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[32]Close binspamdupenotthebestofftopicslownewsdaystalestupid freshfunnyinsightfulinterestingmaybe offtopicflamebaittrollredundantoverrated insightfulinterestinginformativefunnyunderrated descriptive typodupeerror Unlock seamless, secure login experiences with [33]Auth0—where authentication meets innovation. Scale your business confidently with flexible, developer-friendly tools built to protect your users and data. [34]Try for FREE here [35]× 176037455 story [36]Printer [37]Bambu Labs' 3D Printer 'Authorization' Update Beta Sparks Concerns [38](theverge.com) [39]8 Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday January 25, 2025 @11:34AM from the printer-net-service-providers dept. Slashdot reader [40]jenningsthecat writes: 3D printer manufacturer Bambu Labs has faced a storm of controversy and protest after releasing a security update which many users claim is the first step in moving towards an HP-style subscription model. [41]Bambu Labs responded that there's misinformation circulating online, adding "we acknowledge that our communication might have contributed to the confusion." Bambu Labs spokesperson Nadia Yaakoubi did "damage control", [42]answering questions from the Verge: Q: Will Bambu publicly commit to never requiring a subscription in order to control its printers and print from them over a home network? A: For our current product line, yes. We will never require a subscription to control or print from our printers over a home network... Q: Will Bambu publicly commit to never putting any existing printer functionality behind a subscription? Yes... Bambu's site adds that the security update "[43]is beta testing, not a forced update. The choice is yours. You can participate in the beta program to help us refine these features, or continue using your current firmware." Hackaday [44]notes another wrinkle: This follows the [45]original announcement which had the 3D printer community up in arms, and quickly saw the new tool that's supposed to provide safe and secure communications with Bambu Lab printers ripped apart to [46]extract the security certificate and private key... As the flaming wreck that's Bambu Lab's PR efforts keeps hurtling down the highway of public opinion, we'd be remiss to not point out that with the security certificate and private key being easily obtainable from the Bambu Connect Electron app, there is absolutely no point to any of what Bambu Lab is doing. The Verge asked Bambu Labs about that too: Q: Does the private key leaking change any of your plans? No, this doesn't change our plans, and we've taken immediate action. Bambu Labs had said their security update would "ensure only authorized access and operations are permitted," [47]remembers Ars Technica. "This would, Bambu suggested, mitigate risks of 'remote hacks or printer exposure issues' and lower the risk of 'abnormal traffic or attacks.'" This was necessary, Bambu wrote, because of increases in requests made to its cloud services "through unofficial channels," targeted DDOS attacks, and "peaks of up to [48]30 million unauthorized requests per day" (link added by Bambu). But Ars Technica also found some skepticism online: Repair advocate Louis Rossmann, noting Bambu's altered original blog post, [49]uploaded a video soon after, "Bambu's Gaslighting Masterclass: Denying their own documented restrictions"... suggesting that the company was asking buyers to trust that Bambu wouldn't enact restrictive policies it otherwise wrote into its user agreements. And Ars Technica also cites another skeptical response [50]from a video posted by open source hardware hacker and YouTube creator Jeff Geerling: "Every IoT device has these problems, and there are better ways to secure things than by locking out access, or making it harder to access, or requiring their cloud to be integrated." apply tags__________ 176036667 story [51]United States [52]America Lags on Renewable Energy. Blame Regulations and Grid Connection Issues [53](msn.com) [54]20 Posted by EditorDavid on Saturday January 25, 2025 @10:34AM from the off-the-grid dept. "For years, renewable energy proponents have hoped to build a U.S. electric grid powered by wind, solar, geothermal and — to a lesser extent — nuclear power..." [55]writes the Washington Post. In America's power markets "the economics of clean energy are strong," with renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuel plants in many jurisdictions. But the Post spoke to the "electricity modeling" director at nonpartisan clean energy think tank Energy Innovation, who offered this assessment. "The technology is ready, and the financial services are ready — but the question nobody really put enough thought into was, could the government keep up? And at the moment, the answer is no." [R]enewable developers say that the new technologies are stymied by complicated local and federal regulations, a long wait to connect to the electricity grid, and community opposition... "The U.S. offshore wind business is at a very nascent stage versus Europe or China," Rob Barnett, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in an email. "With the new permitting pause, it's doubtful much progress for this emerging industry will be made...." After the Inflation Reduction Act passed, Rhodium Group — an independent clean energy research firm — estimated that between 2023 and 2025, on average, the country would add between 