Details of the compromised data revealed that it may have been stolen on 28 September.

Read more: Internet Archive suffers from cyberattack affecting 31m users

VC activity is likely to remain 'soft' until after the US presidential elections in November, KPMG predicts.

Read more: Irish VC deals down 59pc in Q3 amid global slowdown

The company will use some of the funding to advance its wildfire suppression project, which uses autonomous drones and acoustic waves.

Read more: Dryad Networks raises €6.3m to drive wildfire prevention tech

Well now, this certainly rocks the Apple cart.

Read more: Apple’s iOS 11 pips past 10.3 in just under a month

The preview of Messenger Kids is launching in the US first.

Read more: Facebook launches Messenger Kids app for under-13s

The new quantised models are 56pc smaller and use 41pc less memory when compared to the full-size models released last month.

Read more: Meta releases compact versions of Llama 3.2 AI models

The funding is part of a total of €380m and falls under the Chips Joint Undertaking.

Read more: EU invests €133m in Dutch photonic chip plants

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Sweden has vetoed plans for 13 offshore windfarms in the Baltic Sea, citing unacceptable security risks. The country's defence minister, Pal Jonson, said on Monday that the government had rejected plans for all but one of 14 windfarms planned along the east coast. The decision comes after the Swedish armed forces concluded last week that the projects would make it more difficult to defend Nato's newest member. The proposed windfarms would have been located between Aland, the autonomous Finnish region between Sweden and Finland, and the Sound, the strait between southern Sweden and Denmark. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad is only about 310 miles (500km) from Stockholm. Wind power could affect Sweden's defence capabilities across sensors and radars and make it harder to detect submarines and possible attacks from the air if war broke out, Jonson said. The only project to receive the green light to was Poseidon, which will include as many as 81 wind turbines to produce 5.5 terawatt hours a year off Stenungsund on Sweden's west coast. "Both ballistic robots and also cruise robots are a big problem if you have offshore wind power," Jonson said. "If you have a strong signal detection capability and a radar system that is important, we use the Patriot system for example, there would be negative consequences if there were offshore wind power in the way of the sensors."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D debuts with impressive performance gains, powered by advanced 3D V-Cache technology and improved thermal efficiency," writes Slashdot reader jjslash. "While the CPU shines as a top choice right out of the gate, AMD's history of quick price cuts suggests waiting could yield even better value for savvy buyers." TechSpot reports: Today we're finally able to show you how AMD's new Ryzen 7 9800X3D performs, and spoiler alert -- it's a real weapon that solves the issues we encountered with the non-3D Zen 5 chips before this. Without question, this is the best CPU released since the 7800X3D, making this launch particularly exciting. [...] For now, the 9800X3D is mighty impressive, the undisputed king of gaming, and it marks a historic milestone. We don't think AMD has ever been this dominant over Intel, certainly not in the last 15 years.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sodium-ion batteries are cheaper than lithium-ion batteries — and they're also more environmentally friendly. And "In the past few years, sodium-ion battery production has increased in the United States," reports the Washington Post, with a new factory planned to manufacture them "in the same way as lithium-ion batteries, just with different ingredients. Instead of using expensive materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt, these will be made of sodium, iron and manganese..." Last month, sodium-ion battery manufacturer Natron Energy announced it would open a "gigafactory" in North Carolina that would produce 24 gigawatt hours of batteries annually, enough energy to charge 24,000 electric vehicles. But sodium-ion batteries are still early in their development compared with lithium-ion, and they have yet to hit the market on a massive scale. "It's unlikely sodium-ion could displace lithium-ion anytime soon," said Keith Beers, polymer science and materials chemistry principal engineer at technical consultancy firm Exponent... The biggest limitation of sodium-ion batteries is their weight. Sodium weighs nearly three times as much as lithium, and it cannot store the same amount of energy. As a result, sodium-ion batteries tend to be larger. Jens Peters, an economics professor at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, said the energy density could be improved over time in sodium-ion batteries. But, he added, "what we found out so far in our assessments is that it is not a game changer." Sodium-ion batteries are touted to be the environmentally friendly alternative to their lithium-ion counterparts, thanks to their raw materials. Sodium, iron and manganese are all abundant elements on the planet, so they require less energy to extract and cost less... Sodium-ion batteries also last longer than lithium-ion ones because they can withstand more charge cycles, said Wendell Brooks, co-CEO of Natron Energy. "Our product can have millions of cycles," said Brooks, "where lithium-ion would have three to five thousand cycles and wear out a lot faster...." Sodium-ion batteries aren't the best fit for smartphones or electric vehicles, which need to store lots of energy. However, one advantage is their low cost. And they could be a good candidate in situations where the size of the battery isn't a concern, like energy storage. "When something is built out to support grid or backup storage, it doesn't need to be very dense. It's staying put," Beers said. Natron will invest nearly $1.4 billion in the factory "to meet the rapidly expanding demand for critical power, industrial and grid energy storage solutions," according to their announcement. "Natron's high-performance sodium-ion batteries outperform lithium-ion batteries in power density and recharging speed, do not require lithium, cobalt, copper, or nickel, and are non-flammable... Natron's batteries are the only UL-listed sodium-ion batteries on the market today, and will be delivered to a wide range of customer end markets in the industrial power space, including data centers, mobility, EV fast charging, microgrids, and telecom, among others."