A computer using artificial intelligence can't be listed as an inventor on patents because only a human can be an inventor under U.S. law, a federal judge ruled in the first American decision that's part of a global debate over how to handle computer-created innovation. From a report: Federal law requires that an "individual" take an oath that he or she is the inventor on a patent application, and both the dictionary and legal definition of an individual is a natural person, ruled U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia. The Artificial Inventor Project, run by University of Surrey Law Professor Ryan Abbott, has launched a global effort to get a computer listed as an inventor. Abbott's team enlisted Imagination Engines founder Stephen Thaler to build a machine whose main purpose was to invent. Rulings in South Africa and Australia have favored his argument, though the Australian patent office is appealing the decision in that country. "We respectfully disagree with the judgment and plan to appeal it," Abbott said in an email. "We believe listing an AI as an inventor is consistent with both the language and purpose of the Patent Act. Brinkema cited cases in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the nation's top patent court, rejected the idea of a corporation being an inventor.

Studies of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations -- as well as insights into the nature of time itself. Natalie Wolchover, writing for Quanta Magazine: [...] Over the past five years, through studies of the simplest conceivable clocks, the researchers have discovered the fundamental limits of timekeeping. They've mapped out new relationships between accuracy, information, complexity, energy and entropy -- the quantity whose incessant rise in the universe is closely associated with the arrow of time. These relationships were purely theoretical until this spring, when the experimental physicist Natalia Ares and her team at the University of Oxford reported measurements of a nanoscale clock that strongly support the new thermodynamic theory.

Nicole Yunger Halpern, a quantum thermodynamicist at Harvard University who was not involved in the recent clock work, called it "foundational." She thinks the findings could lead to the design of optimally efficient, autonomous quantum clocks for controlling operations in future quantum computers and nanorobots. The new perspective on clocks has already provided fresh fodder for discussions of time itself. "This line of work does grapple, in a fundamental way, with the role of time in quantum theory," Yunger Halpern said. Gerard Milburn, a quantum theorist at the University of Queensland in Australia who wrote a review paper last year about the research on clock thermodynamics, said, "I don't think people appreciate just how fundamental it is."

A government bill to create new police powers to spy on criminal suspects online, disrupt their data and take over their accounts has been passed with the support of Labor. From a repoort: The identify and disrupt bill passed the Senate on Wednesday, despite concerns about the low bar of who can authorise a warrant, and that the government failed to implement all the safeguards recommended by the bipartisan joint committee on intelligence and security. The bill creates three new types of warrants to enable the AFP and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission to modify and delete data, take over accounts and spy on Australians in networks suspected of committing crimes. Earlier in August, the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security -- (PJCIS) chaired by the Liberal senator James Paterson -- made a series of recommendations to improve oversight and safeguards.

On Tuesday, the home affairs minister, Karen Andrews, introduced amendments to implement some of the proposed safeguards, including a sunset clause so the new powers would expire after five years and stronger criteria to issue warrants. Andrews said the amendments would mean data disruption warrants would need to be "reasonably necessary and proportionate" and data disruption and account takeover warrants would need to specify the types of activities proposed to be carried out. The media would also gain some extra protection, with the addition of a "public interest test for data disruption warrants, network activity warrants and account takeover warrants where an investigation of an unauthorised disclosure offence is in relation to a person working in a professional capacity as a journalist," she said.

Tesla wants to sell electricity directly to customers in Texas, according to an application filed by the company this month with the Public Utility Commission there. From a report: The application follows the start of a big battery build out by Tesla in Angleton, Texas (near Houston), where it aims to connect a 100 megawatt energy storage system to the grid. Texas Monthly first reported on the application, submitted by a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesla called Tesla Energy Ventures. Tesla has also built several utility-scale energy storage systems around the world, including one east of Los Angeles, another underway in Monterey, California, and two in Australia -- one in Geelong, Victoria, and another in Adelaide, South Australia.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ScienceAlert: An artery that temporarily runs down the center of our forearms while we're still in the womb isn't vanishing as often as it used to, according to researchers from Flinders University and the University of Adelaide in Australia. That means there are more adults than ever with what amounts to be an extra channel of vascular tissue flowing under their wrist. "Since the 18th century, anatomists have been studying the prevalence of this artery in adults and our study shows it's clearly increasing," Flinders University anatomist Teghan Lucas said in 2020. "The prevalence was around 10 percent in people born in the mid-1880s compared to 30 percent in those born in the late 20th century, so that's a significant increase in a fairly short period of time, when it comes to evolution."

