Samsung has unveiled a new RAM module that shows the potential of DDR5 memory in terms of speed and capacity. Engadget reports: The 512GB DDR5 module is the first to use High-K Metal Gate (HKMG) tech, delivering 7,200 Mbps speeds -- over double that of DDR4, Samsung said. Right now, it's aimed at data-hungry supercomputing, AI and machine learning functions, but DDR5 will eventually find its way to regular PCs, boosting gaming and other applications. Developed by Intel, it uses hafnium instead of silicon, with metals replacing the normal polysilicon gate electrodes. All of that allows for higher chip densities, while reducing current leakage.

Each chip uses eight layers of 16Gb DRAM chips for a capacity of 128Gb, or 16GB. As such, Samsung would need 32 of those to make a 512GB RAM module. On top of the higher speeds and capacity, Samsung said that the chip uses 13 percent less power than non-HKMG modules -- ideal for data centers, but not so bad for regular PCs, either. With 7,200 Mbps speeds, Samsung's latest module would deliver around 57.6 GB/s transfer speeds on a single channel.

The country's poorer communities often lack access to tech equipment. Teams that recruit low-income players are providing another path to economic mobility. From a report: On the outskirts of the most diverse cities in Brazil lie neighborhoods that climb steep hills and stretch for miles. These neighborhoods often have a precarious structure -- houses built side by side, with no apparent order, and only small corridors that are poorly lit. It is in these favelas that thousands of Brazil's youth dedicate hours and hours of their days to esports, with the dream of making it big in the industry. Projections point to a market that, in 2023, should surpass $1.5 billion, and in Brazil even traditional football teams such as Vasco da Gama and Flamengo have begun to assemble esports teams in games such as League of Legends and Pro Evolution Soccer. The top athletes win millions of dollars in prizes, while the average salary of a professional League of Legends player exceeds $400,000 per year.

Brazil is an extremely unequal country with an immense social abyss -- about 25 percent of the Brazilian population is considered poor, according to the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. Social inequality in Brazil, according to the Gini index (used by the World Bank to measure inequality among countries or groups of people), has increased in recent years. In regions like the northeast, almost half the population lives in extreme poverty on less than $1.90 a day. This inequality is also reflected in the country's esports industry. The basic items an esports athlete or streamer needs -- access to the internet and quality equipment -- is not always available for those living in the favelas. In an extremely competitive environment where fractions of a second can make all the difference and lead to a victory, slow internet and outdated equipment can be fatal to success. There are immense differences between those living in the favela and those in the "asphalt" -- that is, people living outside poor communities, who have access to better schools, health services, and greater purchasing power, and who often frown upon those from the favela.

As it faces a barrage of probes and investigations regarding the App Store and the distribution of apps on its devices, Apple has told Australia's consumer watchdog that developers have "multiple" ways to reach iOS users and claims that they are "far from limited" to simply using the App Store. From a report: In a new filing responding to concerns from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission that it exploits "alleged market power in its role as a distributor of apps," Apple highlights multiple avenues that developers can take to reach customers. Specifically, Apple points out that the "whole web" exists as an alternative means of distribution, arguing that the web has become a platform unto itself. Apple supports this claim by noting that iOS devices have "unrestricted and uncontrolled" access to the web, allowing users to download web apps. Apple says: Web browsers are used not only as a distribution portal but also as platforms themselves, hosting "progressive web applications" (PWAs) that eliminate the need to download a developer's app through the App Store (or other means) at all. PWAs are increasingly available for and through mobile-based browsers and devices, including on iOS. [...] As explained further below, Apple faces competitive constraints from distribution alternatives within the iOS ecosystem (including developer websites and other outlets through which consumers may obtain third-party apps and use them on their iOS devices) and outside iOS. Prominent iOS developer Marco Arment commented on Apple's argument, saying: LOL

The team that in 2019 brought you the first image of a black hole is now offering a new twist on that iconic view. From a report: The thin lines spiraling toward the central black hole shadow in the image above show emissions with different polarizations -- the direction in which light waves vibrate. Light is polarized if it passes through a magnetic field, so the spiraling lines point to the twisting magnetic field lines near the black hole's event horizon. As the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) team describes today in a pair of papers in Astrophysical Journal, the new picture uses the same data as in the original image, produced from a series of observations in 2017 of the supermassive black hole at the core of nearby galaxy M87, using the combined collecting power of eight radio observatories across the world. To extract the polarization information, the data have gone through many months of additional analysis.