36 and 46 gigawatts of clean electricity to the grid every year. Late last year, however, the group found that the country only installed around 27 gigawatts in 2023. The U.S.'s renewable growth is now expected to fall on the low end of that range — or miss it entirely. "It actually is really hard to build a lot of this stuff fast," said Trevor Houser, partner in climate and energy at Rhodium Group. As a result, Rhodium [56]found, the country only cut carbon emissions by 0.2 percent in 2024... A significant amount of this lag has come from wind power, where problems with supply chains and getting permits and approval to build has put a damper on development. But solar construction is also on the low end of what experts were expecting... Developers point to lags in the [57]interconnection queue — a system that gives new solar, wind or fossil fuel projects permission to connect to the larger electricity grid. According to a report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, it can now take nearly 3 years for a project to get through the queue. The grid operator that covers the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, PJM, had over [58]3,300 projects in its queue at the end of 2023. The vast majority of these applications are for renewables — more than the entire number of active wind farms in the nation... There are possible solutions. Some developers hope to reuse old fossil fuel sites, like coal plants, that are already connected to the grid — bypassing the long queue entirely. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has instated new rules to make it easier to build transmission lines. Part of the problem is that wind and solar facilities "sometimes need to be built hundreds or even thousands of miles away" — requiring long transmission lines. Sandhya Ganapathy, CEO of EDP Renewables North America, tells the Post that in America, "The grid that we have was never designed to handle this kind of load." And yet last year just 255 miles of new transmission line were built in the U.S., according to the American Clean Power Association. And Ganapathy also complains that approval for a new renewable energy project takes "anywhere between six to eight years" — which makes developers hesitant to build. "Why are we taking a big risk of a massive investment if I will not be able to sell the electrons?" The end result? The Washington Post writes that "Experts once hoped that by the end of the decade the United States could generate up to 80 percent of its power with clean power... Now, some wonder if the country will be able to reach even 60 percent." apply tags__________ 176036859 story [59]EU [60]Researchers Say New Attack Could Take Down the European Power Grid [61](arstechnica.com) [62]20 Posted by [63]BeauHD on Saturday January 25, 2025 @08:00AM from the potentially-problematic dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Late last month, researchers revealed a finding that's likely to shock some people and confirm the low expectations of others: Renewable energy facilities throughout Central Europe use unencrypted radio signals to receive commands to feed or ditch power into or from the grid that serves some 450 million people throughout the continent. Fabian Braunlein and Luca Melette stumbled on their discovery largely by accident while working on what they thought would be a much different sort of hacking project. After observing a radio receiver on the streetlight poles throughout Berlin, they got to wondering: Would it be possible for someone with a central transmitter to control them en masse, and if so, could they create a city-wide light installation along the lines of [64]Project Blinkenlights? The first Project Blinkenlights iteration occurred in 2001 in Berlin, when the lights inside a large building were synchronized to turn on and off to give the appearance of a giant, low-resolution monochrome computer screen. The researchers, who presented their work last month at the [65]38th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany, wondered if they could control streetlights in Berlin to create a city-wide version, though they acknowledged it would likely be viewable only from high altitudes. They didn't know then, but their project was about to undergo a major transformation. After an extensive and painstaking reverse-engineering process that took about a year, Braunlein and Melette learned that they could indeed control the streetlights simply by replaying legitimate messages they observed being sent over the air previously. They then learned something more surprising — the very same system for controlling Berlin's lights was used throughout Central Europe to control other regional infrastructure, including switches that regulate the amount of power renewable electric generation facilities feed into the grid. Collectively, the facilities could generate as much as 40 gigawatts in Germany alone, the researchers estimate. In addition, they estimate that in Germany, 20 GW of loads such as heat pumps and wall boxes are controlled via those receivers. That adds up to 60 GW that might be controllable through radio signals anyone can send. When Braunlein and Melette realized how much power was controlled, they wondered how much damage might result from rogue messages sent simultaneously to multiple power facilities in strategically designed sequences and times of day. By their calculation, an optimally crafted series of