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[33]Close binspamdupenotthebestofftopicslownewsdaystalestupid freshfunnyinsightfulinterestingmaybe offtopicflamebaittrollredundantoverrated insightfulinterestinginformativefunnyunderrated descriptive typodupeerror [34]Sign up for the Slashdot newsletter! OR [35]check out the new Slashdot job board to browse remote jobs or jobs in your area Do you develop on GitHub? You can keep using GitHub but automatically [36]sync your GitHub releases to SourceForge quickly and easily with [37]this tool so your projects have a backup location, and get your project in front of SourceForge's nearly 30 million monthly users. It takes less than a minute. Get new users downloading your project releases today! [38]× 171590394 story [39]Moon [40]Russia's Luna 25 Mission Launches To the Moon [41](cnn.com) Posted by msmash on Friday August 11, 2023 @08:08AM from the moving-forward dept. Russia has successfully [42]launched Luna 25, the country's [43]first lunar lander in 47 years. From a report: The uncrewed spacecraft lifted off from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Amur Oblast, Russia. Hitching a ride aboard a Soyuz-2 Fregat rocket, Luna 25 took flight at 8:10 a.m. local time Friday, or 7:10 p.m. ET Thursday. Residents of a Russian village were temporarily evacuated Friday morning since there is a "one in a million chance" that one of Luna 25's rocket stages could fall there, according to Reuters. The spacecraft is expected to first enter an orbit around Earth before transferring to a lunar orbit and ultimately descending to the surface of the moon. Russia's last lunar lander, Luna 24, landed on the moon on August 18, 1976. Luna 25 and India's Chandrayaan-3 mission, which launched in mid-July, are both expected to land at the lunar south pole on August 23, and it's a race to see which country will land first, according to Reuters. But Roscomos said the two missions are not expected to cause a problem for each other because their specific landing zones differ, Reuters reported. apply tags__________ 171587578 story [44]Mars [45]Mars Rover Finds Signs of Seasonal Floods [46](arstechnica.com) [47]3 Posted by [48]BeauHD on Friday August 11, 2023 @06:00AM from the watery-past dept. NASA's Curiosity rover has [49]discovered signs of seasonal floods on Mars at a site called Gale Crater. Ars Technica reports: About 3,000 Martian days into its exploration, the rover was at a site that dates to roughly 3.6 billion years ago, during Mars' relatively wet Hesperian period. And it came across what would be familiar to gamers as a hex grid: hundreds of hexagonal shaped rock deposits in the area of a few centimeters across and at least 10 centimeters deep. These features are small enough that they'd be easy to overlook as simply another collection of wind-swept debris on the red planet. But up close, they're striking: large collections of hexagons that share sides, creating a regular grid. While there's some irregularity, the lines separating them largely form three-way intersections with equal angles between each line. And, in places where erosion has had different effects on nearby instances, it's clear that individual hexagons are at least 10 centimeters in height. Similar shapes have been seen on Pluto, formed by convection of an icy surface. But these are far, far larger, able to be detected from a considerable distance from Pluto. The tiny size of the hexes on Mars is completely incompatible with convection. Instead, it has to be the product of mud drying out, creating cracks as the material contracts. The water itself could either come externally, in the form of a flood, or via groundwater that soaks up to the surface. But again, the tiny size of these features is decisive, indicating that only the top few centimeters got wet, which is incompatible with a groundwater source. To form the regular, hexagonal shapes also means repeated cycles -- experiments show that at least a dozen cycles are needed before you start to get the equal angles at the junction. So, simply based on their shape, it appears that these hexagons are the product of repeated flooding. The chemistry backs this up. The rocks in the lines that separate individual hexagons are largely a mixture of calcium and magnesium sulfates, which will readily precipitate out of water as conditions get drier. These deposits will form harder rocks than the dried mud that comprises the bulk of the hexagons. The researchers behind the work note that the apparently regular, mild wet/dry cycling is incompatible with a lot of ideas about the source of water in Mars' past, such as volcanic melting of ice deposits. Instead, it's consistent with mild seasonal flooding, although there's no way to tell if the cadence was tied to Mars' orbit given what we currently know. The findings have been [50]published in the journal Nature. apply tags__________ 171587508 story [51]Transportation [52]Texas Could Get a 205-MPH Bullet Train Zipping Between Houston and Dallas [53](popsci.com) [54]42 Posted by [55]BeauHD on Friday August 11, 2023 @03:00AM from the what-to-expect dept. Amtrak and a company called Texas Central [56]announced a partnership