West Sussex County Council is using up to $31 million from the sale of capital assets to fund an Oracle-based transformation project, originally budgeted at $3.2 million but now expected to cost nearly $50 million due to delays and cost overruns. The project, intended to replace a 20-year-old SAP system with a SaaS-based HR and finance system, has faced multiple setbacks, renegotiated contracts, and a new systems integrator, with completion now pushed to December 2025. The Register reports: West Sussex County Council is taking advantage of the so-called "flexible use of capital receipts scheme" introduced in 2016 by the UK government to allow councils to use money from the sale of assets such as land, offices, and housing to fund projects that result in ongoing revenue savings. An example of the asset disposals that might contribute to the project -- set to see the council move off a 20-year-old SAP system -- comes from the sale of a former fire station in Horley, advertised for $3.1 million.

Meanwhile, the delays to the project, which began in November 2019, forced the council to renegotiate its terms with Oracle, at a cost of $3 million. The council had expected the new SaaS-based HR and finance system to go live in 2021, and signed a five-year license agreement until June 2025. The plans to go live were put back to 2023, and in the spring of 2024 delayed again until December 2025. According to council documents published this week [PDF], it has "approved the variation of the contract with Oracle Corporation UK Limited" to cover the period from June 2025 to June 2028 and an option to extend again to the period June 2028 to 2030. "The total value of the proposed variation is $2.96 million if the full term of the extension periods are taken," the council said.

AmiMoJo shares a report: Two hundred UK companies have signed up for a permanent four-day working week for all their employees with no loss of pay, in the latest landmark in the campaign to reinvent Britain's working week. Together the companies employ more than 5,000 people, with charities, marketing and technology firms among the best-represented, according to the latest update from the 4 Day Week Foundation. Proponents of the four-day week say that the five-day pattern is a hangover from an earlier economic age.

Joe Ryle, the foundation's campaign director, said that the "9-5, five-day working week was invented 100 years ago and is no longer fit for purpose. We are long overdue an update." With "50% more free time, a four-day week gives people the freedom to live happier, more fulfilling lives," he continued. "As hundreds of British companies and one local council have already shown, a four-day week with no loss of pay can be a win-win for both workers and employers."

2021: "Automotive Startup Canoo Debuts a Snub-Nosed Electric Pickup"
2025: Canoo "Goes Belly-Up After Moving to Texas"

"Its production volumes paled in comparison to Canoo's rate of cash burn, which was substantial, with net losses in 2023 totaling just over $300 million..." reports AutoWeek. "It was able to deliver small batches of vans to a few customers, but apparently remained distant from anything approaching volume production."

"Back in 2020, electric vehicle maker Canoo snagged a $2.4 billion valuation before it had shipped a single car," remembers SFGate. "Now, just months after yanking its headquarters from Los Angeles County to Texas, the company has gone belly-up." In its four-year span as a public company, Canoo battled investor lawsuits, Securities and Exchange Commission charges, executive departures and a mixed reception of its cars. Auto tech blogger Steven Symes recently likened Canoo's cargo-style van to an "eraser on wheels."
"Canoo is the latest EV startup to go bankrupt after merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as a shortcut to going public," notes TechCrunch. "Electric Last Mile Solutions was the first in June 2022. But since then, Fisker, Lordstown Motors, Proterra, Lion Electric, and Arrival all filed for different levels of bankruptcy protection in their various home countries." In the years since it went public, [Canoo] made a small number of its bubbly electric vans and handed them over to partners — some paying — willing to trial the vehicles. The U.S. Postal Service, Department of Defense, and NASA all have or had Canoo vehicles.

The British Museum was partly closed after a dismissed IT contractor trespassed, 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."

Netflix plans to expand its cloud gaming offerings to 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 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 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.

Battery cars on Britain's roads are lasting as long as petrol and diesel cars, according to a study that has found a rapid improvement in electric vehicle reliability. From a report: An international team of researchers has estimated that an electric car will have a lifespan of 18.4 years, compared with 18.7 years for petrol cars and 16.8 years for diesels, according to a peer-reviewed study published on Friday in the journal Nature Energy. The findings were based on 300m records from compulsory annual MOT tests of roadworthiness.

Automotive engineers have long suspected electric cars will be more reliable than petrol or diesel cars, because they contain many fewer moving parts. Data has been limited, however, because the earliest mass-market electric cars are only just reaching the end of their lives. The researchers, from the University of Birmingham, the London School of Economics, the University of California San Diego, and the University of Bern, Switzerland, used MOT data to estimate the failure rate of all cars -- ignoring scrappage in the first few years, which is most likely to be related to accidents. The analysis found that Tesla cars had the longest lifespan among battery cars.