messages sent under certain conditions [66]would be enough to bring down the entire European grid. [...] The grid security experts Ars talked to for this story said they're doubtful of the assessment. "A sudden deficit of 60 GW will definitely lead to a brownout because 60 GW is far more than [the] reserves available," said Albert Moser, a RWTH Aachen professor with expertise in power grids. "A sudden deficit of 60 GW could even lead to a blackout due to the very steep fall of frequency that likely cannot be handled fast enough by underfrequency relays (load shedding)." He wasn't able to confirm that 60 GW of generation/load is controlled by radio signals or that security measures for Radio Ripple Control are insufficient. Jan Hoff, a grid security expert, was also doubtful there'd be enough electricity dropped quickly enough to cause a brownout. "He likened the grid to the roly-poly toys from the 1970s, which were built to be knocked around but not fall over," said Ars. apply tags__________ 176036885 story [67]Space [68]Hubble's Largest Panorama Ever Showcases 200 Million Stars [69](techspot.com) [70]3 Posted by [71]BeauHD on Saturday January 25, 2025 @05:00AM from the do-you-feel-small-yet dept. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has [72]released the [73]largest ever photomosaic featuring over 200 million stars -- all of which are bright than our own Sun. It consists of over 600 overlapping Hubble images and 2.5 billion pixels. "That is a huge number, yet only a fraction of the estimated one trillion stars in the Andromeda galaxy," reports TechSpot. "Many of Andromeda's less massive stars are beyond Hubble's sensitivity limit and thus, are not represented in the imaged." "NASA has multiple sizes of the panoramic available for download, including the full-size [74]203 MB image (42,208 x 9,870) and a more user friendly [75]9 MB variant (10,552 x 2,468)." apply tags__________ 176036771 story [76]Medicine [77]Ultra-Fast Cancer Treatments Could Replace Conventional Radiotherapy [78](bbc.com) [79]18 Posted by [80]BeauHD on Saturday January 25, 2025 @02:00AM from the pioneering-treatments dept. CERN's particle accelerator is being used in a pioneering cancer treatment called [81]Flash radiotherapy. This method delivers ultra-high radiation doses in less than a second, minimizes side effects while [82]targeting tumors more effectively than conventional radiotherapy. The BBC reports: In a series of vast underground caverns on the outskirts of Geneva, Switzerland, experiments are taking place which may one day lead to new generation of radiotherapy machines. The hope is that these devices could make it possible to cure [83]complex brain tumors (PDF), [84]eliminate cancers that have metastasized to distant organs, and generally limit the toll which cancer treatment exerts on the human body. The home of these experiments is the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (Cern), best known to the world as the particle physics hub that developed the Large Hadron Collider, a 27 kilometer (16.7 mile)-long ring of superconducting magnets capable of accelerating particles to near the speed of light. Arguably Cern's crowning achievement was the [85]2012 discovery of the Higgs boson, the so-called "God Particle" which gives other particles their mass and in doing so lays the foundation for everything that exists in the universe. But in recent years, the centre's unique expertise in accelerating high-energy particles has found a new niche -- the world of cancer radiotherapy. Eleven years ago, Marie-Catherine Vozenin, a radiobiologist now working at Geneva University Hospitals (Hug), and others published a paper outlining a paradigm-shifting approach to traditional radiotherapy treatment which they called Flash. By delivering radiation at ultra-high dose rates, with exposures of less than a second, they showed that it was possible to destroy tumors in rodents while sparing healthy tissue. Its impact was immediate. International experts [86]described it as a seminal breakthrough, and it galvanized fellow radiobiologists around the world to conduct their own experiments using the Flash approach to treat a wide variety of tumors in rodents, household pets, and now humans. In recent years, animal studies have repeatedly shown that Flash makes it possible to markedly increase the amount of radiation delivered to the body while minimizing the impact that it has on surrounding healthy tissue. In one experiment, healthy lab mice which were [87]given two rounds of radiation via Flash did not develop the typical side effects which would be expected during the second round. In another study, animals treated with Flash for head and neck cancers experienced fewer side effects, such as reduced saliva production or difficulty swallowing. Loo is cautiously optimistic that going forwards, such benefits may also translate to human patients. "Flash produces less normal tissue injury than conventional irradiation, without compromising anti-tumor efficacy -- which could be game-changing," he says. An additional hope is that this could then [88]reduce the risk of secondary cancers (PDF), resulting from radiation-induced damage later in life, although it is still too early to know if that will be the case. [...] But the next phase of research is not only about testing whether Flash works in people. It's also about identifying which kind of radiation is the best one to use. apply tags__________ 176036705 story [89]Transportation [90]US Reviewing Automatic Emergency Braking Rule [91](reuters.com) [92]123 Posted by [93]BeauHD on Friday January 24, 2025 @10:30PM from the not-so-fast dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A U.S. auto safety agency said on Friday it is reconsidering a [94]landmark rule from the administration of former President Joe Biden [95]requiring nearly all new cars and trucks by 2029 to have advanced automatic emergency braking systems. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it would delay the effective date to March 20 to give the new Trump administration time to further review the regulation. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, representing General Motors, Toyota Motor, Volkswagen and other automakers, last week filed suit to block the rule, saying the regulation is "practically impossible with available technology." The group asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to overturn the rule, saying the requirement that cars and trucks must be able to stop and avoid striking vehicles in front of them at up to 62 miles per hour (100 kph) is unrealistic. It unsuccessfully asked NHTSA last year to reconsider the rule. Come 2029, all cars sold in the U.S. "must be able to stop and avoid contact with a vehicle in front of them at speeds up to 62 mph," reports [96]Car and Driver." "Additionally, the system must be able to detect pedestrians in both daylight and darkness. As a final parameter, the [97]federal standard will require the system to apply the brakes automatically up to 90 mph when a collision is imminent, and up to 45 mph when a pedestrian is detected." According to the NHTSA, the rule will save at least 360 lives annually and prevent more than 24,000 injuries. apply tags__________ 176036639 story [98]Graphics [99]Nvidia Starts Phasing Out Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs [100](tomshardware.com) [101]13 Posted by [102]BeauHD on Friday January 24, 2025 @09:10PM from the beginning-of-the-end dept. As spotted by Tom's Hardware, Nvidia's CUDA 12.8 [103]release notes signal the transition of Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs to the legacy driver branch. As a result, there will be [104]no more new feature updates for these architectures; however, CUDA and gaming driver support will remain for now. From the report: It's crucial to highlight that this has nothing to do with GeForce gaming driver support. In fact, Maxwell and Pascal continue to be on the support list for the GeForce RTX series driver, unlike Kepler. Nvidia didn't detail whether or when it'll drop support for Maxwell, Pascal, and Volta GPUs for the gaming driver. Nvidia has not issued an exact date for the end of full support for these three GPU architectures, but it will soon. The current CUDA toolkit still supports the three affected architectures, but they won't receive future updates. Once the move goes through, the only remaining GTX-series GPUs with full support will be the GTX 16-series, based on the RTX 20-series' Turing architecture. apply tags__________ 176036605 story [105]United Kingdom [106]British Museum Forced To Partly Close After Alleged IT Attack By Former Employee [107](theguardian.com) [108]12 Posted by [109]BeauHD on Friday January 24, 2025 @08:30PM from the great-job-Einstein dept. The British Museum was partly closed after a dismissed IT contractor trespassed, [110]shutting down systems including its ticketing platform. The move disrupted operations and forced the closure of temporary exhibitions. The Guardian reports: While the museum will remain open this weekend, only a handful of ticket holders will be able to access its paid-for exhibitions, such as its Silk Roads show, because the IT system that manages bookings has been rendered unusable. The incident caused chaos in the middle of a busy Friday afternoon and is the latest security issue to blight the institution. A statement on the museum's website on Friday said that "due to an IT infrastructure issue some galleries have had to be closed. Please note that this means capacity will be limited, and priority will be given to members and pre-booked ticket holders. Currently our exhibitions remain closed." apply tags__________ 176036581 story [111]Science [112]Microplastics Block Blood Flow in the Brain, Mouse Study Reveals [113](nature.com) [114]23 Posted by msmash on Friday January 24, 2025 @07:51PM from the plastic-panic dept. Scientists have observed for the first time how microplastics move through and [115]block blood vessels in mouse brains, according to research published in Science Advances this week. Using fluorescence imaging, researchers at Peking University tracked plastic particles as they were consumed by immune cells and accumulated in brain blood vessels, causing obstructions that persisted for up to four weeks and reduced blood flow. The study found that these blockages, which behaved similarly to blood clots, decreased the mice's mobility for several days. apply tags__________ 176036525 story [116]Privacy [117]UnitedHealth Data Breach Hits 190 Million Americans in Worst Healthcare Hack [118](techcrunch.com) [119]26 Posted by msmash on Friday January 24, 2025 @07:10PM from the burying-big-news-to-Friday dept. Nearly 190 million Americans were affected by February's cyberattack on UnitedHealth's Change Healthcare unit, [120]almost double initial estimates, the company disclosed Friday. The