Seeing the magnetic field will help astrophysicists solve an enduring mystery: how matter, sucked in from a swirling disk around the black hole's equator, can sometimes feed a powerful jet of matter and energy spewing from its poles. M87's black hole has a jet that extends 5000 light-years away from the galaxy. The EHT team says the orientation of the magnetic field lines suggests they help push matter outward, against the pull of the black hole's gravity, a process that may funnel some of it toward the jet.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Intel made several big announcements about its 7nm tech at this week's Intel Unleashed: Engineering the Future event and divulged that it expects that the majority of its products in 2023 to still be produced in-house using its own manufacturing technology. But there's a caveat: Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger said the company will also release "leadership CPU products" in 2023 with CPU cores that are fabricated with an unspecified process node from third-party foundry TSMC, and those CPUs will come to both the client and data center markets. This development comes on the heels of Intel's announcement last year that its 7nm process was delayed, possibly forcing it to do the unthinkable -- turn to external foundries to produce its core logic, like CPUs and GPUs, for the first time in the company's history.

The newest announcements mean that, in addition to the 7nm Meteor Lake desktop chips and Granite Rapids data center processors that Intel will produce with its own process technology in 2023, the company will also release other lines of CPUs in 2023 that will use CPU cores with an as-yet-unspecified process node from TSMC. Intel noted that the chips that utilize TSMC's third-party process tech will power Intel's "CPU leadership" products for both the client and data center markets, suggesting a split product stack. Intel says that the majority of its products in 2023 will come manufactured with its own process technology. Still, it's important to note that Intel hasn't specified that the majority of the newly-released 2023 products will come with its own 7nm process. Naturally, Intel will still have plenty of chip production volume centered on its 14nm and 10nm process tech in that timeframe, and even older nodes that still ship in large volumes. Further reading: Intel To Spend $20 Billion To Build Two New Chip Fabs In Arizona.

Sidestepping a crackdown on internet use since the military seized power almost two months ago, hundreds of thousands of protesters and citizens in Myanmar are finding different ways to communicate online, downloading tools to bypass censorship restrictions and turning to alternative media sources and underground networks, according to new research. From a report: They have moved to a mirror site of Facebook on the dark web, used apps that rely on Bluetooth technology to continue messaging each other and turned to lesser known social media platforms to stay connected, according to Recorded Future, a closely held cybersecurity firm based near Boston. Myanmar citizens are following the lead of protesters in Hong Kong, Belarus and elsewhere who have found creative ways around government internet restrictions. Protesters from some of those countries are now providing guidance and support to Myanmar, and online forums are offering tips on how its citizens can stay connected. "In the history of Myanmar and all the coups they've experienced and all this political upheaval, it looks to be the first time the people really had this type of access to alternative platforms, and have used it to reach out to international organizations and other countries for help," said Charity Wright, cyber threat intelligence analyst at Recorded Future, who has been studying the impact of the crackdown on the internet for the past month and a half.

WhatsApp's planned policy changes aren't sailing smoothly in India, the instant messaging service's biggest market by users. From a report: Indian antitrust body, Competition Commission of India, on Wednesday ordered an investigation into WhatsApp's privacy policy changes, saying that Facebook-owned service breached local antitrust laws in the guise of a policy update. The Indian watchdog has ordered nation's Director General (DG) to investigate WhatsApp's new policy to "ascertain the full extent, scope and impact of data sharing through involuntary consent of users." The Director General has been ordered to complete the investigation and submit the report within 60 days. In its order, the Indian watchdog said WhatsApp's "take-it-or-leave-it" nature of privacy policy and terms of service "merit a detailed investigation in view of the market position and market power enjoyed by WhatsApp."

The OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro are OnePlus' newest smartphones powered by Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 888 chipset. The flagship device is the OnePlus 9 Pro, featuring a 120Hz LPTO curved display, 8GB of RAM, 128GB storage, Hasselblad-branded cameras, and a starting price of $969. If that price is too much to stomach, the OnePlus 9 features slightly lower-end specs and a more affordable $729 starting price. The Verge has already called the OnePlus 9 Pro "the best Android alternative to Samsung." From the report: OnePlus spent much of its announcement talking about the cameras on the new phones, which have been developed in partnership with Hasselblad. OnePlus says the colors have been tuned to look more natural and that the ultrawide sensor on the 9 Pro and 9 is one of the biggest to ever ship on a smartphone. The ultrawide uses a 50-megapixel Sony IMX766 sensor that's 1/1.56" in size with an aperture of f/2.2. Meanwhile, the 9 Pro's main Sony IMX789 sensor has a resolution of 48 megapixels and is 1/1.43" in size. (The regular 9 has a Sony IMX689 sensor, but it has the same resolution of 48 megapixels.) Both have a 2-megapixel monochrome sensor and 16-megapixel selfie camera, but only the 9 Pro has an 8-megapixel telephoto.