To compare the prevalence of this persistent blood channel, Lucas and colleagues Maciej Henneberg and Jaliya Kumaratilake from the University of Adelaide examined 80 limbs from cadavers, all donated by Australians of European descent. The donors raged from 51 to 101 on passing, which means they were nearly all born in the first half of the 20th century. Noting down how often they found a chunky median artery capable of carrying a good supply of blood, the research team compared the figures with records dug out of a literature search, taking into account tallies that could over-represent the vessel's appearance. Their results were published in 2020 in the Journal of Anatomy. The fact the artery seems to be three times as common in adults today as it was more than a century ago is a startling find that suggests natural selection is favoring those who hold onto this extra bit of bloody supply.

Alphabet's drone company Wing delivered 10,000 cups of coffee, 1,700 snack packs and 1,200 roast chickens to customers in Logan, Australia, over the last year, the company said Wednesday in a blog post outlining its progress. CNBC reports: Wing was launched in 2019 in Australia, following a series of drone tests that began in 2014. The service, which was initially part of Alphabet's experimental research division, allows users to order items such as food through a mobile app and is fast approaching 100,000 deliveries since its launch. Wing hopes to one day deliver products to people all over the world without having to rely on drivers or delivery trucks like other companies.

The company works with more than 30 partners globally, including local coffee shops and national brands such as Walgreens, according to a February blog post. Local businesses can also reach out directly to the company to get involved. In 2020, Wing partnered with a Virginia school district to deliver library books during the pandemic.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed News: Law enforcement agencies and government organizations from 24 countries outside the United States used a controversial facial recognition technology called Clearview AI, according to internal company data reviewed by BuzzFeed News. That data, which runs up until February 2020, shows that police departments, prosecutors' offices, universities, and interior ministries from around the world ran nearly 14,000 searches with Clearview AI's software. At many law enforcement agencies from Canada to Finland, officers used the software without their higher-ups' knowledge or permission. After receiving questions from BuzzFeed News, some organizations admitted that the technology had been used without leadership oversight.

In March, a BuzzFeed News investigation based on Clearview AI's own internal data showed how the New York -- based startup distributed its facial recognition tool, by marketing free trials for its mobile app or desktop software, to thousands of officers and employees at more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities. Clearview claims its software is more accurate than other facial recognition technologies because it is trained on a database of more than 3 billion images scraped from websites and social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Law enforcement officers using Clearview can take a photo of a suspect or person of interest, run it through the software, and receive possible matches for that individual within seconds. Clearview has claimed that its app is 100% accurate in documents provided to law enforcement officials, but BuzzFeed News has seen the software misidentify people, highlighting a larger concern with facial recognition technologies.

Based on new reporting and data reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Clearview AI took its controversial US marketing playbook around the world, offering free trials to employees at law enforcement agencies in countries including Australia, Brazil, and the United Kingdom. To accompany this story, BuzzFeed News has created a searchable table of 88 international government-affiliated and taxpayer-funded agencies and organizations listed in Clearview's data as having employees who used or tested the company's facial recognition service before February 2020, according to Clearview's data. Some of those entities were in countries where the use of Clearview has since been deemed "unlawful." Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That insists the company's key market is the U.S., saying: "While there has been tremendous demand for our service from around the world, Clearview AI is primarily focused on providing our service to law enforcement and government agencies in the United States. Other countries have expressed a dire need for our technology because they know it can help investigate crimes, such as, money laundering, financial fraud, romance scams, human trafficking, and crimes against children, which know no borders."

Ton-That alleged there are "inaccuracies contained in BuzzFeed's assertions," but declined to explain what those might be and didn't answer any follow-up questions.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times, written by Tara Parker-Pope: Covid precautions have turned many parts of our world into a giant salad bar, with plastic barriers separating sales clerks from shoppers, dividing customers at nail salons and shielding students from their classmates. Intuition tells us a plastic shield would be protective against germs. But scientists who study aerosols, air flow and ventilation say that much of the time, the barriers don't help and probably give people a false sense of security. And sometimes the barriers can make things worse. Research suggests that in some instances, a barrier protecting a clerk behind a checkout counter may redirect the germs to another worker or customer. Rows of clear plastic shields, like those you might find in a nail salon or classroom, can also impede normal air flow and ventilation.