breach, the [121]largest in U.S. medical history, exposed sensitive data including Social Security numbers, medical records, and financial information. UnitedHealth said it has not detected misuse of the stolen data or found medical databases among compromised files. Change Healthcare, a major U.S. healthcare claims processor, paid multiple ransoms after Russian-speaking hackers known as ALPHV breached its systems using stolen credentials lacking multi-factor authentication, according to CEO Andrew Witty's testimony to Congress. apply tags__________ 176036435 story [122]Businesses [123]Crypto Czar David Sacks Says NFTs and Memecoins Are Collectibles, Not Securities [124](fortune.com) [125]49 Posted by msmash on Friday January 24, 2025 @06:30PM from the how-about-that dept. Non-fungible tokens and memecoins are [126]neither securities nor commodities, according to White House crypto czar David Sacks. Instead, he defines them as "collectibles." From a report: "It's like a baseball card or a stamp," Sacks said in an interview with Fox Business on Thursday, referencing Trump's explosively popular memecoin. "People buy it because they want to commemorate something." The famous venture capitalist's comments touched on a long-running debate about the crypto industry in general: how exactly to treat different digital assets. Some argue that digital assets are securities, which are tradable financial assets like stocks. But others say they're commodities, or raw materials that can be bought and sold, like gold and wheat. The classification differences have vast regulatory implications. "There's a few different categories here, so defining the market structure is important," said Sacks. apply tags__________ 176035681 story [127]AI [128]Apple Enlists Veteran Software Executive To Help Fix AI and Siri [129](yahoo.com) [130]27 Posted by [131]BeauHD on Friday January 24, 2025 @05:50PM from the pulling-out-the-big-guns dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Apple executive Kim Vorrath, a company veteran known for fixing troubled products and bringing major projects to market, has a new job: [132]whipping artificial intelligence and Siri into shape. Vorrath, a vice president in charge of program management, was moved to Apple's artificial intelligence and machine learning division this week, according to people with knowledge of the matter. She'll be a top deputy to AI chief John Giannandrea, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the change hasn't been announced publicly. The move helps bolster a team that's racing to make Apple a leader in AI -- an area where it's fallen behind technology peers. [...] Vorrath, who has spent 36 years at Apple, is known for managing the development of tough software projects. She's also put procedures in place that can catch and fix bugs. Vorrath joins the new team from Apple's hardware engineering division, where she helped launch the Vision Pro headset. Over the years, Vorrath has had a hand in several of Apple's biggest endeavors. In the mid-2000s, she was chosen to lead project management for the original iPhone software group and get the iconic device ready for consumers. Until 2019, she oversaw project management for the iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems, before taking on the Vision Pro software. Haley Allen will replace Vorrath overseeing program management for visionOS, the headset's operating system, according to the people. Prior to joining Giannandrea's organization, Vorrath had spent several weeks advising Kelsey Peterson, the group's previous head of program management. Peterson will now report to Vorrath -- as will two other AI executives, Cindy Lin and Marc Schonbrun. Giannandrea, who joined Apple from Google in 2018, disclosed the changes in a memo sent to staffers. The move signals that AI is now more important than the Vision Pro, which launched in February 2024, and is seen as the biggest challenge within the company, according to a longtime Apple executive who asked not to be identified. Vorrath has a knack for organizing engineering groups and creating an effective workflow with new processes, the executive said. It has been clear for some time now that Giannandrea needs additional help managing an AI group with growing prominence, according to the executive. Vorrath is poised to bring Apple's product development culture to the AI work, the person said. apply tags__________ 176035603 story [133]Cellphones [134]Ask Slashdot: What Matters When Buying a New Smartphone? [135]109 Posted by [136]BeauHD on Friday January 24, 2025 @05:10PM from the show-and-tell dept. Longtime Slashdot reader [137]shanen writes: What matters to you when buying a new smartphone? How can we make the recurring topic relevant without more SCREAMS about "dupe"? I do have a bit of recent research I could share -- quite a bit of fresh data since my latest search started a couple of months ago. Or perhaps I could start with a summary of the useful bits from an ancient [138]Ask Slashdot discussion about batteries? Seems funny to ask about relevant books, even though two come to mind already. One is [139]The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt, where he argues that smartphone use by preadolescents is destroying their personalities. The other is [140]Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who doesn't actually say much about them, but I still think they should have been included in the