As previously announced, the 9 Pro has a 1440p 120Hz curved display that makes use of LPTO technology to adjust its refresh rate between 1 and 120Hz based on the content being displayed on-screen, reducing power consumption by "up to 50 percent." OnePlus also claims it should feel more responsive to use in games that support its Hyper Touch technology. The screen has a maximum brightness of 1300 nits and supports HDR10+. Meanwhile, the OnePlus 9 has a flat rather than curved display. It's not LTPO, it's slightly less bright at 1,100 nits, and it's also lower resolution at 1080p. It's still got a refresh rate of 120Hz, however. Additionally, both phones support Warp Charge 65T, which OnePlus claims should be able to charge the phones' 4,500mAh batteries to 100 percent in under half an hour. The 9 Pro and 9 can also charge wirelessly at up to 50W and 15W, respectively. Both phones will go on sale on April 2nd, with preorders starting March 26th.

Samsung is reportedly working on a double-folding phone to add to its lineup, according to Nikkei Asia. From the report: According to the article, the phone would fold into three segments using two hinges and could be announced "as early as the end of this year." The phone would be a third option in Samsung's foldable lineup, joining the Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip, both of which are also expected to appear in new versions this year. According to the report, the design is still being finalized, but Nikkei's sources say its screen could have a more standard 16:9 or 18:9 aspect ratio, making it easier for app makers to design for than the 25:9 screen found on the Z Fold. [...] It's possible that Samsung is introducing the new type of foldable to ease its power users into a transition to the form factor. Samsung says it might be skipping a new Galaxy Note this year but wasn't exactly clear on why. There was talk of streamlining its phone offerings and of the global chip shortage, but this could be a test to see if Note users are ready for the fold. By giving customers three foldable options to choose from, Samsung could be trying to make it as likely as possible that people will find one that works for them.

A law professor serving on the EFF's board of directors (and advisory boards for the Electronic Privacy Information Center and the Center for Democracy and Technology) offers this analysis of "the push for stricter rules for internet platforms," reviewing proposed changes to the liability-limiting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — and speculating about what the changes would accomplish: Short of repeal, several initiatives aim to change section 230. Eleven bills have been introduced in the Senate and nine in the House of Representatives to amend section 230 in various ways.... Some would widen the categories of harmful conduct for which section 230 immunity is unavailable. At present, section 230 does not apply to user-posted content that violates federal criminal law, infringes intellectual property rights, or facilitates sex trafficking. One proposal would add to this list violations of federal civil laws.

Some bills would condition section 230 immunity on compliance with certain conditions or make it unavailable if the platforms engage in behavioral advertising. Others would require platforms to spell out their content moderation policies with particularity in their terms of service (TOS) and would limit section 230 immunity to TOS violations. Still others would allow users whose content was taken down in "bad faith" to bring a lawsuit to challenge this and be awarded $5,000 if the challenge was successful. Some bills would impose due process requirements on platforms concerning removal of user-posted content. Other bills seek to regulate platform algorithms in the hope of stopping the spread of extremist content or in the hope of eliminating biases...

Neither legislation nor an FCC rule-making may be necessary to significantly curtail section 230 as a shield from liability. Conservative Justice Thomas has recently suggested a reinterpretation of section 230 that would support imposing liability on Internet platforms as "distributors" of harmful content... Section 230, after all, shields these services from liability as "speakers" and "publishers," but is silent about possible "distributor" liability. Endorsing this interpretation would be akin to adopting the notice-and-takedown rules that apply when platforms host user-uploaded files that infringe copyrights.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Beeftopia for sharing the article, which ultimately concludes: - Notice-and-takedown regimes have long been problematic because false or mistaken notices are common and platforms often quickly take-down challenged content, even if it is lawful, to avoid liability...

- For the most part, these platforms promote free speech interests of their users in a responsible way. Startup and small nonprofit platforms would be adversely affected by some of the proposed changes insofar as the changes would enable more lawsuits against platforms for third-party content. Fighting lawsuits is costly, even if one wins on the merits.