on Wednesday to connect Houston and Dallas by train, [57]spanning roughly 240 miles at speeds upwards of 205 mph. Popular Science reports: According to [58]Quartz, the applications have already been submitted to "several federal grant programs" to help finance research and design costs. Amtrak representatives estimate the project could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 100,000 tons annually and remove an estimated 12,500 cars per day from the region's I-45 corridor. The reduction in individual vehicles on the roads could also save as much as 65 million gallons of fuel each year. The trains traveling Amtrak's Dallas-Houston route would be based on Japan's updated N700S Series Shinkansen "bullet train," a design that first debuted in 2020. "This high-speed train, using advanced, proven Shinkansen technology, has the opportunity to revolutionize rail travel in the southern US," Texas Central CEO Michael Bui said [59]via the August 9 announcement. American city planners have been drawn to the idea of high-speed railways for decades, but have repeatedly fallen short of getting them truly on track due to a host of issues, including funding, political pushback, and cultural hurdles. That said, 85 percent of [60]recently surveyed travelers between Dallas and the greater North Texas area indicated they would ride such a form of transportation "in the right circumstances." If so, as many as 6 million travelers could be expected to ride the train by the end of the decade, with the number rising to 13 million by 2050. apply tags__________ 171586710 story [61]Science [62]Scientists At Fermilab Close In On Fifth Force of Nature [63](bbc.com) [64]41 Posted by [65]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @11:30PM from the theoretical-showdown dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Scientists near Chicago say they may be getting closer to [66]discovering the existence of a new force of nature. They have found more evidence that sub-atomic particles, called muons, are not behaving in the way predicted by the current theory of sub-atomic physics. Scientists believe that an unknown force could be acting on the muons. More data will be needed to confirm these results, but if they are verified, it could mark the beginning of a revolution in physics. All of the forces we experience every day can be reduced to just four categories: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force. These four fundamental forces govern how all the objects and particles in the Universe interact with each other. The findings have been made at a US particle accelerator facility called Fermilab. They build on results announced in 2021 in which the Fermilab team first suggested the possibility of a fifth force of nature. Since then, the research team has gathered more data and reduced the uncertainty of their measurements by a factor of two, according to Dr Brendan Casey, a senior scientist at Fermilab. "We're really probing new territory. We're determining the (measurements) at a better precision than it has ever been seen before." In an experiment with the catchy name 'g minus two (g-2)' the researchers accelerate the sub-atomic particles called muons around a 50-foot-diameter ring, where they are circulated about 1,000 times at nearly the speed of light. The researchers found that they might be behaving in a way that can't be explained by the current theory, which is called the Standard Model, because of the influence of a new force of nature. Although the evidence is strong, the Fermilab team hasn't yet got conclusive proof. They had hoped to have it by now, but uncertainties in what the standard model says the amount of wobbling in muons should be, has increased, because of developments in theoretical physics. In essence, the goal posts have been moved for the experimental physicists. The researchers believe that they will have the data they need, and that the theoretical uncertainty will have narrowed in two years' time sufficiently for them to get their goal. That said, a rival team at Europe's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are hoping to get there first. The results have been [67]announced to the public and [68]submitted to the Journal Physical Review Letters. apply tags__________ 171586676 story [69]AI [70]Anthropic Launches Improved Version of Its Entry-Level LLM [71](techcrunch.com) [72]2 Posted by [73]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @10:02PM from the new-and-improved dept. Anthropic, the AI startup co-founded by ex-OpenAI execs, has [74]released an updated version of its faster, cheaper, text-generating model available through an API, [75]Claude Instant. TechCrunch reports: The updated Claude Instant, Claude Instant 1.2, incorporates the strengths of Anthropic's recently announced flagship model, Claude 2, showing "significant" gains in areas such as math, coding, reasoning and safety, according to Anthropic. In internal testing, Claude Instant 1.2 scored 58.7% on a coding benchmark compared to Claude Instant 1.1, which scored 52.8%, and 86.7% on a set of math questions versus 80.9% for Claude Instant 1.1. "Claude Instant generates longer, more structured responses