Long-time Slashdot reader couchslug shares a report from Ars Technica, writing: "A new attack on the right to do with one's property as the owner sees fit. First step, threaten without providing evidence." From the report: Before last week, owners of certain Mazda vehicles who also had a Home Assistant setup could create some handy connections for their car. One CX60 driver had a charger that would only power on when it confirmed his car was plugged in and would alert him if he left the trunk open. Another used Home Assistant to control their charger based on the dynamic prices of an Agile Octopus energy plan. Yet another had really thought it through, using Home Assistant to check the gas before their morning commute, alert them if their windows were down before rain was forecast, and remotely unlock and start the car in cold conditions. The possibilities were vast, and purportedly beyond what Mazda's official app offered.

Mazda, however, had issues with the project, which was largely the free-time work of one software developer, Brandon Rothweiler. In a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice sent to GitHub, Mazda (or an authorized agent) alleges that Rothweiler's integration: contains code that "is violating [Mazda's] copyright ownership"; used "certain Mazda information, including proprietary API information," to "create code and information"; and contained code that "provides functionality same as what is currently" in Mazda's apps posted to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store for Android.

One day later, Rothweiler made a pull request to the Home Assistant core project: "I'm removing the Mazda integration due to a legal notice sent to me by Mazda." The Home Assistant project pushed an update to remove the integration, posted about the removal, and noted that they were "disappointed that Mazda has decided to take this position" and that "Mazda's first recourse was not to reach out to us and the maintainer but to send a cease and desist letter instead." One of the many commenters confused by Mazda's code claims said they couldn't find any of the copyrighted code the company referenced. Additionally, Ars Technica suggests the project "could be considered a fair use exception to the DMCA, as explained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation."

"When Mazda contacted me, my options were to either comply or open myself up to potential legal risk," said Rothweiler. "Even if I believe that what I'm doing is morally correct and legally protected, legal processes still have a financial cost. I can't afford to take on that financial risk for something that I do in my spare time to help others."

Meta will now let you block Instagram from collecting your data across the apps and websites you visit. From a report: The company says that it's expanding the ability to disable this kind of tracking to Instagram, allowing you to review which businesses are sharing information with Meta, disconnect specific activity, or clear the collected information. You can now find this feature, called Activity Off-Meta Technologies, within the platform's Accounts Center. It was previously only available for Facebook. Meta receives information from third-party websites that use its business tools, such as the Meta Pixel, which tracks users on the web and allows Meta to serve personalized ads on its platforms.

Reddit is winding down Community Points -- the blockchain-based "internet points" program designed to reward creators and developers -- in favor of prioritizing rewards programs that are less difficult to scale. From a report: "Though we saw some future opportunities for Community Points, the resourcing needed was unfortunately too high to justify," Reddit's director of consumer and product communications Tim Rathschmidt told TechCrunch. "The regulatory environment has since added to that effort. Though the moderators and communities that supported Community Points have been incredible partners -- as it's evolved, the product is no longer set up to scale."

Community Points, which will be phased out by early November, were promoted as a chance for Redditors to "own" a piece of their community. First launched in 2020, Community Points were awarded to users who positively engaged in select subreddits in order to incentivize better content and conversation. The points were essentially interchangeable Ethereum tokens stored in Reddit's Vault, which operated as a cryptocurrency wallet.

Windows Central: According to my sources who are familiar with the matter, Windows 11 is now in use on over 400 million monthly active devices. Internal Microsoft data seen by Windows Central reveals that Windows 11's active device usage just recently surpassed 400 million and is steadily climbing to reach half a billion by early 2024. As noted in our Windows 11 review, the OS has been on the market since October 2021, meaning it's taken Microsoft around two years to reach 400 million monthly active devices with Windows 11. This is a significantly slower rate than Windows 10, which reached the same number in just over a year (and eventually 1 billion users by early 2020). Still, factoring in both platforms' very different launch parameters is essential.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Google responded to congressional child online safety proposals with its own counteroffer for the first time Monday, urging lawmakers to drop problematic protections like age-verification tech. In a blog post, Google released its "Legislative Framework to Protect Children and Teens Online" (PDF). The framework comes as more lawmakers, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), are lining up behind the Kids Online Safety Act, a controversial bill intended to protect kids from dangerous content online.