Google will take firmer action against British businesses that use fake reviews to boost their star ratings on the search giant's reviews platform. From a report: The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced on Friday that Google has agreed to improve its processes for detecting and removing fake reviews, and will take action against the businesses and reviewers that post them.

This includes deactivating the ability to add new reviews for businesses found to be using fake reviews, and deleting all existing reviews for at least six months if they repeatedly engage in suspicious review activity. Google will also place prominent "warning alerts" on the Google profiles of businesses using fake reviews to help consumers be more aware of potentially misleading feedback. Individuals who repeatedly post fake or misleading reviews on UK business pages will be banned and have their review history deleted, even if they're located in another country.

Britain's competition watchdog launched investigations into Apple and Google's mobile ecosystems on Thursday under new powers to tackle digital market abuses that took effect this year. The Competition and Markets Authority will examine whether the tech giants' control over operating systems, app stores and browsers constitutes "strategic market status" requiring regulatory intervention.

The probe will focus on potential barriers to competition, preferential treatment of their own apps, and whether developers face unfair terms for app distribution. The regulator could force changes including mandatory access to key mobile functions or allowing users to download apps outside official stores.

People with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder face significantly shorter life expectancy and higher mental health risks, a British study of over 30,000 patients found. The research, published in The British Journal of Psychiatry, showed men with ADHD lived 4.5 to 9 years less, while women's lives were shortened by 6.5 to 11 years.

The study compared primary care data from 30,029 adults with ADHD against 300,400 people without the condition. "Although many people with ADHD live long and healthy lives, our finding that on average they are living shorter lives than they should indicates unmet support needs," said Dr. Liz O'Nions, honorary research fellow at University College London. The study linked ADHD to increased risks of anxiety, depression, self-harm, and suicide, along with higher rates of smoking and alcohol use.

According to a new study published in the journal Biology Letters, men around the world have gained height and weight twice as fast as women over the past century. The Guardian reports: "We're seeing insights into how sexual selection has shaped the male and female body and how improved environments, in terms of food and a lower burden of disease, have freed us from our shackles," said Prof Lewis Halsey at the University of Roehampton. Halsey and his colleagues used data from the World Health Organization, overseas authorities and UK records to see how height and weight have changed with living conditions. The latter was measured by the human development index (HDI), a score based on life expectancy, time in education and per capita income, which ranges from zero to one.

Analysis of records from dozens of countries found that for every 0.2 point increase in HDI, women were on average 1.7cm taller and 2.7kg heavier, while men were 4cm taller and 6.5kg heavier. This suggests that as living conditions improve, both height and weight increase, but more than twice as fast in men than women. To see whether similar trends played out within countries, the researchers delved into historical height records in the UK where HDI rose from 0.8 in 1900 to 0.94 in 2022. During the first half of the century, average female height increased 1.9% from 159cm to 162cm, while average male height rose 4% from 170cm to 177cm. "To put this in perspective, about one in four women born in 1905 was taller than the average man born in 1905, but this dropped to about one in eight women for those born in 1958," Halsey said.

Writing in Biology Letters in a study titled "The sexy and formidable male body: men's height and weight are condition-dependent, sexually selected traits," the scientists speculate that women's sexual preferences may have fueled a trend for taller, more muscular men -- although in an age of obesity, heavy does not necessarily mean muscular. Stature and physique are prime indicators of health and vitality, Halsey said, while sexual selection also favors men who are better able to protect and defend their partners and offspring against others. "Women can find men's height attractive because, potentially, it makes them more formidable, but also because being taller suggests they are well-made," said Halsey. "As they've grown up, they haven't been affected by the slings and arrows of a bad environment, so they've reached more of their height potential. It's an indicator that they're well-made."

Britain will launch a digital wallet app later this year allowing citizens to store government documents on their smartphones, UK Science Secretary Peter Kyle announced on Tuesday. The GOV.UK Wallet, available on Android and iOS, will first support veteran cards followed by driver's licenses in late 2025, with plans to eventually include passports, marriage certificates and benefit documents.

The app will use facial recognition for security. "The overflowing drawer rammed with letters from the government and hours spent on hold to get a basic appointment will soon be consigned to history," Kyle said. The Labour government aims to have all UK agencies offering digital alternatives to physical documents by 2027. Officials said users can recover their digital credentials if phones are lost, adding the system complies with existing data protection laws.