and follows formatting instructions better," Anthropic writes in a blog post. "Instant 1.2 also shows improvements in quote extraction, multilingual capabilities and question answering." Claude Instant 1.2 is also less likely to hallucinate and more resistant to jailbreaking attempts, Anthropic claims. In the context of large language models like Claude, "hallucination" is where a model generates text that's incorrect or nonsensical, while jailbreaking is a technique that uses cleverly-written prompts to bypass the safety features placed on large language models by their creators. And Claude Instant 1.2 features a context window that's the same size of Claude 2's -- 100,000 tokens. Context window refers to the text the model considers before generating additional text, while tokens represent raw text (e.g. the word "fantastic" would be split into the tokens "fan," "tas" and "tic"). Claude Instant 1.2 and Claude 2 can analyze roughly 75,000 words, about the length of "The Great Gatsby." Generally speaking, models with large context windows are less likely to "forget" the content of recent conversations. apply tags__________ 171586548 story [76]China [77]China's Internet Giants Order $5 Billion of Nvidia Chips To Power AI Ambitions [78]19 Posted by [79]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @09:25PM from the supply-and-demand dept. According to the [80]Financial Times, China's internet giants have [81]ordered more than $5 billion worth of high-performance Nvidia chips for building generative AI systems. Reuters reports: Baidu, TikTok-owner ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba have made orders worth $1 billion to acquire about 100,000 A800 processors from the U.S. chipmaker to be delivered this year, the FT reported, citing multiple people familiar with the matter. The Chinese groups had also purchased a further $4 billion worth of graphics processing units to be delivered in 2024, according to the report. The Biden administration last October issued a sweeping set of rules designed to freeze China's semiconductor industry in place while the U.S. pours billions of dollars in subsidies into its chip industry. Nvidia offers the A800 processor in China to meet export control rules after U.S. officials asked the company to stop exporting its two top computing chips to the country for AI-related work. Nvidia's finance chief said in June that restrictions on exports of AI chips to China "would result in a permanent loss of opportunities for the U.S. industry", though the company expected no immediate material impact. apply tags__________ 171586514 story [82]AI [83]Supermarket AI Meal Planner App Suggests Recipe That Would Create Chlorine Gas [84](theguardian.com) [85]52 Posted by [86]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @08:45PM from the what's-on-the-menu dept. Long-time Slashdot reader [87]newbie_fantod shares a report from The Guardian: A New Zealand supermarket experimenting with using AI to generate meal plans has seen its app produce some unusual dishes -- [88]recommending customers recipes for deadly chlorine gas, "poison bread sandwiches" and mosquito-repellent roast potatoes. The app, created by supermarket chain Pak 'n' Save, was advertised as a way for customers to creatively use up leftovers during the cost of living crisis. It asks users to enter in various ingredients in their homes, and auto-generates a meal plan or recipe, along with cheery commentary. It initially drew attention on social media for some unappealing recipes, including an "oreo vegetable stir-fry." When customers began experimenting with entering a wider range of household shopping list items into the app, however, it began to make even less appealing recommendations. One recipe it dubbed "aromatic water mix" would create chlorine gas. The bot recommends the recipe as "the perfect nonalcoholic beverage to quench your thirst and refresh your senses." "Serve chilled and enjoy the refreshing fragrance," it says, but does not note that inhaling chlorine gas can cause lung damage or death. New Zealand political commentator Liam Hehir posted the "recipe" to Twitter, prompting other New Zealanders to experiment and share their results to social media. Recommendations included a bleach "fresh breath" mocktail, ant-poison and glue sandwiches, "bleach-infused rice surprise" and "methanol bliss" -- a kind of turpentine-flavoured french toast. In a statement, a spokesperson for the supermarket said they would "keep fine tuning our controls" of the bot to ensure it was safe and useful. They noted that the bot should only be used by people over the age of 18 and that the recipes "are not reviewed by a human being." apply tags__________ 171586312 story [89]Government [90]Homeland Security Report Details How Teen Hackers Exploited Security Weaknesses In Some of the World's Biggest Companies [91](cnn.com) [92]21 Posted by [93]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @08:02PM from the show-and-tell dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: A group of teenage hackers [94]managed to breach some of the world's biggest tech firms last year by exploiting systemic security weaknesses in US telecom