In the framework, Google rejects state and federal attempts at requiring platforms to verify the age of users, like forcing users to upload copies of their government IDs to access an online service. Some states have recently gone as far as passing laws requiring platforms to obtain parental consent before anyone under 18 is allowed to use their services. Google dismisses these consent laws, arguing that they bar vulnerable teens from accessing helpful information. "Good legislative models -- like those based on age-appropriate design principles -- can help hold companies responsible for promoting safety and privacy, while enabling access to richer experiences for children and teens," Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, said in the blog post.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Zero-emission cars are soaring in popularity but running an electric vehicle is next to impossible in places with limited charging infrastructure. Stella Terra could change that. The khaki-green SUV uses solar panels on its sloping roof to charge its electric battery, meaning it can drive long distances powered entirely by the sun. Built by a team of students at Eindhoven University of Technology (TUE), "the world's first off-road solar-powered vehicle" could help connect remote areas "where roads are less developed and energy grids are not as reliable," and assist with emergency aid and deliveries, says Thieme Bosman, events manager for the team.

The team tested the vehicle in Morocco earlier this month, driving more than 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) between the country's northern coast and the Sahara Desert in the south. "Morocco has a huge variety of landscapes and different surfaces in quite a short distance," says Bosman, adding that the car was tested "on every type of surface that a car like this could encounter." The road-legal car has a top speed of 145 kilometers (90 miles) per hour. On a sunny day, its battery range is around 710 kilometers (441 miles) on roads, and around 550 kilometers (342 miles) off-road, depending on the surface. In cloudy conditions, the team estimates the range could be 50 kilometers less. Bosman noted that the vehicle had proved to be one-third more efficient than expected on the trip, and that its lightweight design made it less liable to get stuck on rugged terrain, and put less stress on its suspension.

"Where the SUV market currently innovates on the previous models, we really start from scratch and design everything ourselves," says Bosman. Minimizing the vehicle's weight was essential, and the team of 22 students focused on making every element ultra-efficient. At just 2,645 pounds (1,200 kilograms), Stella Terra weighs around 25% less than the average mid-sized SUV. The aerodynamic design also reduces drag and uses "lightweight and robust" composite materials to cut weight, says Bob van Ginkel, technical manager for Stella Terra. "(One of) the benefits of the solar panels on top is that we can have a much smaller battery because we are charging while driving," van Ginkel adds. Bosman and his peers hope their concept SUV could be mass produced in the near future. "We aim to also inspire not only everyday people, but also the automotive industry, the Ford and Chryslers of the world, to think again about their designs and to innovate faster than they currently do," says Bosman.

"It's up to the market now, who have the resources and the power to make this change and the switch to more sustainable vehicles."

Jon Brodkin reports via Ars Technica: An advertising industry group urged Comcast to stop its "10G" ads or modify them to state that 10G is an "aspirational" technology rather than something the company actually provides on its cable network today. The National Advertising Division (NAD), part of the advertising industry's self-regulatory system run by BBB National Programs, ruled against Comcast after a challenge lodged by T-Mobile. In its decision announced Thursday, the NAD recommended that Comcast "discontinue its '10G' claims" or "modify its advertising to (a) make clear that it is implementing improvements that will enable it to achieve '10G' and that it is aspirational or (b) use '10G' in a manner that is not false or misleading, consistent with this decision."

Comcast plans to appeal the decision, so it won't make any changes to marketing immediately. If Comcast loses the appeal and agrees to change its practices, it would affect more than just a few ads because Comcast now calls its entire broadband network "10G." "In February 2023, Comcast rebranded its fixed Internet network as 'Xfinity 10G Network' to signify technological upgrades to its network that are continuing to be implemented," the NAD said. Comcast's website claims that the "Xfinity 10G Network is already here! You'll see continual increases in network speed and reliability. No action is required on your part to join the Xfinity 10G Network." It also claims that 10G is "complementary" to the 5G mobile network.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled today that evidence gleaned from a warrant for Google's search data could be used in the prosecution of a teen who was charged with murder for a fire that killed five people in the Denver area. From a report: As police scrambled to solve the source of the 2020 blaze, they asked Alphabet's Google to provide information about people who searched for the address of the house that went up in flames, using a controversial technique known as a keyword search warrant. After some initial objections, Google provided data that enabled detectives to zero in on five accounts, leading to the arrest of three suspects in the case.