EFishery, one of Indonesia's most prominent startups, may have inflated its revenue and profit over several years, according to an internal investigation triggered by a whistleblower's claim about the company's accounting. Bloomberg News: A preliminary, ongoing probe into the agritech startup, backed by investors including SoftBank and Temasek, estimates that management inflated revenue by almost $600 million in the nine months through September last year, according to a 52-page draft report circulated among investors and reviewed by Bloomberg News. That would mean more than 75% of the reported figures were fake, the report said.

EFishery, which deploys feeders to fish and shrimp farmers in Indonesia, was a darling of the nation's startup scene and scored a valuation of $1.4 billion when G42, an AI firm controlled by United Arab Emirates royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, backed its latest funding round. It has raised hundreds of millions of dollars in an attempt to modernize the country's fish industry, providing farmers with smart feeding devices as well as feed, and then buying their produce to sell into the broader market.

Ars Technica's John Timmer reports: In Monday's issue of Nature Geoscience, a team of UK-based researchers tackle a big one: Mars' dichotomy, the somewhat nebulous boundary between its relatively elevated southern half, and the low basin that occupies its northern hemisphere, a feature that some have proposed also served as an ancient shoreline. The new work suggests that the edge of the dichotomy was eroded back by hundreds of kilometers during the time when an ocean might have occupied Mars' northern hemisphere. [...] The new work focuses on an area called Mawrth Vallis, which sits at the edge of the dichotomy. Relative to the northern basin, it's a kilometer-high plateau cut by a major outflow channel that seems to have been caused by one or more massive floods. The slopes surrounding the plateau feature different types of clay-derived minerals, suggesting the area had been subject to interactions between the original materials and water.

Rather than focusing on the plateau itself, the work focuses on the neighboring lowlands, which include a large region dotted with thousands of buttes and mesas that rise roughly a kilometer above the surrounding plains. Using data from the ESA's Mars Express mission, they determine that these features tend to top out at the same height as the nearby plateau. And, using data from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, they determined that the clays present along the slopes match those found on the plateau as well. Their conclusion from this is that the mesas and buttes are the remains of what was once a far larger plateau, which was largely eroded away on the side facing the northern basin. And that erosion took place across a pretty significant distance, as the buttes extend hundreds of kilometers away from the present highlands. And, just as at the highland plateau, these mounds hint at a water-based process that modified the rocks from the top down. That's because the deeper clays are often magnesium-rich, which tends to happen when water comes in contact with volcanic rocks or material with similar chemistry. Closer to the surface, things transition to aluminum- and iron-rich clays. These clays can occur when the water source is acidic or can be simply due to longer exposure to water, as the magnesium clays are a bit more soluble.

The huge area covered by these mounds gives a sense of just how significant this erosion was. "The dichotomy boundary has receded several hundred kilometers," the researchers note. "Nearly all intervening material -- approximately 57,000 cubic kilometers over an area of 284,000 square kilometers west of Ares Vallis alone -- has been removed, leaving only remnant mounds." Based on the distribution of the different clays, the team argues that their water-driven formation took place before the erosion of the material. This would indicate that water-rock interactions were going on over a very wide region early in the history of Mars, which likely required an extensive hydrological cycle on the red planet. As the researchers note, a nearby ocean would have improved the chances of exposing this region to water, but the exposure could also have been due to processes like melting at the base of an ice cap. Complicating matters further, many of the mounds top out below one proposed shoreline of the northern ocean and above a second. It's possible that a receding ocean could have contributed to their erosion. But, at the same time, some of the features of a proposed shoreline now appear to have been caused by the general erosion of the original plateau, and may not be associated with an ocean at all.

CNN has the latest on "a startling discovery made public in July that metallic rocks were apparently producing oxygen on the Pacific Ocean's seabed, where no light can penetrate.

"Initial research suggested potato-size nodules rich in metals, predominantly found 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) below the surface in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, released an electrical charge, splitting seawater into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis." The unprecedented natural phenomenon challenges the idea that oxygen can only be made from sunlight via photosynthesis. Andrew Sweetman, a professor at the UK's Scottish Association for Marine Science who was behind the find, is embarking on a three-year project to investigate the production of "dark" oxygen further... Uncovering dark oxygen revealed just how little is known about the deep ocean, and the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, or CCZ, in particular. The region is being explored for the deep-sea mining of rare metals contained in the rock nodules. The latter are formed over millions of years, and the metals play a key role in new and green technologies...