Under normal conditions in stores, classrooms and offices, exhaled breath particles disperse, carried by air currents and, depending on the ventilation system, are replaced by fresh air roughly every 15 to 30 minutes. But erecting plastic barriers can change air flow in a room, disrupt normal ventilation and create "dead zones," where viral aerosol particles can build up and become highly concentrated. There are some situations in which the clear shields might be protective, but it depends on a number of variables. The barriers can stop big droplets ejected during coughs and sneezes from splattering on others, which is why buffets and salad bars often are equipped with transparent sneeze guards above the food. But Covid-19 spreads largely through unseen aerosol particles. While there isn't much real-world research on the impact of transparent barriers and the risk of disease, scientists in the United States and Britain have begun to study the issue, and the findings are not reassuring.

A study published in June and led by researchers from Johns Hopkins, for example, showed that desk screens in classrooms were associated with an increased risk of coronavirus infection. In a Massachusetts school district, researchers found (PDF) that plexiglass dividers with side walls in the main office were impeding air flow. A study looking at schools in Georgia found that desk barriers had little effect on the spread of the coronavirus compared with ventilation improvements and masking. Before the pandemic, a study published in 2014 found that office cubicle dividers were among the factors that may have contributed to disease transmission during a tuberculosis outbreak in Australia. British researchers have conducted modeling studies simulating what happens when a person on one side of a barrier -- like a customer in a store -- exhales particles while speaking or coughing under various ventilation conditions. The screen is more effective when the person coughs, because the larger particles have greater momentum and hit the barrier. But when a person speaks, the screen doesn't trap the exhaled particles -- which just float around it. While the store clerk may avoid an immediate and direct hit, the particles are still in the room, posing a risk to the clerk and others who may inhale the contaminated air. [...] While further research is needed to determine the effect of adding transparent shields around school or office desks, all the aerosol experts interviewed agreed that desk shields were unlikely to help and were likely to interfere with the normal ventilation of the room. Depending on the conditions, the plastic shields could cause viral particles to accumulate in the room. The report did mention a study (PDF) by researchers with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati that tested different sized transparent barriers in an isolation room using a cough simulator. It found that "under the right conditions, taller shields, above 'cough height,' stopped about 70 percent of the particles from reaching the particle counter on the other side, which is where the store or salon worker would be sitting or standing." However, the research was conducted under highly controlled conditions and took place in an isolation room with consistent ventilation rates that didn't "accurately reflect all real-world situations," according to the study's authors. It also "didn't consider that workers and customers move around, that other people could be in the room breathing the redirected particles and that many stores and classrooms have several stations with acrylic barriers, not just one, that impede normal air flow."

Ars Technica reports on a paper investigating how much each power plant contributes to global emissions, using data from 2018. "The study finds that many countries have many power plants that emit carbon dioxide at rates well above either the national or global average.

"Shutting down the worst 5 percent of this list would immediately wipe out about 75 percent of the carbon emissions produced by electricity generation." It should surprise nobody that all the worst offenders are coal plants. But the distribution of the highest polluting plants might include a bit of the unexpected.

For example, despite its reputation as the home of coal, China only has a single plant in the top-10 worst (bottom-10?). In contrast, South Korea has three on the list, and India has two. In general, China doesn't have many plants that stand out as exceptionally bad, in part because so many of its plants were built around the same time, during a giant boom in industrialization. As such, there's not much variance from plant to plant when it comes to efficiency. In contrast, countries like Germany, Indonesia, Russia, and the US all see a lot of variance, so they're likely to have some highly inefficient plants that are outliers.

Put a different way, the authors looked at how much of a country's pollution was produced by the worst 5 percent when all of the country's power plants were ranked by carbon emissions. In China, the worst 5 percent accounted for roughly a quarter of the country's total emissions. In the US, the worst 5 percent of plants produced about 75 percent of the power sector's carbon emissions. South Korea had similar numbers, while Australia, Germany, and Japan all saw their worst 5 percent of plants account for roughly 90 percent of the carbon emissions from their power sector. When it comes to carbon emissions, the worst 5 percent of power plants account for 73 percent of the total power sector emissions globally. That 5 percent also produces over 14 times as much carbon pollution as it would if the plants were merely average...