Lawyers for one of the suspects, Gavin Seymour, who was found to have Googled the home's address 14 times in the days before the fire, argued that the keyword warrant constituted an illegal search and that any evidence from it should be suppressed. His motion is the first known challenge to the constitutionality of keyword search warrants. The case is ongoing. In its 74-page decision, the court found that law enforcement had acted in good faith when it obtained the warrant for the teen's search history. Still, it stressed that the findings were specific to the facts of the case, and it refrained from weighing in about the use of Google's search data more broadly.

Google's "Project Green Light" uses machine learning on Maps data to optimize the length of green lights, reports Engadget, "reducing idle times as well as the amount of braking and accelerating vehicles have to do there." When the program was first announced in 2021, it had only been pilot tested in four intersections in Israel in partnership with the Israel National Roads Company but Google had reportedly observed a "10 to 20% reduction in fuel and intersection delay time" during those tests. The pilot program has grown since then, spreading to a dozen partner cities around the world, including Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Manchester, England and Jakarta, Indonesia. "Today we're happy to share that... we plan to scale to more cities in 2024," Yael Maguire, Google VP of Geo Sustainability, told reporters during a pre-brief event last week. "Early numbers indicate a potential for us to see a 30% reduction in stops...."

Maguire also noted that the Manchester test reportedly saw improvements to emission levels and air quality rise by as much as 18%. The company also touted the efficacy of its Maps routing in reducing emissions, with Maguire pointing out that it had "helped prevent more than 2.4 million metric tons of carbon emissions — the equivalent of taking about 500,000 fuel-based cars off the road for an entire year."

An anonymous reader shared this report from Neowin: The various versions of Windows have used Kerberos as its main authentication protocol for over 20 years. However, in certain circumstances, the OS has to use another method, NTLM (NT LAN Manager). Today, Microsoft announced that it is expanding the use of Kerberos, with the plan to eventually ditch the use of NTLM altogether.

In a blog post, Microsoft stated that NTLM continues to be used by some businesses and organizations for Windows authentication because it "doesn't require local network connection to a Domain Controller." It also is "the only protocol supported when using local accounts" and it "works when you don't know who the target server is." Microsoft states:

These benefits have led to some applications and services hardcoding the use of NTLM instead of trying to use other, more modern authentication protocols like Kerberos. Kerberos provides better security guarantees and is more extensible than NTLM, which is why it is now a preferred default protocol in Windows. The problem is that while businesses can turn off NTLM for authentication, those hardwired apps and services could experience issues. That's why Microsoft has added two new authentication features to Kerberos.
Microsoft's blog post calls it "the evolution of Windows authentication," arguing that "As Windows evolves to meet the needs of our ever-changing world, the way we protect users must also evolve to address modern security challenges..." So, "our team is building new features for Windows 11."

• Initial and Pass Through Authentication Using Kerberos, or IAKerb, "a public extension to the industry standard Kerberos protocol that allows a client without line-of-sight to a Domain Controller to authenticate through a server that does have line-of-sight."

• A local Key Distribution Center (KDC) for Kerberos, "built on top of the local machine's Security Account Manager so remote authentication of local user accounts can be done using Kerberos."

• "We are also fixing hard-coded instances of NTLM built into existing Windows components... shifting these components to use the Negotiate protocol so that Kerberos can be used instead of NTLM... NTLM will continue to be available as a fallback to maintain existing compatibility."

• "We are also introducing improved NTLM auditing and management functionality to give your organization more insight into your NTLM usage and better control for removing it."

"Reducing the use of NTLM will ultimately culminate in it being disabled in Windows 11. We are taking a data-driven approach and monitoring reductions in NTLM usage to determine when it will be safe to disable."

Due to an air traffic control mistake in February, a FedEx cargo plane flew within 100 feet of a Southwest Airlines flight in February. The New York Times reports that the flight's 128 passengers "were unaware that they had nearly died." In a year filled with close calls involving US airlines, this was the one that most unnerved federal aviation officials: A disaster had barely been averted, and multiple layers of the vaunted US air-safety system had failed... But the errors by the controller — who has continued to direct some plane traffic in Austin, Texas — were far from the whole story, according to 10 current and former controllers there, as well as internal Federal Aviation Administration documents reviewed by the Times. Austin-Bergstrom, like the vast majority of US airports, lacks technology that allows controllers to track planes on the ground and that warns of imminent collisions. The result is that on foggy days, controllers can't always see what is happening on runways and taxiways. Some have even resorted to using a public flight-tracking website in lieu of radar.