- Much of the fuel for the proposed changes to section 230 has come from conservative politicians who are no longer in control of the Senate.

- The next Congress will have a lot of work to do. Section 230 reform is unlikely to be a high priority in the near term. Yet, some adjustments to that law seem quite likely over time because platforms are widely viewed as having too much power over users' speech and are not transparent or consistent about their policies and practices.

The New York Times reports: Not long ago Volkswagen was a global pariah after pleading guilty to the biggest emissions fraud in automotive history. Now it is the toast of the stock market, with its shares worth twice as much as they were a year ago.

What happened?

Ironically, Volkswagen's misdeeds helped pave the way for its reversal of fortune... The financial commitment Volkswagen made then, when sales of electric vehicles were minimal, is paying off now as the company rolls out a line of vehicles developed from the ground up to run on batteries, with more interior space and more appeal than adaptations of gasoline vehicles... Investors have noticed, lighting up online stock forums with chatter about Volkswagen and rewarding other established carmakers, like General Motors and Ford Motor, that are pivoting to electric propulsion. Shares of Tesla, on the other hand, have slipped. Tesla is still the most valuable car company in the world by a wide margin, but investors are no longer as certain that Tesla will have the fast-growing electric car market to itself...

Volkswagen also benefited from a report issued this month by analysts at UBS, the Swiss bank, which rated it as the traditional carmaker best positioned to compete with Tesla because it already has the ability to mass-produce electric cars economically... With 665,000 employees and sales of 9.3 million vehicles last year, Volkswagen is the second-largest carmaker in the world after Toyota. It can spread the cost of developing new technologies over millions of vehicles and undercut Tesla on price. By 2025, Volkswagen will be able to produce electric vehicles for less than it costs to build a gasoline or diesel car, UBS analysts wrote in this month's report.

They cautioned that Tesla retains a significant lead in battery technology and autonomous driving software.
Sales of electric VW cars tripled last year, to 230,000 vehicles, the article points out — noting that that's just the beginning. This week VW also announced plans to employ 10,000 software engineers to work on new technologies including autonomous driving, becoming the second-biggest software company in all of Europe.

"The diesel scandal remains a financial burden. The company disclosed in its annual report this week that potential liabilities from lawsuits, such as one by shareholders claiming the company misled them, could cost 4.2 billion euros, or $5 billion. That is in addition to the tens of billions of euros Volkswagen has already paid in fines and settlements since 2017 after admitting that it programmed diesel cars to produce lower emissions in testing conditions than in normal use."

But "Investors this week were focusing on Volkswagen's future rather than its past..."

For 30 years David E. Sanger has been covering foreign policy and nuclear proliferation for The New York Times — twice working on Pulitzer Prize-winning teams. But now as American and Chinese officials meet in Alaska, Sanger argues that China's power doesn't come from weapons — nuclear or otherwise: Instead, it arises from their expanding economic might and how they use their government-subsidized technology to wire nations be it Latin America or the Middle East, Africa or Eastern Europe, with 5G wireless networks intended to tie them ever closer to Beijing. It comes from the undersea cables they are spooling around the world so that those networks run on Chinese-owned circuits. Ultimately, it will come from how they use those networks to make other nations dependent on Chinese technology. Once that happens, the Chinese could export some of their authoritarianism by, for example, selling other nations facial recognition software that has enabled them to clamp down on dissent at home.

Which is why Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden's national security adviser, who was with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken for the meeting with their Chinese counterparts in Anchorage, warned in a series of writings in recent years that it could be a mistake to assume that China plans to prevail by directly taking on the United States military in the Pacific. "The central premises of this alternative approach would be that economic and technological power is fundamentally more important than traditional military power in establishing global leadership," he wrote, "and that a physical sphere of influence in East Asia is not a necessary precondition for sustaining such leadership...."

Part of the goal of the Alaska meeting was to convince the Chinese that the Biden administration is determined to compete with Beijing across the board to offer competitive technology, like semiconductor manufacturing and artificial intelligence, even if that means spending billions on government-led research and development projects, and new industrial partnerships with Europe, India, Japan and Australia... But it will take months, at best, to publish a broad new strategy, and it is unclear whether corporate America or major allies will get behind it.