Simply boosting each plant's efficiency to the average for the country would drop power sector emissions by a quarter and up to 35 percent in countries like Australia and Germany. Switching them to natural gas, which produces less carbon dioxide per amount of energy released, would drop global emissions by 30 percent, with many countries (including the US) seeing drops of over 40 percent. Again, because China doesn't see a lot of variance among its plants, these switches would have less of an impact, being in the area of 10 percent drops in emissions. But the big winner is carbon capture and storage. Outfitting the worst of the plants with a capture system that was 85 percent efficient would cut global power sector emissions in half and total global emissions by 20 percent. Countries like Australia and Germany would see their power sector emissions drop by over 75 percent.

Overall, these are massive gains, considering that it's not unreasonable to think that the modifications could be done in less than a decade. And they show the clear value of targeting the easiest wins when it comes to lowering emissions.

"A start-up founded by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says it is nearing a technological milestone that could take the world a step closer to fusion energy, which has eluded scientists for decades," reports the New York Times: Researchers at M.I.T.'s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and engineers at the company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, have begun testing an extremely powerful magnet that is needed to generate immense heat that can then be converted to electricity. It would open the gates toward what they believe could eventually be a fusion reactor... Though a fusion energy breakthrough remains elusive, it is still held out as one of the possible high-technology paths to ending reliance on fossil fuels. And some researchers believe that fusion research could finally take a leap forward this decade. More than two dozen private ventures in the United States, Europe, China and Australia and government-funded consortia are now investing heavily in efforts to build commercial fusion reactors. Total investment by people such as Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos is edging toward $2 billion. The federal government is also spending about $600 million each year on fusion research, and there is a proposed amendment to add $1 billion to the Biden administration's infrastructure bill, said Andrew Holland, chief executive of the Fusion Industry Association...

Commonwealth's new magnet, which will be one of the world's most powerful, will be a crucial component in a compact nuclear fusion reactor known as a Tokamak, a design that uses magnetic forces to compress plasma until it is hotter than the sun... Commonwealth Fusion executives claim that the magnet is a significant technology breakthrough that will make Tokamak designs commercially viable for the first time. They say they are not yet ready to test their reactor prototype, but the researchers are finishing the magnet and hope it will be workable by 2025...

Commonwealth, which has raised more than $250 million so far and employs 150 people, received a significant boost last year when physicists at M.I.T.'s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and the company published seven peer-reviewed papers in the Journal of Plasma Physics explaining that the reactor will work as planned. What remains to be proved is that the Commonwealth prototype reactor can produce more energy than it consumes, an ability that physicists define as Q greater than 1. The company is hoping that its prototype, when complete, will produce 10 times the energy it consumes.
Commonwealth's chief executive (also a plasma physicist) explains to the Times how fusion energy is different than other sources: because it really doesn't require any resources. "You add up all the costs, the cost of normal stuff like concrete and steel, and it will make as much power as a gas plant, but without having to pay for the gas."

An Australian Court has decided that an artificial intelligence can be recognized as an inventor in a patent submission. The Register reports: In a case brought by Stephen Thaler, who has filed and lost similar cases in other jurisdictions, Australia's Federal Court last month heard and decided that the nation's Commissioner of Patents erred when deciding that an AI can't be considered an inventor.

Justice Beach reached that conclusion because nothing in Australia law says the applicant for a patent must be human. As Beach's judgement puts it: "... in my view an artificial intelligence system can be an inventor for the purposes of the Act. First, an inventor is an agent noun; an agent can be a person or thing that invents. Second, so to hold reflects the reality in terms of many otherwise patentable inventions where it cannot sensibly be said that a human is the inventor. Third, nothing in the Act dictates the contrary conclusion."

The Justice also worried that the Commissioner of Patents' logic in rejecting Thaler's patent submissions was faulty. "On the Commissioner's logic, if you had a patentable invention but no human inventor, you could not apply for a patent," the judgement states. "Nothing in the Act justifies such a result." Justice Beach therefore sent Thaler's applications back to the Commissioner of Patents, with instructions to re-consider the reasons for their rejection. Thaler has filed patent applications around the world in the name of DABUS -- a Device for the Autonomous Boot-strapping of Unified Sentience. Among the items DABUS has invented are a food container and a light-emitting beacon.

"YouTube has barred Sky News Australia from uploading new content for a week, saying it had breached rules on spreading Covid-19 misinformation," writes the BBC.

