Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

In brief The Agave v4.2 client turned on the first 50ms slot-time cut, from 400ms to 350ms, this week. I- t’s step one of four under the approved SIMD-0525 proposal, each gated to a later epoch so the network can pause if block-skip rates rise. Solana’s goal is a 2x faster confirmation and tighter leader windows that double as a censorship-resistance measure. The speedy Solana network just got faster, upgrading the way transactions on the network are processed for the first time since genesis. What it means is applications on Solana will now confirm transactions a bit quicker—increasing the efficiency…

Who’d be a farmer? Clarkson’s Farm on Amazon is great entertainment but it also gives some indication of the stresses and challenges behind the farm gate. Would anyone who lacked the significant alternative income that Clarkson is lucky to have want that? Well, actually, yes.I’m an entrepreneur who owns a farm, as opposed to hands-on running the small one I bought 25 years ago, but as I look around the industry, I’m struck by a significant fact: the very reason I can be known as the Black Farmer is because I am such a rarity that it makes me readily…

Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least two people early Saturday, local authorities said, a day after a deadly attack on a busy shopping centre. Kyiv City Military Administration reported a fire in a warehouse in the capital’s Darnytskyi district after issuing an alert for a ballistic missile. “According to preliminary information, unfortunately, there is one person dead and several injured,” the administration said on Telegram. In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian drone killed a man and wounded four people, according to the head of the regional military administration Ivan Fedorov. To display this content from YouTube, you…

Laurence Dutton/E+/Getty ImagesFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google.ZDNET’s key takeawaysDeepfakes and AI clones get more sophisticated and harder to detect.Advanced attacks involve long-term infiltration of a company’s systems. Experts recommend low-tech security protocols that offer better defenses.In January 2024, an employee at professional services firm Arup joined a video call with someone they believed included the company’s CFO. This call resulted in 15 wire transfers to third-party accounts totaling about $25m. Every participant on the other side of the video call was an AI-generated clone cobbled together from public appearances and earnings calls of Arup executives.Also: 6 essential…

Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 unveiled a new cryptocurrency phishing campaign known as Operation Asterix, targeting roughly 885,000 phone numbers from several countries to steal cryptocurrency investors’ assets.The phishing campaign led to 5,576 accounts matched to users on crypto exchange Binance, which were queued for attack, while the recovered logs also showed fake emails impersonating Crypto.com, according to a Monday report by Rapid7.Of the 885,000 phone numbers, the largest file included 316,002 German mobile numbers, with additional directories covering Hong Kong, Bulgaria, the UK, the US, Canadian fintech companies and additional Ledger-related lists. Phishing attacks and social engineering scams drove the majority of the…

Researchers at Monash University have predicted an unusual new form of quantum matter that could overturn long-held assumptions about how ultracold particles behave. Their calculations suggest that, under the right conditions, two fundamentally different classes of quantum particles — bosons and fermions — can combine to create stable, self-bound “quantum droplets.” Scientists had previously considered such droplets unlikely to form in strongly interacting Bose-Fermi systems. The findings offer researchers a new theoretical framework for future experiments and could improve scientists’ understanding of quantum materials relevant to emerging technologies, including ultra-precise sensors and quantum computing. A Quantum Droplet That Holds Itself…

Crucial trade talks between the United States and Canada to stave off punishing new tariffs by the Trump administration on Canadian goods collapsed late Friday, with Canada saying it would retaliate “dollar for dollar.”Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada said he had decided to suspend the talks because the American side had introduced last-minute terms that were “unfair, uneconomic, and called into question the reliability of any deal.”He added that the talks, which had been going on for weeks and had intensified in the past few days, had marked important progress but had ultimately “not been enough to meet our…

A Swiss tourist has been sentenced to one year in prison for insulting a sacred religious event on Indonesia’s holiday island of Bali.In a now-removed video, Luzian Andrin Zgraggen, 26, had filmed himself walking to an empty beach during the Hindu holiday of Nyepi, describing the scene as “crazy”.He was arrested in March after the video sparked widespread anger among Balinese on social media. Nyepi, also known as the Day of Silence, is an annual holiday during which the usually bustling tourist island goes quiet, as people stay home and refrain from making loud noises. The restrictions apply to everyone…

When a coroner ruled this month that the Treasury “materially contributed” to Chloe Moffat’s death, her parents breathed out in bittersweet relief. For a year, David and Anne Moffat had been forced to become detectives in the worst case any parent could have to solve: why their daughter took her own life.Chloe, 26, went to her job as a personal assistant at the Treasury on a Monday last May “happy as Larry” after a weekend she’d told her friends was a “10 out of 10”. She was planning a holiday with her sister, Alice, and arranging for friends to come…

For many watching Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial, the primary takeaway has been how the deaths of her three small children—Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callen, eight months—were tragically preventable.Lawyers for the Massachusetts nurse are arguing that she’s not criminally responsible for strangling her children, because she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis, a rare mental health condition that causes new mothers to experience delusions and intrusive thoughts. Defense attorney Kevin Reddington has put Lindsay’s health care providers on the stand, in an attempt to demonstrate how his client repeatedly sought help for her terrifying thoughts, only for her to be minimized,…