Distribution systems within the U.S. electrical grid are increasingly vulnerable to cyberattack, a government watchdog said in a report released Thursday. The Hill reports: In the report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that the Department of Energy's cybersecurity strategy has predominantly focused on generation and transmission systems. The watchdog recommended further attention to risks facing distribution systems, those parts of the grid that actually carry power directly to customers. Those aspects of the grid, the report states, "are becoming more vulnerable to cyberattacks, in part due of the introduction of and reliance on monitoring and control technologies." "However, the scale of potential impacts from such attacks is not well understood," it states.

Distribution systems' vulnerability is increasing due to their industrial control systems, which have increasingly been incorporating remote access. As a result, they can give bad actors access to them. The systems the report analyzed generally are not covered by federal cybersecurity standards but have in some cases taken independent action on them. Energy Department officials told GAO investigators they were unaware of any assessments underway analyzing how a cyberattack would affect distribution systems, saying the impact would likely be less significant than on generation and transmission. However, the report notes, depending on which distribution was affected it could have nationwide effects.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: A thermonuclear bomb might be ticking deep in the cores of some dead stars. A new theoretical study traces out how certain stellar corpses known as white dwarfs could accumulate a critical mass of uranium that would trigger a massive supernova explosion.

The findings could yield insights into the destruction habits of white dwarfs, which are responsible for creating heavy elements like iron and nickel. White dwarf supernovae light up their surroundings with the power of 5 billion Suns, and astronomers have used them as 'standard candles' to measure vast distances across the cosmos. But such blasts are still not entirely understood, and the new study could account for certain, anomalously dim observations of this type of supernovae. The findings appeared on the preprint server arXiv this month and have been accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters.

Mobile app developer Kosta Eleftheriou, who publicly called out Apple earlier this year for negligence with regard to policing iOS scams and copycat apps on the App Store, has filed a lawsuit against the iPhone maker in California. From a report: He's accusing the company of exploiting its monopoly power over iOS apps "to make billions of dollars in profits at the expense of small application developers and consumers." Eleftheriou's company KPAW LLC, which he co-owns with his partner Ashley Eleftheriou, filed its complaint in Santa Clara County on Wednesday. It details the development and release timeline of Eleftheriou's Apple Watch keyboard app FlickType. At the time he began accusing Apple of abetting App Store scams early last month, Eleftheriou revealed that his FlickType app had been targeted by competing software he says either didn't work well or didn't work at all, and yet nonetheless chipped away at this sales and App Store rankings through false advertising and the purchase of fake reviews. After he complained, he said Apple did not do enough to combat the scams, though Apple did later remove some of the apps he called attention to.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from SlashGear: Nissan has found a second-life for old LEAF batteries inside mobile machines that help workers at Nissan factories worldwide. The old batteries are being used in automated guided vehicles or AGVs used for various tasks inside the manufacturing facilities, including delivering parts to workers on the assembly line.

AGVs are used as robotic mail carriers operating on magnetic tracks taking mail and parts exactly where they're needed on the assembly line. The idea is to use the AGV to deliver parts so the worker doesn't waste time searching for a component and can stay focused on installing parts. Nissan and other automotive manufacturers have found that AGVs are indispensable when it comes to saving time and increasing productivity on the assembly line. Nissan currently operates more than 4000 AGVs around the world at its various manufacturing facilities. The factories have a system that includes 30-second automatic quick charging to keep battery packs on the electric vehicles topped off and working correctly. AGVs also have sensors that keep them operating on a set route and allow them to stop when needed. They also have wireless communications capabilities that enable them to communicate with each other to avoid collisions.

Nissan says that it has been exploring ways to reuse old LEAF batteries since 2010. The first-generation LEAF used a 24-kilowatt hour battery pack made by combining 48 modules. Nissan said eight years ago, its engineers discovered a way to take three of those modules and repackage them to fit inside the AGV. Last year, the engineers began to repurpose used battery modules instead of using new ones to power the AGVs. The team also found the repurposed LEAF batteries last a lot longer thanks to their lithium-ion design compared to the lead-acid batteries used previously.

AmiMoJo shares a report from The Verge: State antitrust watchdogs are targeting Google's plans to phase out third-party tracking cookies, building on a major lawsuit filed last year. The group of 15 attorneys general, led by Texas, updated its complaint about Google yesterday to include a more detailed case against the search giant, including new claims about Google's strategic use of the Chrome browser. In particular, the new complaint takes aim at recent privacy updates to Chrome, which could better protect users' personal data while also entrenching Google's market position.