Long-time Slashdot reader Hope Thelps shares their report: YouTube issued a "strike" under its three-strike policy, the last of which means permanent removal. It did not point to specific items but said it opposed material that "could cause real-world harm".

The TV channel's digital editor said the decision was a disturbing attack on the ability to think freely. Sky News Australia is owned by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and has 1.85 million YouTube subscribers. The ban could affect its revenue stream from Google.

A YouTube statement said it had "clear and established Covid-19 medical misinformation policies based on local and global health authority guidance". A spokesperson told the Guardian it "did not allow content that denies the existence of Covid-19" or which encouraged people "to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus". Neither has been proven to be effective against Covid.

Slashdot reader storagedude quotes eSecurityPlanet : The FBI and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) joined counterparts in the UK and Australia Wednesday to announce the top 30 vulnerabilities exploited since the start of the pandemic.

The list, a joint effort with the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) and the UK's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), details vulnerabilities — primarily Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) — "routinely exploited by malicious cyber actors in 2020 and those being widely exploited thus far in 2021."

Many of the vulnerabilities are known ones for which patches exist, so they can typically be easily fixed. The agencies also recommended a centralized patch management system to prevent such oversights going forward.

Most of the vulnerabilities targeted in 2020 were disclosed during the last two years. "Cyber actor exploitation of more recently disclosed software flaws in 2020 probably stems, in part, from the expansion of remote work options amid the COVID-19 pandemic," said a CISA statement. "The rapid shift and increased use of remote work options, such as virtual private networks (VPNs) and cloud-based environments, likely placed additional burden on cyber defenders struggling to maintain and keep pace with routine software patching."

The vulnerabilities include a number of well publicized ones from major vendors like Citrix, Microsoft, Fortinet, VMware and others, so a good portion of the blame can be placed on those who just aren't being vigilant with patching.

A previously undocumented Android-based remote access trojan (RAT) has been found to use screen recording features to steal sensitive information on the device, including banking credentials, and open the door for on-device fraud. The Hacker News reports: Dubbed "Vultur" due to its use of Virtual Network Computing (VNC)'s remote screen-sharing technology to gain full visibility on targeted users, the mobile malware was distributed via the official Google Play Store and masqueraded as an app named "Protection Guard," attracting over 5,000 installations. Banking and crypto-wallet apps from entities located in Italy, Australia, and Spain were the primary targets. "For the first time we are seeing an Android banking trojan that has screen recording and keylogging as the main strategy to harvest login credentials in an automated and scalable way," researchers from ThreatFabric said in a write-up shared with The Hacker News. "The actors chose to steer away from the common HTML overlay development we usually see in other Android banking Trojans: this approach usually requires a larger time and effort investment from the actors to create multiple overlays capable of tricking the user. Instead, they chose to simply record what is shown on the screen, effectively obtaining the same end result."

Vultur [...] takes advantage of accessibility permissions to capture keystrokes and leverages VNC's screen recording feature to stealthily log all activities on the phone, thus obviating the need to register a new device and making it difficult for banks to detect fraud. What's more, the malware employs ngrok, a cross-platform utility used to expose local servers behind NATs and firewalls to the public internet over secure tunnels, to provide remote access to the VNC server running locally on the phone. Additionally, it also establishes connections with a command-and-control (C2) server to receive commands over Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM), the results of which, including extracted data and screen captures, are then transmitted back to the server.

ThreatFabric's investigation also connected Vultur with another well-known piece of malicious software named Brunhilda, a dropper that utilizes the Play Store to distribute different kinds of malware in what's called a "dropper-as-a-service" (DaaS) operation, citing overlaps in the source code and C2 infrastructure used to facilitate attacks. These ties, the Amsterdam-based cybersecurity services company said, indicate Brunhilda to be a privately operating threat actor that has its own dropper and proprietary RAT Vultur.

Thousands of scientists have repeated calls for urgent action to tackle the climate emergency, warning that several tipping points are now imminent. From a report: The researchers, part of a group of more than 14,000 scientists who have signed on to an initiative declaring a worldwide climate emergency, said in an article published in the journal BioScience on Wednesday that governments had consistently failed to address "the overexploitation of the Earth," which they described as the root cause of the crisis. Since a similar assessment in 2019, they noted an "unprecedented surge" in climate-related disasters, including flooding in South America and Southeast Asia, record-shattering heatwaves and wildfires in Australia and the US, and devastating cyclones in Africa and South Asia.