the big table of examples at the end of the prologue. The "system" of smartphones is antifragile, even though the earliest models were quite fragile. The essence of this question is about which current smartphone models are the most robust... Maybe I should include a list of my own criteria so far? However, would would just be responses to the problems with my current Samsung Galaxy and the Oppo I had before that. I've already determined that the two main problems with those models don't exist with any of the current options offered by my phone company... And the ancient battery problems are still lurking, too. apply tags__________ 176035555 story [141]Television [142]Netflix's Cloud Plans Include Co-Op and Party Games [143](theverge.com) [144]7 Posted by [145]BeauHD on Friday January 24, 2025 @04:30PM from the what-to-expect dept. Netflix [146]plans to expand its cloud gaming offerings to [147]include couch co-op and party games, according to co-CEO Greg Peters. The company will also continue developing narrative games based on its IP, despite recent leadership changes and the [148]closure of its AAA game studio. The Verge reports: In the blog post, Netflix notes that it's a "limited" beta test, so it seems like this won't be available to too many people to start. (Netflix used that same "limited" language with the initial launch in Canada and the UK.) Like with the original test, the only two games available to stream are Oxenfree from Netflix's own Night School Studio and another game titled Molehew's Mining Adventure. If you have access to the service, you'll need to download Netflix's special controller app [149]for your iPhone or Android device to play the game on your TV. (Netflix says the streamed games work on "select devices," including Amazon Fire TV devices, Chromecast with Google TV, Roku devices and TVs, and more.) On the web, you'll be able to play games with a mouse and keyboard. apply tags__________ 176035515 story [150]Games [151]Complexity Physics Finds Crucial Tipping Points In Chess Games [152](arstechnica.com) [153]11 Posted by [154]BeauHD on Friday January 24, 2025 @03:50PM from the complex-dynamics dept. An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The game of chess has long been central to computer science and AI-related research, most notably in IBM's Deep Blue in the 1990s and, more recently, AlphaZero. But the game is about more than algorithms, according to Marc Barthelemy, a physicist at the Paris-Saclay University in France, with layers of depth arising from the psychological complexity conferred by player strategies. Now, Barthelmey has taken things one step further by publishing a [155]new paper in the journal Physical Review E that treats chess as a complex system, producing a handy metric that [156]can help predict the proverbial "tipping points" in chess matches. [...] For his analysis, Barthelemy chose to represent chess as a decision tree in which each "branch" leads to a win, loss, or draw. Players face the challenge of finding the best move amid all this complexity, particularly midgame, in order to steer gameplay into favorable branches. That's where those crucial tipping points come into play. Such positions are inherently unstable, which is why even a small mistake can have a dramatic influence on a match's trajectory. Barthelemy has re-imagined a chess match as a network of forces in which pieces act as the network's nodes, and the ways they interact represent the edges, using an interaction graph to capture how different pieces attack and defend one another. The most important chess pieces are those that interact with many other pieces in a given match, which he calculated by measuring how frequently a node lies on the shortest path between all the node pairs in the network (its "betweenness centrality"). He also calculated so-called "fragility scores," which indicate how easy it is to remove those critical chess pieces from the board. And he was able to apply this analysis to more than 20,000 actual chess matches played by the world's top players over the last 200 years. Barthelemy found that his metric could indeed identify tipping points in specific matches. Furthermore, when he averaged his analysis over a large number of games, an unexpected universal pattern emerged. "We observe a surprising universality: the average fragility score is the same for all players and for all openings," Barthelemy writes. And in famous chess matches, "the maximum fragility often coincides with pivotal moments, characterized by brilliant moves that decisively shift the balance of the game." Specifically, fragility scores start to increase about eight moves before the critical tipping point position occurs and stay high for some 15 moves after that. "These results suggest that positional fragility follows a common trajectory, with tension peaking in the middle game and dissipating toward the endgame," writes Barthelemy. "This analysis highlights the complex dynamics of chess, where the interaction between attack and defense shapes the game's overall structure." apply tags__________ [157]« Newer [158]Older » Slashdot Top Deals Slashdot Top Deals [159]Slashdot Deals Slashdot Poll Your main desktop OS at home is: (*) Windows ( ) Mac ( ) Linux ( ) Other (Whatever Cowboy Neal uses) (BUTTON) vote now [160]Read the 49 comments | 21718 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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