Like the original Texas complaint, Tuesday's updated filing primarily focuses on Google's technology for targeting ads across the web. The attorneys general argue that Google used its power in search, streaming video, and other markets to stamp out independent advertising platforms, forcing small businesses and media outlets to use its system. But in the updated complaint, the states apply this argument to Google's 'Privacy Sandbox' -- a tool that's supposed to replace invasive third-party tracking cookies with a more limited system devised by Google. "Google's new scheme is, in essence, to wall off the entire portion of the internet that consumers access through Google's Chrome browser," the complaint reads. "Google is trying to hide its true intentions behind a pretext of privacy," the suit continues. With Privacy Sandbox, "Google does not actually put a stop to user profiling or targeted advertising -- it puts Google's Chrome browser at the center of tracking and targeting."

In response, Google said the new allegations rested on a misunderstanding of Chrome's privacy features. "Attorney General Paxton's latest claims mischaracterize many aspects of our business, including the steps we are taking with the Privacy Sandbox initiative to protect people's privacy as they browse the web. These efforts have been welcomed by privacy advocates, advertisers and our own rivals as a step forward in preserving user privacy and protecting free content. We will strongly defend ourselves from AG Paxton's baseless claims in court."

The new generation of Intel Core CPUs is here. Intel is using a new architecture on its ancient 14nm process to power the 11th-generation Rocket Lake-S processors. From a report: That results in some significant power improvements, but it also means that Intel can only fit 8 cores on its flagship Core i9-11900K. That sacrifice to the number of cores looks bad compared to the 12-core AMD Ryzen 9 5900X or even the last-gen 10-core i9-10900K. But Intel is also promising massive improvements to efficiency that should keep the Rocket Lake-S parts competitive -- especially in gaming. Rocket Lake-S CPUs launch March 30. The $539 Core i9-11900K has 8 cores and 16 threads with a single-core Thermal Velocity boost of 5.3GHz and 4.8GHz all-core boost. The slightly more affordable $399 i7-11700K boosts up to 5GHz, and the i5-11600K is $262 with 6 cores at a 4.9GHz boost.

While the lack of cores is going to hurt Rocket Lake-S CPUs in multi-threaded applications, Intel claims that its 19% improvement to instructions per clock (IPC) will make up much of the difference. The UHD graphics processor in the CPUs also deliver 50% better performance than last generation. Of course, Intel is focusing on games because that is where its processors remain the most competitive versus AMD. And that should continue with its Rocket Lake-S chips. These high-clocked parts with improved performance should keep up and even exceed AMD's Zen 3 chips in certain games, like Microsoft's Flight Simulator (according to Intel).

fahrbot-bot shares a report from Electrek: Researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa have chemically modified wood and made it more compressible, turning it into a mini-generator. When compressed, it generates an electrical voltage. Such wood could serve as a biosensor or as a building material that harvests energy.

Ingo Burgert and his team at public research university ETH Zurich and Swiss federal laboratory Empa have proven that wood is much more than just a building material. Their research enhances the properties of wood in order to use it for new applications. For instance, they have already developed high-strength, water-repellent, and magnetizable wood. Now, together with the Empa research group led by Francis Schwarze, the team has used one chemical and one biological process to generate electrical voltage from a type of wood sponge. In doing so, they amplify what is known as the "piezoelectric effect" of wood. The findings appear in the journal Science Advances.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Renewable electricity production needs to grow eight times faster than the current rate to help limit global heating, according to a report. The International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) said urgent action was needed to keep pace with rising demand for electricity, which could require a total investment of $131 trillion in renewables by 2050. Francesco La Camera, the director general of Irena, said the "window of opportunity" to achieve the goals of the Paris climate agreement was closing fast. "The recent trends show that the gap between where we are and where we should be is not decreasing but widening. We are heading in the wrong direction," La Camera said. "We need a drastic acceleration of energy transitions to make a meaningful turnaround. Time will be the most important variable to measure our efforts."

The agency's outlook report says keeping a lid on rising temperatures will require electricity to surpass fossil fuels as the dominant source of energy before 2050, as more economies electrify transport and heating to help cut carbon emissions. Clean electricity will also be in high demand to produce "green hydrogen" to burn in heavy industry and manufacturing plants where direct electrification is not possible. The surge in electricity use could mean that electric power will make up just over half of all energy consumed by 2050, compared with 21% in 2018. Fossil fuels have made up almost two-thirds of energy consumption in recent years but may be reduced to 10% by 2050.