For the study, scientists relied on "vital signs" to measure the health of the planet, including deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, glacier thickness and sea-ice extent and deforestation. Out of 31 signs, they found that 18 hit record highs or lows. For example, despite a dip in pollution linked to the COVID-19 pandemic, levels of atmospheric CO2 and methane hit all-time highs in 2021. Greenland and Antarctica recently showed all-time low levels of ice mass and glaciers are melting 31-percent faster than they did just 15 years ago, the authors said. Ocean heat and global sea levels set new records since 2019, and the annual loss rate of the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high in 2020. Echoing previous research, the researchers said forest degradation linked to fire, drought and logging was causing parts of the Brazilian Amazon to now act as a source of carbon, rather than absorb the gas from the atmosphere.

The world's largest carbon capture and storage project has failed to meet a crucial target of capturing and burying an average of 80% of the carbon dioxide produced from gas wells in Western Australia over five years. From a report: The energy giant Chevron agreed to the target with the West Australian government when developing its $54 billion Gorgon project to extract and export gas from fields off the WA coast. The five year milestone passed on Sunday. In a statement the energy giant Chevron announced that since operations began in August 2019 it had injected five million tonnes of greenhouse gases underground. According to the independent analyst Peter Milne, that leaves a shortfall of around 4.6 million tonnes, which he estimates would cost about $100 million to offset via carbon credits.

The project has national and even international significance, with the oil and gas industry and the federal government declaring the success of carbon capture and storage to be crucial in tackling climate change while making use of fossil fuels. "It is essential we position Australia to succeed by investing now in the technologies that will support our industries into the future, with lower emissions energy that can support Australian jobs," Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in April while announcing $263.7 million in funding to develop carbon capture and storage technology.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: One of the United States' first major forays into lithium mining seems like it's going to be in the Salton Sea -- one of the most polluted places in the country -- after General Motors struck a deal with a mining company called Controlled Thermal Resources. This is a big, and potentially very complicated, deal for anyone who cares about the planet. Many experts believe that in order to have any hope of staving off climate change, we have to electrify cars and essentially everything else as soon as possible (ideally, yesterday). Lithium-ion batteries are key to this process, and global demand is expected to increase between 5 and 18 times over the next several years. Put simply, we will need a lot of lithium, and the overwhelming majority of lithium in today's batteries comes from Australia, Chile, China, and Argentina. But the American southwest has huge stores of lithium as well.

General Motors is hoping that a CTR mine in the Salton Sea can supply "a significant portion" of the lithium needed for its electric cars. It's a step toward GM's first-in-the-nation commitment to phasing gasoline-powered cars out of its production line by 2035 -- CTR is slated to start delivering lithium to the company by 2024, at which point the company will be well-poised to achieve this goal.

This is, potentially, a very good thing. But it's also complicated: Mining, broadly speaking, is environmentally destructive. Lithium mining is usually -- but not always -- less destructive than, say, strip mining. And the Salton Sea, an accidental reservoir near California vacation mainstays like Joshua Tree and Palm Springs, is one of the most polluted places on the planet due to decades of agricultural runoff. Environmentalists there worry that if the lake continues to dry up, toxic dust on its floor could go airborne and pollute the air between Phoenix and Los Angeles. The lake is understood to hold one of the nation's largest lithium brine stores, capable of supplying up to 40 percent of global demand for the mineral, according to the California Energy Commission (CEC). CTR claims its production process is self-contained and environmentally sound, as it plans to use renewable energy to extract the mineral.

"But to community members around the proposed mines, ramping up lithium extraction feels complicated," reports Motherboard. "Chemicals like arsenic, selenium, and pesticides are rampant in the lake's waters, and their particles have been released into the atmosphere as it dries, which is happening at an increasing rate as drought grips the west coast. [...] So, ramping up mining in one of the state's most polluted counties -- where 85 percent of residents are Hispanic or Latino and 22 percent live under the poverty line -- feels risky to environmental justice organizers like Miguel Hernandez, communications coordinator at Comite Civico del Valle. Hernandez hopes to see producers and local legislators make an effort to inform residents about the possible, yet-mostly-unknown health effects of lithium mining, which is water-intensive and produces a fair amount of mineral waste."