Understanding the phenomenon better could also help space scientists find life beyond Earth, [Sweetman] added... Officials at NASA are interested in the research on dark oxygen production because it could inform scientific understanding of how life might be sustained on other planets without direct sunlight, Sweetman said. The space agency wants to run experiments to understand the amount of energy required to potentially produce oxygen at higher pressures that occur on Enceladus and Europa, the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter, respectively, he added. Those moons are among the targets for investigating the possibility of life.

Deep-sea mining companies are aiming to mine the cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium and manganese contained in the nodules for use in solar panels, electric car batteries and other green technology. Some companies have taken issue with Sweetman's research. Critics say deep-sea mining could irrevocably damage the pristine underwater environment and that it could disrupt the way carbon is stored in the ocean, contributing to the climate crisis.
CNN's article also notes Massachusetts microbiologist Emil Ruff, who found unexpected oxygen far below the Canadian prairie in water isolated from the atmosphere for more than 40,000 years.

"Nature keeps surprising us," he said. "There are so many things that people have said, 'Oh, this is impossible,' and then later it turns out it's not."

Jersey is an island in the English channel, "a self-governing British Crown Dependency near the coast of northwest France," according to Wikipedia — population: 103,267.

But now some residents of Jersey "have been recommended bloodletting to reduce high concentrations of 'forever chemicals' in their blood," reports the Guardian, "after tests showed some islanders have levels that can lead to health problems." Private drinking water supplies in Jersey were polluted by the use of firefighting foams containing PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) at the island's airport, which were manufactured by the U.S. multinational 3M. .. Bloodletting draws blood from a vein in measured amounts. It is safe and the body replenishes the blood naturally, but it must be repeated until clean...

In response to the blood results, the government established an independent PFAS scientific advisory panel to advise public policy. The panel's first report recommended that the government should look at offering bloodletting to affected residents. "Studies show that bloodletting is an effective way to lower levels of PFAS in blood," said Ian Cousins, one of the panel members, though he added that there were no guarantees the process would prevent or cure diseases associated with the chemicals. The therapy costs about £100,000 upfront and then as much as £200,000 a year to treat 50 people. The panel is also considering the benefit of the drug cholestyramine, which a study has shown reduces PFAS in blood more quickly and cheaply, albeit with possible side effects. The government says it plans to launch a clinical service by early 2025.

Contamination persisted on the island for decades. "We know they started to use 3M's firefighting foam in the 1960s and then ramped up in the 1990s in weekly fire training exercises, after which foam started to appear in nearby streams," said Jeremy Snowdon, a former Jersey airport engineer who drank contaminated water for years. He has measured elevated levels of PFAS in his own blood and has high cholesterol.
The article includes this quote from one of the 88 residents of the polluted area found to have high levels of PFAS after blood testing. "I just want this out of my body. I don't want to end up with bladder cancer."

The BBC brings news from the Baltic Sea. After critical undersea cables were damaged or severed last year, "NATO has launched a new mission to increase the surveillance of ships..." Undersea infrastructure is essential not only for electricity supply but also because more than 95% of internet traffic is secured via undersea cables, [said NATO head Mark Rutte], adding that "1.3 million kilometres (800,000 miles) of cables guarantee an estimated 10 trillion-dollar worth of financial transactions every day". In a post on X, he said Nato would do "what it takes to ensure the safety and security of our critical infrastructure and all that we hold dear".... Estonia's Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said in December that damage to submarine infrastructure had become "so frequent" that it cast doubt on the idea the damage could be considered "accidental" or "merely poor seamanship".
The article also has new details about a late-December cable-cutting by the Eagle S (which was then boarded by Finland's coast guard and steered into Finnish waters). "On Monday, Risto Lohi of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation told Reuters that the Eagle S was threatening to cut a second power cable and a gas pipe between Finland and Estonia at the time it was seized." And there's reports that the ship was loaded with spying equipment.

UPDATE (1/19/2024): The Washington Post reports that the undersea cable ruptures "were likely the result of maritime accidents rather than Russian sabotage, according to several U.S. and European intelligence officials."