carriers and the business supply chain, a US government review of the incidents has found, in what is a cautionary tale for America's critical infrastructure. The Department of Homeland Security-led review of the hacks, which was shared exclusively with CNN, determined US regulators should penalize telecom firms with lax security practices and Congress should consider funding programs to steer American youth away from cybercrime. The investigation of the hacks -- which hit companies like Microsoft and Samsung -- found that, in general, it was far too easy for the cybercriminals to intercept text messages that corporate employees use to log into systems. [...] "It is highly concerning that a loose band of hackers, including a number of teenagers, was able to consistently break into the best-defended companies in the world," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told CNN in an interview, adding: "We are seeing a rise in juvenile cybercrime." After a series of high-profile cyberattacks marked his first four months in office, President Joe Biden established the DHS-led Cyber Safety Review Board in 2021 to study the root causes of major hacking incidents and inform policy on how to prevent the next big cyberattack. Staffed by senior US cybersecurity officials and executives at major technology firms like Google, the board does not have regulatory authority, but its recommendations could shape legislation in Congress and future directives from federal agencies. [...] The board's first review, released in July 2022, concluded that it could take a decade to eradicate a vulnerability in software used by thousands of corporations and government agencies worldwide. The second review, to be released Thursday, focused on a band of young criminal hackers based in the United Kingdom and Brazil that last year launched a series of attacks on Microsoft, Uber, Samsung and identity management firm Okta, among others. The audacious hacks were often followed by extortion demands and taunts by hackers who seemed to be out for publicity as much as they were for money. The hacking group, known as Lapsus$, alarmed US officials because they were able to embarrass major tech firms with robust security programs. "If richly resourced cybersecurity programs were so easily breached by a loosely organized threat actor group, which included several juveniles, how can organizations expect their programs to perform against well-resourced cybercrime syndicates and nation-state actors?" the Cyber Safety Review Board's [95]new report states. Lapsus$, as well as other hacking groups, conduct "SIM-swapping" attacks that can take over a victim's phone number by having it transferred to another device, thereby gaining access to 2FA security codes and personal messages. These can then be used to reveal login credentials and access financial information. "The board wants telecom carriers to report SIM-swapping attacks to US regulatory agencies, and for those agencies to penalize carriers when they don't adequately protect customers from such attacks," reports CNN. apply tags__________ 171586152 story [96]Music [97]Google and Universal Music Discuss Making an AI Tool To Replicate Artists' Voices [98]24 Posted by [99]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @07:20PM from the ready-or-not-here-it-comes dept. According to the [100]Financial Times, Universal Music Group and Google are considering [101]developing a tool that people can use to create AI-generated music using popular artists' voices and melodies. Gizmodo reports: Under the licensing deal, the relevant copyright owners would be paid for the use of their likeness and would have the option to opt in to give UMG and Google permission to license AI-generated music using their voice, per the FT. Google and UMG are in the early stages of negotiations over creating the deepfake tool, and there aren't currently any plans to immediately launch it. Robert Kyncl, the CEO of Warner Music Group, voiced his opposition to deepfake technology in a [102]conference earnings call on Tuesday, saying artists should always have a choice if they'll allow their likeness to be used. "There's nothing more precious to an artist than their voice," Kyncl said in the call, "and protecting their voice is protecting their livelihood and protecting their persona." apply tags__________ 171586092 story [103]Games [104]Lichess Will No Longer Cooperate With US Chess Federation, Saint Louis Chess Club [105](lichess.org) [106]62 Posted by [107]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @07:00PM from the breaking-the-silence dept. In a lengthy blog post today, the open-source internet chess server, [108]Lichess, announced they will [109]formally end all cooperation with both the U.S. Chess Federation and Saint Louis University Chess Club (STLCC), citing two high-profile, sexual misconduct cases involving grandmasters Alejandro Ramirez and Timur Gareyev. Here's a brief summary of the issue: In February, chess commentator and author Jennifer Shahade publicly accused grandmaster Alejandro Ramirez of sexual misconduct. Her allegations sparked a swift and severe backlash against Ramirez, who was forced to resign