In addition, for years Austin has had a shortage of experienced controllers, even as traffic at the airport has surged to record levels. Nearly three-quarters of shifts have been understaffed. Managers and rank-and-file controllers have repeatedly warned that staffing levels pose a public danger. The controller on that February morning was working an overtime shift. In June, Stephen B. Martin, then Austin's top manager, and a local union representative wrote a memo pleading for more controllers. "Drastic steps are needed to allow the facility to adequately staff for existing traffic," they wrote to FAA and union officials.

Austin is a microcosm of a systemic crisis. The safety net that underpins air travel in America is fraying, exposing passengers to potential tragedies like the episode in February.
And yet the chair of America's National Transportation Safety Board calls the February incident "just one of seven serious close calls and near misses involving commercial airlines that we have initiated investigations on this year."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the article.

"Australian design student Alexander Burton has developed a prototype kit for cheaply converting petrol or diesel cars to hybrid electric," reports Dezeen magazine, "winning the country's national James Dyson Award in the process." Titled REVR (Rapid Electric Vehicle Retrofits), the kit is meant to provide a cheaper, easier alternative to current electric car conversion services, which Burton estimates cost AU$50,000 (£26,400) on average and so are often reserved for valuable, classic vehicles.

Usually, the process would involve removing the internal combustion engine and all its associated hardware, like the gearbox and hydraulic brakes, to replace them with batteries and electric motors. With REVR, those components are left untouched. Instead, a flat, compact, power-dense axial flux motor would be mounted between the car's rear wheels and disc brakes, and a battery and controller system placed in the spare wheel well or boot. Some additional off-the-shelf systems — brake and steering boosters, as well as e-heating and air conditioning — would also be added under the hood. By taking this approach, Burton believes he'll be able to offer the product for around AU$5,000 (£2,640) and make it compatible with virtually any car...

With REVR, people should be able to get several more years of life out of their existing cars. The kit would transform the vehicle into a hybrid rather than a fully electric vehicle, with a small battery giving the car 100 kilometres of electric range before the driver has to switch to the internal combustion engine... Borrowing a trick from existing hybrid vehicles, the kit uses a sensor to detect the position of the accelerator pedal to control both acceleration and braking. That means no changes have to be made to the car's hydraulic braking system, which Burton says "you don't want to have to interrupt".
Thanks to Slashdot reader FrankOVD for sharing the news.

From the South China Morning Post: Scientists in China say their latest quantum computer has solved an ultra-complicated mathematical problem within a millionth of a second — more than 20 billion years quicker than the world's fastest supercomputer could achieve the same task. The JiuZhang 3 prototype also smashed the record set by its predecessor in the series, with a one million-fold increase in calculation speed, according to a paper published on Tuesday by the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters...

The series uses photons — tiny particles that travel at the speed of light — as the physical medium for calculations, with each one carrying a qubit, the basic unit of quantum information... The fastest classical supercomputer Frontier — developed in the US and named the world's most powerful in mid-2022 — would take over 20 billion years to complete the same task, the researchers said.
The article claims they've increased the number of photons from 76 to 113 in the first two versions, improving to 255 in the latest iteration.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader hackingbear for sharing the news.

An anonymous reader shared this report from TechCrunch: After a nasty battle between the developers of third-party apps and Reddit management, ultimately resulting in a site-wide protest, many app makers were put out of business due to Reddit's price increases related to the usage of its API. Though the changes meant the loss of popular apps like Apollo, RIF (Reddit is Fun), ReddPlanent, Sync and BaconReader, one app, Narwhal, is attempting to make a comeback. The company announced this week that it will implement a subscription-based version of its app at $3.99 per month, promising an ad-free and privacy-focused experience.

The new app will also include a Tip Jar to solicit donations to help keep the app afloat beyond the subscription fees and fund additional development work. Though not available at launch, the app's developer Rick Harrison (u/det0ur on Reddit and CTO at Meadow by day) says he's considering adding a small fee, perhaps $1 per month, to allow users to also check their notifications and messages... Notes Narwhal's developer, Reddit's fee will be "tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands a month depending on how many people subscribe." To work, the app will need a critical mass of subscribers to cover its costs, but Harrison says he's fairly confident the model will work.

"Also, with a simpler plan like this, I can offer a subscription on a Narwhal website for 30% less (no Apple cut)," Harrison wrote...

