo CD, a widely used open-source continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes. Patched versions available from the project’s maintainers are 2.19, 2.2.4 and 2.3.0.
Continue reading
Three months of mirror alignment gets under way
The first photons of starlight have travelled through the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and been detected by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument.
This is a milestone, albeit not yet the imagery expected once the alignment and commissioning of the observatory and its payloads is complete. It marks the transition of the JWST from technological tour de force to an actual telescope.
The first images expected from the JWST will likely be blurry as engineers gradually fine tune the telescope, matching expectations based on repeated rehearsals on Earth.
There are seven steps before the first crowd-pleasing pictures can be taken. With deployment complete, the spacecraft’s star trackers are used to point the spacecraft while engineers tilt the 18 mirror segments to create an “image array” using a bright, isolated star (HD 84406) as the target.
The next step is Segment Alignment, where most of the “large” positioning errors of the mirror segments are corrected. Then Image Stacking occurs to ensure each segment image falls in precisely the same place to create one unified image.
- Sure, the James Webb Space Telescope is cool and all. But try making one out of Lego
- James Webb Space Telescope has arrived at its new home – an orbit almost a million miles from Earth
- Almost there: James Webb Space Telescope frees its mirrors and prepares for insertion
- The James Webb Space Telescope has only gone and deployed its primary mirror
Coarse and Fine Phasing come next. “The segments,” explained NASA, “need to be lined up with each other with an accuracy smaller than the wavelength of the light.” This is conducted three times, with a round of Fine Phasing following each round of Coarse Phasing.
The alignment is subsequently extended to the rest of the instruments before a final correction is done (although a few iterations of all the steps might be needed before completion) and the other instruments can be commissioned.
“To put this in perspective, if the Webb primary mirror were the size of the United States, each segment would be the size of Texas, and the team would need to line the height of those Texas-sized segments up with each other to an accuracy of about 1.5 inches,” NASA said.
Definitely one for The Register’s Online Standards Converter.
The whole process is expected to take approximately three months, after which the JWST’s 18 primary mirror segments should work together as a single mirror and deliver the data scientists have been waiting years for. ®
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