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wednesday Cuba was hit by a major hurricane which took down its entire power grid again, this time for about 24 hours, according to CNN: Videos of the aftermath showed power infrastructure turned into a mangled mess and power poles down on streets. Hundreds of technicians were mobilized Thursday to reestablish power connections, according to state media... Operations at two electrical plants were partially restored and parts of eastern and central Cuba had electricity back up by Thursday afternoon, state media reported... The country's power grid has collapsed multiple times, including when Hurricane Oscar hit in October and killed at least 7 people. In the capital of Havana, where 2 million people live, power had been restored to less than 20% of the city by late Friday afternoon, . "Authorities had not yet given an estimate for when power would be fully restored..." Then tonight, CNN reported: A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of eastern Cuba on Sunday, causing material damage in several regions as the island continues to recover from widespread blackouts and the impact of two hurricanes over the past few weeks. The earthquake was reported about 39 km (24 miles) south of Bartolomé Masó before noon local time, about an hour after a 5.9 magnitude quake rocked the area, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said. "There have been landslides, damage to homes and power lines," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said, adding that authorities are evaluating the situation to start recovery efforts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Renew Home says they're building a "virtual power plant" in Texas by "enabling homes to easily reduce and shift the timing of energy use." Thursday they announced a 10-year project distributing hundreds of thousands of smart thermostats to customers of Texas-based power utility NRG Energy, starting next spring. (Bloomberg calls them "AI-enabled thermostats that use Alphabet Inc.'s Google Cloud technology.") The ultimate goal? "Create a nearly 1-gigawatt, AI-powered virtual power plant" — equivalent to 1.9 million solar panels, enough to power about 200,000 homes during peak demand. One NRG executive touted the move as "cutting-edge, AI-driven solutions that will bolster grid resilience and contribute to a more sustainable future." [Residential virtual power plants] work by aggregating numerous, small-scale distributed energy resources like HVAC systems controlled by smart thermostats and home batteries and coordinating them to balance supply and demand... NRG, in partnership with Renew Home, plans to offer Vivint and Nest smart thermostats, including professional installation, at no cost to eligible customers across NRG's retail electricity providers and plans. These advanced thermostats make subtle automatic HVAC adjustments to help customers shift their energy use to times when electricity is less constrained, less expensive, and cleaner... Over time, the parties expect to add devices like batteries and electric vehicles to the virtual power plant, expanding energy savings opportunities for customers... Through the use of Google Cloud's data, analytics, and AI technology, NRG will be able to do things like better predict weather conditions, forecast wind and solar generation output, and create predictive pricing models, allowing for more efficient production and ultimately ensuring the home energy experience is seamless for customers. Google Cloud will also offer "its AI and machine learning to determine the best time to cool or heat homes," reports Bloomberg, "based on a household's energy usage patterns and ambient temperatures." It was less than a year ago that Renew Home was formed when Google spun off the load-shifting service for its "Google Nest" thermostats, which merged with load-shift management startup OhmConnect. Bloomberg describes this week's announcement as "Three of the biggest names in US home energy automation... coming together to offer some relief to the beleaguered Texas electrical grid." But they point out that 1 gigawatt is roughly 1% of the record summer demand seen in Texas this year. Still, "The entire industry has been built to serve the peak load on the hottest day of the year," said Rasesh Patel, president of NRG's consumer unit. "This allows us to be a lot more smarter about demand in shaving the peak."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tom's Hardware: LG Display, one of the global leaders in display technologies, unveiled a new stretchable display prototype that can expand by up to 50%. This makes it the most stretchable display in the industry, more than doubling the previous record of 20% elongation. [...] The prototype being flexed in [this image] is a 12-inch screen with a 100-pixel-per-inch resolution and full RGB color that expands to 18-inches when pulled. LG Display said that it based the stretchable display on a "special silicon material substrate used in contact lenses" and then improved its properties for better "stretchability and flexibility." It also used a new wiring design structure and a micro-LED light source, allowing users to repeatedly stretch the screen over 10,000 times with no effect on image quality.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While reports suggest the closure of its advocacy division, a spokesperson said advocacy is still ‘a central tenet’ of the non-profit’s work.

Read more: Mozilla Foundation lays off 30pc of staff in division restructure

The game will also restrict under-13s from being able to play, search or discover games with unrated experiences.