An unprecedented heat wave and ongoing drought in the U.S. Pacific Northwest is damaging white wheat coveted by Asian buyers and forcing fruit farm workers to harvest in the middle of the night to salvage crops and avoid deadly heat. From a report: The extreme weather is another blow to farmers who have struggled with labor shortages and higher transportation costs during the pandemic and may further fuel global food inflation. Cordell Kress, who farms in southeastern Idaho, expects his winter white wheat to produce about half as many bushels per acre as it does in a normal year when he begins to harvest next week, and he has already destroyed some of his withered canola and safflower oilseed crops.

The Pacific Northwest is the only part of the United States that grows soft white wheat used to make sponge cakes and noodles, and farmers were hoping to capitalize on high grain prices. Other countries including Australia and Canada grow white wheat, but the U.S. variety is especially prized by Asian buyers. "The general mood among farmers in my area is as dire as I've ever seen it," Kress said. "Something about a drought like this just wears on you. You see your blood, sweat and tears just slowly wither away and die."

Epic's legal spat with Apple over App Store practices will spill over to Australia. From a report: After a series of hearings and trials that stretched nearly nine months, Apple and Epic made their final pitches to a US District Court in California on May 24. Both companies now await Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers' decision, but that doesn't mean the litigation is over. After a successful appeal Thursday by Epic, the case will soon be brought to an Australian court. At the center of the legal action is Apple's App Store. Epic's ultrapopular Fortnite was kicked off the iOS App Store in August after Epic built a direct payment system into the game that would allow it to bypass Apple's 30% fee for App Store purchases. Epic sued Apple immediately, accusing the company of anticompetitive practice. Epic argues that the App Store is monopolistic, that developers hoping to get their apps to customers have no choice but to go through the App Store -- and pay the fees associated with that. Apple calls Epic's lawsuit a marketing stunt and argues that the App Store gives developers access to a huge audience of iPhone and iPad users.

In November, Epic brought the issue to Australia, initiating proceedings against Apple by arguing that the iPhone-maker's practices contravene Australia's Competition and Consumer Act. Apple was able to appeal against the suit in April, arguing that the case should be settled in the US District Court. Epic quickly counter-appealed, arguing that public policy concerns justify a separate trial. Australia's Federal Court ruled in favor of Epic on Thursday. "This is a positive step forward for Australian consumers and developers who are entitled to fair access and competitive pricing across mobile app stores," an Epic spokesperson said. "We look forward to continuing our fight for increased competition in app distribution and payment processing in Australia and around the world."

Motherboard bought an FBI "Anom" phone that the agency secretly sells to criminals to monitor their communications. Joseph Cox reports: The sleek, black phone seems perfectly normal. Unlocking the Google Pixel 4a with a PIN code reveals some common apps: Tinder, Instagram, Facebook, Netflix, and even Candy Crush. But none of those apps work, and tapping their icons doesn't do anything. Resetting the phone and typing in another PIN opens up an entirely different section of the device, with a new background and new apps. Now in place of the old apps sit a clock, a calculator, and the device's settings. Clicking the calculator doesn't open a calculator -- it opens a login screen.

"Enter Anom ID" and a password, the screen reads. Hidden in the calculator is a concealed messaging app called Anom, which last month we learned was an FBI honeypot. On Anom, criminals believed they could communicate securely, with the app encrypting their messages. They were wrong: an international group of law enforcement agencies including the FBI were monitoring their messages and announced hundreds of arrests last month. International authorities have held press conferences to tout the operation's success, but have provided few details on how the phones actually functioned.

Motherboard has obtained and analyzed an Anom phone from a source who unknowingly bought one on a classified ads site. On that site, the phone was advertised as just a cheap Android device. But when the person received it, they realized it wasn't an ordinary phone, and after being contacted by Motherboard, found that it contained the secret Anom app. When booting up the phone, it displays a logo for an operating system called "ArcaneOS." Very little information is publicly available on ArcaneOS. It's this detail that has helped lead several people who have ended up with Anom phones to realize something was unusual about their device. Most posts online discussing the operating system appear to be written by people who have recently inadvertently bought an Anom device, and found it doesn't work like an ordinary phone. After the FBI announced the Anom operation, some Anom users have scrambled to get rid of their device, including selling it to unsuspecting people online. The person Motherboard obtained the phone from was in Australia, where authorities initially spread the Anom devices as a pilot before expanding into other countries.