from the Saint Louis Chess Club (STLCC), before being permanently banned by the United States Chess Federation (US Chess). The allegations also exposed apparent failures at US Chess and STLCC. Yet, neither organization has faced any serious scrutiny or accountability for their handling of the case. And Ramirez is not the only one. According to interviews and documents reviewed by Lichess, one other prominent American grandmaster has also been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, raising further troubling questions about how chess organizations deal with such matters. Lichess has decided to stop cooperating with both organizations due to serious concerns about their accountability. We will not provide them with support, and we will not advertise their events. Women and girls in chess already face an uphill battle. They deserve a safe and supportive environment. But too often, they encounter abuse, harassment or worse. And too often, they feel powerless to report it or seek justice. It's time to help break the silence. Lichess urges US Chess and STLCC "to publicly acknowledge their past mistakes, be more open with the public, and hold those who engage in misconduct accountable." While they acknowledge US Chess has taken some steps to improve its processes, Lichess said "both US Chess and STLCC have failed to demonstrate an important aspect of accountability -- a willingness to acknowledge and address past shortcomings." They added: "We do not think that reconciliation will be possible without this acknowledgement." apply tags__________ 171585654 story [110]Oracle [111]Oracle, SUSE, and CIQ Go After Red Hat With the Open Enterprise Linux Association [112](zdnet.com) [113]43 Posted by msmash on Thursday August 10, 2023 @06:40PM from the fight's-on dept. In a groundbreaking move, CIQ, Oracle, and SUSE have [114]come together to announce the formation of the Open Enterprise Linux Association (OpenELA). From a report: The goal of this new collaborative trade association is to foster "the development of distributions compatible with Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) by providing open and free enterprise Linux source code." The inception of OpenELA is a direct response to Red Hat's recent alterations to RHEL source code availability. This new Delaware 501(c)(6) US nonprofit association will provide an open process for organizations to access source code. This will enable it to build RHEL-compatible distributions. The initiative underscores the importance of community-driven source code, which serves as a foundation for creating compatible distributions. Mike McGrath, Red Hat's vice president of Red Hat Core Platforms, sparked this when he announced Red Hat would be changing how users can access RHEL's source code. For the non-Hatters among you, Core Platforms is the division in charge of RHEL. McGrath wrote, "CentOS Stream will now be the sole repository for public RHEL-related source code releases. For Red Hat customers and partners, source code will remain available via the Red Hat Customer Portal." This made it much more difficult for RHEL clone vendors, such as AlmaLinux, Rocky Linux, and Oracle Linux, to create perfect RHEL variant distributions. AlmaLinux elected to try to work with Red Hat's new source code rules. Oracle restarted its old fighting ways with IBM/Red Hat; SUSE announced an RHEL-compatible distro fork plan; and Rocky Linux found new ways to obtain RHEL code. Now the last two, along with CIQ, which started Rocky Linux, have joined forces. apply tags__________ 171585730 story [115]Businesses [116]Skydio Closing Consumer Drone Business [117](techcrunch.com) [118]12 Posted by msmash on Thursday August 10, 2023 @06:00PM from the tough-luck dept. Skydio today announced that it will be [119]shutting down its consumer drone business. From a report: Beginning today, the firm will no longer be selling its Skydio 2+ Starter, Sports, Cinema or Pro kits, although it will continue to offer the Skydio 2+ Enterprise Kit to business customers. Skydio also promises to continue supporting those consumers who have already purchased a drone. That includes offering vehicle repairs and other support related to warranties. The company says it will also stock batteries, propellers and other accessories "for as long as we can." The company, which raised a $230 million Series E funding earlier this year, has raised over $550 million across all rounds, according to Crunchbase. apply tags__________ 171585692 story [120]Earth [121]Early Humans Wiped Out in Europe By 'Glacial Cooling,' Study Suggests [122]51 Posted by msmash on Thursday August 10, 2023 @05:30PM from the unraveling-mysteries dept. Extreme "glacial cooling" that occurred more than a million years ago in southern Europe is likely to have caused an "[123]extinction of early humans" on the continent, according to new research. From a report: The previously unknown ice age pushed the European climate to "beyond what archaic humans could tolerate" and likely wiped out human life on the continent temporarily, concluded an [124]academic paper published in the journal Science. The findings by 11 researchers from institutions including University