In short: Glacier, Robotic Hand, Debian 12, Clubhouse

Global glaciers are rapidly shrinking

The world’s glaciers shrank by 2 percent between 2010 and 2020 alone, mostly due to rising air temperatures. Researchers from the University of Edinburgh found this out by misusing data from a satellite that actually measures sea ice and the polar ice sheets. Using new technology, they were able to determine from data from the ESA CryoSat-2 satellite that the world’s glaciers have lost about 2,720 gigatonnes of ice in just 10 years. As much ice melts every year as a cube towering over Mont Blanc.

A robotic hand with real sleight of hand

A team of scientists from Columbia University of Engineering in New York has developed an ingenious robotic hand that doesn’t require visual input from cameras, for example, and can still carry out tasks, even in the dark. This is made possible by special tactile sensors in the upper finger joint and reinforcement learning technologies, according to the MIT Technology Review. The team initially sees the robotic hand they have developed as a proof of concept to demonstrate the capabilities of such a prosthetic hand. Researchers believe such a skilled robotic hand could be used in logistics, material transportation, and product manufacturing.

Debian 12 will be released in June

Debian 12.0 will be released on June 10, as the developers of the Linux distribution have now officially announced. Users can expect the release called Bookworm in mid-2023, as Debian follows a two-year cycle and the predecessor Bullseye saw the light of day in August 2021. If you have the ability, Debian asks you to test the upgrade from Bullseye to Bookworm. Associated reports including any errors that occur can be sent directly to the developers. All information about this and about the individual steps towards the final release can be found in the official announcement and on heise.de.

Layoffs in the club

Clubhouse co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth have sealed more than 50 percent of the jobs in the voice-based speaking app Clubhouse. The two directors announced this in an email to their employees. The company has been silent about how many people have been affected by this measure. Davison and Seth explained that the growing team would be too large and too geographically distributed to communicate properly and implement changes quickly. Therefore, the company will be transformed into a “product-oriented small team”. However, there is no direct cost pressure.

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