But whatever they're watching for, NATO's new surveillance of the Baltic Sea will include "uncrewed surface vessels," according to defense-news web site TWZ.com: The uncrewed surface vessels [or USVs], also known as drone boats, will help establish an enhanced common operating picture to give participating nations a better sense of potential threats and speed up any response. It is the first time NATO will use USVs in this manner, said a top alliance commander... There will be at least 20 USVs assigned [a NATO spokesman told The War Zone Friday]... In the first phase of the experiment, the USVs will "have the capabilities under human control" while "later phases will include greater autonomy." The USVs will augment the dozen or so vessels as well as an unspecified number of crewed maritime patrol aircraft committed
One highly-placed NATO official tells the site that within weeks "we will begin to use these ships to give a persistent, 24-7 surveillance of critical areas."

Last week the U.K. government also announced "an advanced UK-led reaction system to track potential threats to undersea infrastructure and monitor the Russian shadow fleet."

The system "harnesses AI to assess data from a range of sources, including the Automatic Identification System (AIS) ships use to broadcast their position, to calculate the risk posed by each vessel entering areas of interest." Harnessing the power of AI, this UK-led system is a major innovation which allows us the unprecedented ability to monitor large areas of the sea with a comparatively small number of resources, helping us stay secure at home and strong abroad.

An anonymous reader shares a report: FBI leaders have warned that they believe hackers who broke into AT&T's system last year stole months of their agents' call and text logs, setting off a race within the bureau to protect the identities of confidential informants, a document reviewed by Bloomberg News shows.

FBI officials told agents across the country that details about their use on the telecom carrier's network were believed to be among the billions of records stolen, according to the document and interviews with a current and a former law enforcement official. They asked not to be named to discuss sensitive information. Data from all FBI devices under the bureau's AT&T service for public safety agencies were presumed taken, the document shows.

The cache of hacked AT&T records didn't reveal the substance of communications but, according to the document, could link investigators to their secret sources. The data was believed to include agents' mobile phone numbers and the numbers with which they called and texted, the document shows. Records for calls and texts that weren't on the AT&T network, such as through encrypted messaging apps, weren't part of the stolen data.

David Lynch, a four-time Oscar-nominated filmmaker known for the 1984 sci-fi epic Dune and the Showtime drama Twin Peaks, has died. "In January 2025, Lynch evacuated his Los Angeles home due to the Southern California wildfires," writes longtime Slashdot reader Z00L00K. "According to Deadline, these events preceded a terminal decline in his health, and on January 16, 2025, Lynch's family announced that he had died at the age of 78." Deadline reports: Lynch had been diagnosed with emphysema. Sources told Deadline that he was forced to relocate from his house due to the Sunset Fire and then took a turn for the worse. In an interview with Sight & Sound magazine last year, Lynch revealed that due to Covid fears and his emphysema diagnosis, he could no longer could leave the house, which meant if he directed again, it would be remote. He then followed up the interview with a post on social that he "will never retire" despite his physical challenges.

Raw drinking water sources across England are polluted with toxic forever chemicals, new analysis has revealed, prompting the water sector to demand that ministers ban the substances and polluters pay for the astronomical cleanup costs. The Guardian: The areas covered by Affinity Water and Anglian Water were found to be particularly badly affected, and experts have said they fear "we are drastically underestimating the size of the problem." There are more than 10,000 PFAS in use, known as forever chemicals because they do not break down in the environment.

[...] In an unprecedented move, the industry body Water UK has said it "wants to see PFAS banned and the development of a national plan to remove it from the environment which should be paid for by manufacturers." It described PFAS pollution as a "huge global challenge" and said: "The UK's tap water is rated as the safest in the world, and companies are already taking action to reduce PFAS levels further." In an attempt to tackle the problem, the EU is considering a proposal to regulate all 10,000 or so PFAS together, but the PFAS industry is lobbying against it and the UK has no plans to follow suit.

U.K. public sector and critical infrastructure organizations could be banned from making ransom payments under new proposals from the U.K. government. From a report: The U.K.'s Home Office launched a consultation on Tuesday that proposes a "targeted ban" on ransomware payments. Under the proposal, public sector bodies -- including local councils, schools, and NHS trusts -- would be banned from making payments to ransomware hackers, which the government says would "strike at the heart of the cybercriminal business model."

This government proposal comes after a wave of cyberattacks targeting the U.K. public sector. The NHS last year declared a "critical" incident following a cyberattack on pathology lab provider Synnovis, which led to a massive data breach of sensitive patient data and months of disruption, including canceled operations and the diversion of emergency patients. According to new data seen by Bloomberg, the cyberattack on Synnovis resulted in harm to dozens of patients, leading to long-term or permanent damage to their health in at least two cases.