College London and the University of Cambridge challenge the long-held idea that humans have continuously occupied Europe since first arriving in the region. The newly discovered cooling event was "comparable to some of the most severe events of recent ice ages," said the paper's lead author Vasiliki Margari from UCL. "We suggest that these extreme conditions led to the depopulation of Europe," the researchers concluded. Glacial-interglacial cycles, or warmer and colder periods each lasting thousands of years, have occurred cyclically over the past 2.6mn years, with large ice sheets forming during the colder spells and melting during the warmer periods. According to the academic paper, a previously unknown glacial period that occurred about 1.1mn years ago led to abrupt cooling that lasted about 4,000 years. This happened as conditions began to warm and large ice sheets melted into the Atlantic Ocean, which pushed down European sea and land temperatures. apply tags__________ 171586028 story [125]Space [126]Virgin Galactic Successfully Flies Tourists To Space For First Time [127](theguardian.com) [128]33 Posted by [129]BeauHD on Thursday August 10, 2023 @05:02PM from the mission-accomplished dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Virgin Galactic's VSS Unity, the reusable rocket-powered space plane carrying the company's first crew of tourists to space, [130]successfully launched and landed on Thursday. The mission, known as Galactic 02, took off shortly after 11am ET from Spaceport America in New Mexico. Aboard the spacecraft were six individuals total -- the space plane's commander and former Nasa astronaut CJ Sturckow, the pilot Kelly Latimer, as well as Beth Moses, Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut instructor who trained the crew before to the flight. The spacecraft also carried three private passengers, including the health and wellness coach Keisha Schahaff and her 18-year-old daughter, Anastasia Mayers, both of whom are Antiguan. [...] Galactic 02 is a suborbital flight. However, despite VSS Unity not reaching orbit, the trajectory allows passengers to experience several minutes of weightlessness at an altitude high enough for them to see the Earth's curvature, [131]Space.com explains. Following liftoff, Virgin Galactic's carrier plane VMS Eve transported VSS Unity to an altitude of about 44,300ft. Eve then dropped Unity which then fired its own rocket motor and ascended to suborbital space. Passengers aboard experienced approximately 3Gs. [132]Live footage inside the spacecraft showed the passengers unstrapping themselves from their seats and peering out down to earth through the windows as they floated throughout the spacecraft. Despite Galactic 02 being Virgin Galactic's second commercial spaceflight mission, it is the first flight to carry private customers. In June, Galactic 01 carried three crew members from the Italian air force and the National Research Council of Italy. According to Virgin Galactic, the company has already booked a backlog of about 800 customers. Tickets have ranged from $250,000 to $450,000. Galactic 03, the company's third commercial spaceflight, is planned for September. apply tags__________ 171585636 story [133]Data Storage [134]SanDisk's Silence Deafens as High-Profile Users Say Extreme SSDs Still Broken [135](arstechnica.com) [136]31 Posted by msmash on Thursday August 10, 2023 @04:25PM from the PSA dept. SanDisk's silence this week has been deafening. Its portable SSDs are being lambasted as users and tech publications [137]call for them to be pulled. From a report: The recent scrutiny of the drives follows problems from this spring when users, including an Ars Technica staff member, saw Extreme-series portable SSDs wipe data and become unmountable. A firmware update was supposed to fix things, but new complaints dispute its effectiveness. SanDisk has stayed mum on recent complaints and hasn't explained what caused the problems. In May, [138]Ars Technica reported on SanDisk Extreme V2 and Extreme Pro V2 SSDs wiping data before often becoming unreadable to the user's system. At least four months of complaints had piled up by then, including on SanDisk's forums and all over Reddit. Even Ars' Lee Hutchinson fell victim to the faulty drives. Two whole Extreme Pros died on him. Both times they filled about 50 percent and then showed a bunch of read and write errors. Upon disconnecting and reconnecting, the drive was unformatted and wiped, and he could not fix either drive by wiping and reformatting. When Ars reached out to SanDisk about the problem in May, it didn't answer most of our questions about why these problems happened (and, oddly, excluded certain models we saw affected when naming which models were affected). apply tags__________ [139]« Newer [140]Older » Slashdot Top Deals Slashdot Top Deals [141]Slashdot Deals Slashdot Poll What's your favorite machine to play games on? (*) Xbox ( ) PlayStation ( ) Nintendo ( ) PC ( ) Smartphone (BUTTON) vote now [142]Read the 65 comments | 5395 votes Looks like someone has already voted from this IP. If you would like to vote please login and try again. 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