Narwhal isn't the only Reddit client to attempt to remain in business despite Reddit's API pricing changes. Another, Relay, announced a multi-tier subscription plan where users have to choose one of six price points, each that caps them at a certain number of API calls.

Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shared the Washington Post's speculation about the possibility of a gigantic solar storm leaving millions without phone or internet access, and requiring months or years of rebuilding: The odds are low that in any given year a storm big enough to cause effects this widespread will happen. And the severity of those impacts will depend on many factors, including the state of our planet's magnetic field on that day. But it's a near certainty that some form of this catastrophe will happen someday, says Ian Cohen, a chief scientist who studies heliophysics at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
Long-time Slashdot reader davidwr remains skeptical. "I've only heard of two major events in the last 1300 years, one estimated to be between A. D. 744 and A. D. 993, and the other being the Carrington Event in 1859.

But efforts are being made to improve our readiness, reports the Washington Post: To get ahead of this threat, a loose federation of U.S. and international government agencies, and hundreds of scientists affiliated with those bodies, have begun working on how to make predictions about what our Sun might do. And a small but growing cadre of scientists argue that artificial intelligence will be an essential component of efforts to give us advance notice of such a storm...

At present, no warning system is capable of giving us more than a few hours' notice of a devastating solar storm. If it's moving fast enough, it could be as little as 15 minutes. The most useful sentinel — a sun-orbiting satellite launched by the U.S. in 2015 — is much closer to Earth than the sun, so that by the time a fast-moving storm crosses its path, an hour or less is all the warning we get. The European Space Agency has proposed a system to help give earlier warning by putting a satellite dubbed Vigil into orbit around the Sun, positioned roughly the same distance from the Earth as the Earth is from the Sun. It could potentially give us up to five hours of warning about an incoming solar storm-enough time to do the main thing that can help preserve electronics: Switch them all off.

But what if there were a way to predict this better, by analyzing the data we've got? That's the idea behind a new, AI-powered model recently unveiled by scientists at the Frontier Development Lab — a public-private partnership that includes NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Department of Energy. The model uses deep learning, a type of AI, to examine the flow of the solar wind, the usually calm stream of particles that flow outward from our sun and through the solar system to well beyond the orbit of Pluto. Using observations of that solar wind, the model can predict the "geomagnetic disturbance" an incoming solar storm observed by sun-orbiting satellites would cause at any given point on Earth, the researchers involved say. This model can predict just how big the flux of the Earth's magnetic field will be when the solar storm arrives, and thus how big the induced currents in power lines and undersea internet cables will be...

Already, the first primitive ancestor of future AI-based solar-weather alert systems is live. The DstLive system, which debuted on the web in December 2022, uses machine learning to take data about the state of Earth's magnetic field and the solar wind and translate both into a single measure for the entire planet, known as DST. Think of it as the Richter scale, but for solar storms. This number is intended to give us an idea of how intense a storm's impact will be on earth, an hour to six hours in advance.

Unfortunately, we may not know how useful such systems are until we live through a major solar storm.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Tesla has officially released its API documentation to support third-party apps -- after years of operating in a gray zone with an unofficial API. For now, it is geared toward fleet management, but developers are hoping it is a first step toward creating a healthy app ecosystem. [...] So far, it still only covers the command that you can send to your car through the Tesla app, and it can ping the data from your car that goes to the app. In short, it is going to make official all the third-party fleet management apps, smartwatch integration apps, etc.

In the documentation, Tesla writes that all third-party apps are going to have to go through the new API starting next year: "Following the release of Tesla Vehicle Command SDK support for REST API vehicle command endpoints is now reaching end of life. Starting 2024 most vehicles will require sending commands via Tesla Vehicle Command SDK." Tesla put together a process to onboard those apps on its website. If you are using some of those apps, you will likely receive a notification to give them official authorization to access car data.

Keumars Afifi-sabet reports via TechRadar: Lenovo has the green light to see a portfolio of new enterprise-focused devices powered by Esper Foundation -- a custom Android operating system -- and bundled with a complementary mobile device management (MDM) platform. The firm's first device running Esper Foundation is the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70a, an all-in-one desktop PC fitted with an up to 12th-Gen Intel Core i9 CPU, alongside 16GB DDR4 RAM and up to 512GB SSD. It'll be followed by the Lenovo ThinkCentre M70q, M90n-1 IoT, and the ThinkEdge SE30 v2 machines by the end of 2023. Esper Foundation is based on Android 11 and has customizable branding, peripheral compatibility, quarterly security patches, and three years of support. The MDM system, meanwhile, remotely deploys, manages, and updates devices from a single view.