Read more: Roblox bans social hangouts, free-form creation for under-13s

I like to bookend the New Year holiday with two posts, one looking back at the year that is ending (What Happened) and one looking forward to the year ahead (What Will Happen). This is the first of these two posts. The second one will run tomorrow. I ended my What Will Happen In 2023 […]

Ruby’s creator, Yukihiro Matsumoto (Matz), released the first public version of the programming language in December 1995, making Ruby just shy of its 30th birthday. It spread across Japanese-language Usenet newsgroups, a popular way of exchanging conversation and media before the World Wide Web, and then reached broader communities throughout the late 1990s. This was thanks to Ruby’s friendly community and, in no small part, thanks to Matz. (The community has a motto, “Matz is nice, and so we are nice.”) At this year’s annual European Ruby Konferenze — EuRoKu — in Sarajevo, Matz said he created Ruby because he…

This story continues at The Next Web

This all-in-one app makes it easier to maximize your Nvidia GPU.

An interconnected smart home is a nice idea, but not if it's constantly leaking your data.

Scammers are using photos of your house to encourage you to send them money, but here's why you shouldn't.

Look around a jobsite, and you’ll likely see many crew members wearing Red Wing boots.

To upgrade a facility's 145,300 square foot roof with metal and solar while dealing with COVID delays, a contractor turned to S-5! to shrink the project timeline.

With help from S-5! products, SunGreen Systems Inc. installed a solar and energy system housing a 772-kilowatt photovoltaic array and 14 Tesla Powerpacks.

Atlas General Contractors in Illinois turned to Atlas Roofing products to help reroof and improve ventilation for a century-old church.

Using McElroy Metal roofing and wall panels, this storage facility became the brand's "flagship self-storage facility" thanks to its aesthetics.

The final day of the International Roofing Expo's Virtual Edition is packed with plenty of information and entertainment for attendees. View the schedule here!

In this session, learn about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s multi-employer worksite doctrine and the unforeseeable employee misconduct defense to an OSHA citation. 

The nation will join former President Jimmy Carter in celebrating his 100th birthday with Habitat for Humanity's 38th Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project.

While no two owners are alike, the following guidelines may help you with that decision. 

We all make mistakes, but it’s important to determine if an employee is simply having a bad day, or is performing poorly.

Westlake Royal Roofing Solutions introduces two new CRRC-rated Unified Steel Stone Coated Roofing colors, Harborwood and Stirling Gray, known for their energy efficiency and durability. 

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory examined three different types of roofing strategies and their impact on near-surface temperature and cooling energy demand.

During the Labor Department's 'Safe + Sound Week,' Aug. 7-13, 2023, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will collaborate with businesses nationwide to promote workplace safety and health programs, focusing on mental health and well-being.

In response to extreme heat this summer, Solid Roofing in Oklahoma provided IV hydration through a mobile service to its crews working in triple-digit weather, highlighting the importance of staying hydrated in such conditions.

Werner, manufacturer of ladder safety gear and an official sponsor of NCAA’s March Madness, kicked off Ladder Safety Month with nationwide events, webinars, and content to promote ladder safety awareness.

The Latest Crop of RC’s Roofing Contractors Under 40 Plan to Drive the Industry Forward

RC’s latest crop of young roofing professionals inject enthusiasm and optimism about the industry’s future. 

Meet the 2024 Young Guns, a group of roofing contractors and industry professionals under 40 who are leaving their mark and make a difference in various ways.

Our feature highlighting the current and future leaders of the roofing industry continues, and RC hopes to broaden the field.

The roofing season may be winding down, but roofers can gear up for a busy and exciting schedule of events in the coming months.

The honorees will be revealed at Best of Success 2023, Dec. 3-5, at the Omni Frisco Hotel in Frisco, Texas.

Two of the best roofing contractors in the country have been honored with Roofing Contractor magazine's 2023 "Contractor of the Year" award.

Bone Dry Roofing in Indiana leaders will admit they don't have all the answers, but the ones they do have created massive success for the residential roofing contractor.

Greenwood’s consistent success and shrewd expansion moves within the last few years allowed the company entrée into the rarified Top 10 of RC's 2023 Top 100 List — generating $218 million in revenue, a company record; the company was named 2023 'Commercial Contractor of the Year' at 2023 Best of Success.

Check out some of the images we captured during the 2023 Best of Success conference, held Dec. 4-6 in Frisco, Texas.

See what Best Roofing, Roofing Contractor magazine's 2018 'Commercial Roofing Contractor of the Year,' has planned for the future in South Florida now that it has partnered up with a private equity firm. 

The rapid proliferation of state marijuana laws, especially the workplace protections provided by some, has made maintaining legally compliant drug policies a major task for most employers.

With uncertainty clouding economic forecasting, employers need to get their priorities straight or face the consequences.

Within days of taking office, the Biden administration directed OSHA to double the number of compliance safety and health officers and increase safety audits across the country. Roofers should expect unannounced OSHA audits to increase in the coming months. 

Keen Utility introduces the Evanston work boot, blending work boot protection with sneaker comfort; features include KEEN.ReGEN cushioning, carbon-fiber safety toes, and KEEN.DRY waterproofing.