By integrating a custom version of Android in its PCs, Lenovo is banking on the Esper Foundation OS appealing to businesses as an alternative to Windows, as well as Google's own ChromeOS. With platforms like Esper's, there may well be a means to find a rival to compete with Windows in the enterprise, particularly in highly niche industries such as the retail, hospitality, and healthcare industries -- at which Esper Foundation is directed. "This collaboration is another step forward in Lenovo's drive to meet changing customer demand across retail, hospitality, healthcare, and other industries," said Johanny Payero, Lenovo's director of global advanced solutions marketing and strategy. "Dedicated devices are proliferating across several key industries, and our new joint solution with Esper allows us to deliver the best of Android with the consistency and predictability of Lenovo's x86 devices."

Google is still wondering if it should make major changes to its homepage. The last experiment we saw filled the usually stark white page with info cards showing things like the weather and stocks, but this new experiment has a much bigger focus on news. From a report: Instead of a homepage featuring only the Google logo, a search box, and a few buttons, this latest experiment looks a lot more like the "Google Discover" newsfeed you get on the Google mobile app. That means rows of news articles that Google has algorithmically detected will interest you, often with wild month-to-month quality swings in the sites it promotes. To the right of the newsfeed is a stack of "at a glance" cards featuring sports scores, stocks, and the weather. The change makes Google look a lot busier -- and a lot more like Bing and Yahoo.

Canon has begun selling its nanoimprint semiconductor manufacturing systems, seeking to claw back market share by positioning the technology as a simpler and more attainable alternative to the leading-edge tools of today. From a report: The Tokyo-based company's new chipmaking machines can produce circuits equivalent to 5-nanometer scale when using extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV), a field dominated by industry leader ASML Holding NV. Canon expects its device to reach next-generation 2nm production with further advances and improvements, it said in a statement on Friday. Like domestic peer Nikon Corp., Canon has fallen far behind ASML in the EUV race, but its nanoimprint lithography approach may help it close the gap.

Canon's machinery may also add a new front in the US-China trade war, as the import of EUV machines -- so far the only reliable method for fabricating 5nm chips and smaller -- into China is prohibited by trade sanctions. The Japanese firm's technique skips photolithography altogether and instead impresses the desired circuit pattern onto the silicon wafer. Because of its novelty, it's unlikely to be expressly forbidden by existing trade curbs.

Ed Cara reports via Gizmodo: Scientists appear to have developed a hand prosthetic that provides much more control and comfort than those available today. In new research this week, they've detailed the case of a Swedish woman who has successfully worn the advanced bionic limb for years with no major issues, while experiencing significantly less pain than before. The woman, identified as Karin, suffered a farming injury that took much of her right arm below the elbow over 20 years ago. Like many amputees, Karin went on to develop phantom limb pain, which required her to take high doses of medication to manage. She also benefited little from conventional prosthetics, finding them too unwieldy to use for daily life. But several years ago, Karin became one of the first patients enrolled in the DeTOP project, an expansive research study funded by the European Union and involving dozens of scientists across Europe that's looking to develop the next generation of bionic limbs.

Karin's prosthesis was created by the Italian company Presilia and is nicknamed Mia Hand. It's outfitted with state-of-art technology, including AI. And to further improve its functionality, her surgeons performed osseointegration during the attachment procedure, a process that directly fuses bone to the implant, ideally creating a stronger mechanical connection. They also implanted electrodes in her arm muscles and nerves, as well as rewired some of her nerves in the remaining part of the arm. The result is a robotic limb that's directly connected to Karin's neuromusculoskeletal system.

Much like a real flesh-and-blood hand, it's controlled by Karin's nervous system and provides sensory feedback. Her new hand can purportedly perform around 80% of the typical daily tasks that a regular limb would be able to do. And it's substantially reduced her phantom limb pain and the need for medication. The team's findings on Mia Hand's initial success are published in the journal Science Robotics. Karin is one of three patients enrolled in the DeTOP project. And while it may take time for the research on these patients to reach completion, the hope is that these prosthetics can eventually become the new standard for upper limb amputees. For Karin, it's already been a tremendous gift.