#software development agreement

[royzzco]

Some Key Clauses Every Software Development Agreement Should Include

A software development agreement is a legally binding contract that outlines the terms and conditions under which software is developed, detailing the responsibilities of both the client and the developer. These agreements are essential in the tech industry as they establish clear expectations, minimize misunderstandings, and protect the interests of both parties involved in the development process. Notably, a well-structured software development agreement can prevent costly disputes and facilitate smoother project execution, making it a critical tool for ensuring the success of software projects in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. 

Clause 1: Scope of Work

The scope of work (SOW) is a fundamental clause in any software development agreement, serving to delineate the specific duties, responsibilities, and deliverables expected from both the client and the software developer. This clause is critical as it helps to establish clear expectations, thereby minimizing the potential for misunderstandings or disputes regarding the project's scope and objectives.

Key Components of the Scope of Work

A well-defined scope of work should include several essential elements to ensure clarity and mutual understanding between the parties involved:

1. Project Goals and Objectives: This section articulates the overarching purpose and specific objectives of the project, clearly stating what the project aims to achieve.

2. Guidelines and Deliverables: Here, specific tasks, milestones, and expected outcomes are outlined. Deliverables should be quantifiable and measurable to avoid ambiguity in expectations.

3. Schedule and Timelines: A detailed timeline is crucial, outlining dates for each task and deliverable. This component is vital for managing the project's progress and ensuring it remains on track.

4. Costs and Payment Terms: This section details the financial aspects of the project, breaking down costs either as a whole or per individual task, and outlining payment schedules and conditions.

5. Tools and Equipment: Identifying necessary tools and equipment aids in effective planning and resource allocation for the project.

6. Organizational Charts and Roles: Defining the roles and responsibilities of team members and stakeholders ensures clear communication and accountability throughout the project's lifecycle.

Legal Implications of the Scope of Work:

The scope of work carries significant legal implications, particularly in the context of dispute resolution and contractual obligations. Clarity within the SOW can prevent potential conflicts and serve as a reference point in the event of disagreements.

Clause 2: Payment Terms

Payment terms are a crucial component of any software development agreement, as they define how fees are structured, invoiced, and paid between the parties involved. Clarity in this clause helps prevent disputes and fosters a transparent relationship between the software provider and the client.

1. Definition of Payment Terms

Payment terms outline the conditions under which payments for goods or services are expected to be made. This typically includes the payment schedule, the rates (which can be hourly, weekly, or monthly), and the specific conditions surrounding payments, including penalties for delays.

2. Structuring Payment Terms

When drafting payment terms, it is essential to consider various elements to ensure clarity and compliance:

Fee Structure: This may involve fixed pricing or hourly/daily rates, with explicit mention of total amounts due.

Payment Schedule: Payment schedules should outline specific milestones that trigger invoices, as well as the timeline for payments. For instance, invoices might be due upon project milestones or on a regular schedule such as weekly or monthly.

Late Fees: It is important to specify any late payment  penalty that may be applicable if payments are not made on time.

Dispute Resolution: The terms which should indicate how disputes regarding  payment  should be well articulated and well defined leaving no room for ambiguities, 

Clause 3: Intellectual Property Rights:

Intellectual property (IP) rights are a critical component of software development agreements, as they define the ownership and usage of creative assets within the developed software. Properly addressing IP rights helps prevent disputes and misunderstandings that could arise , ensuring that both developers and clients can operate with confidence and trust in their contractual relationship. A well-crafted agreement should clarify  the rights and responsibilities of each party, vis a vis the Intellectual property.

Key Clauses to Include

1. Intellectual Property Ownership Clause

The intellectual property ownership clause explicitly outlines who will own the IP rights in the software developed. This clause should specify whether the software is being developed as a work for hire, if the developer retains ownership, or if joint ownership is intended. In cases where the developer retains ownership, the scope of the license granted to the client must be clearly defined to prevent future disputes.

2. Assignment of Rights

In many software development projects, third-party components such as open-source libraries, Application Programming Interface [APIs], and software development kits (SDKs) are used. It is essential for the contract to address the use of these third-party components, ensuring compliance with their respective intellectual property terms. This section should specify who is responsible for managing these components and any associated legal liabilities, which can arise if the terms of these components are violated.

3. Evolving Software

Software development is often an ongoing process, with updates and modifications made from time to time. Therefore, it is crucial to include provisions that outline how intellectual property rights will be managed as the software evolves. This is particularly important when multiple parties are involved in the software’s development and maintenance, as clear agreements on future updates can help avoid disputes regarding ownership and rights.

In conclusion, a well-drafted Software Development Agreement is essential for ensuring clarity, protecting interests, and minimizing disputes between parties. Including key clauses like intellectual property rights, confidentiality, and payment terms provides a strong foundation for a successful and smooth collaboration. By addressing these critical aspects, both developers and clients can build trust and avoid potential misunderstandings. Moreover, consulting experienced legal professionals ensures that your agreement is comprehensive and compliant with applicable laws. For tailored guidance and expert advice on drafting or reviewing a Software Development Agreement, you can rely on Royzz & Co. Their team of skilled lawyers specializes in navigating the complexities of software development contracts, making them a trusted partner for safeguarding your business interests.

This site or article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an advertisement or solicitation. It does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and Royzz & Co., nor is it intended to provide legal advice on the topics presented. We recommend that readers seek professional legal counsel for the same or for any such specific situations or on such related topics. Further, links to external websites do not imply endorsement or affiliation, and Royzz & Co. is not responsible for the content or information on these sites.

[looplegal]

https://justpaste.it/c0283

It is important to have your SDA reviewed by an attorney before you sign it. This will help to ensure that the agreement is fair and enforceable, and that it protects your interests. By following the tips in this blog post, you can mitigate risks and ensure success with your software development project by drafting a well-drafted software development agreement.

[mythalism]

i know everyone is really excited for the oblivion remake because i was too. oblivion was the first real video game i ever played when i was a kid, and is literally the reason i am a gamer today, but BDS has called for a microsoft boycott, and that includes anything made by bethesda.

this isn't just a "oh they have some obscure business partnerships in isr*el" or "oh they donate to this or that lobby" sort of boycott either, although those are important too. my tone is not meant to be flippant about them, but rather i want to emphasize the gravity of how microsoft directly and deliberately contributes to the palestinian death toll daily, in a way that is uniquely cruel and complicit.

microsoft has had a $35 million dollar contract with the isr*eli military since 2002. they provide cloud storage for surveillance data of gazan civillians, and an artificial intelligence program called a "mass assassination factory" to assist in planning and targeting their attacks, many of which are on civilians or involve mass civilian casualties.

microsoft's service agreements with the isr*eli military also includes the CPU responsible for the military's tech infrastructure, military intelligence units that develop spy technology used against palestinians and lebanese, the maintenance of the palestinian population registry that tracks and (illegally) limits the movement of palestinains in the west bank and gaza, their air force targeting database, and much more. they work closely with isr*eli military intelligence agencies on surveillance systems used to monitor palestians, provide specialized consulting, technical and engineering support, hosts training software for the IOF, provide financial support to organizations based in the illegally occupied west bank, and have repeatedly invested in isr*eli start ups specializing in war technology.

in 2020, internal and external pressure forced microsoft to pull out of its 74 million dollar investment in an isr*eli company that violated international law due to its use of facial recognition technology for military surveillance.

in 2021, microsoft signed a new, 3-year contract with the isr*eli ministry of defense worth $133 million dollars. the isr*eli military is microsoft's second largest military customer. the first? the united states.

you can read more (w/ sources) about microsoft's complicity here.

BDS asks us to boycott microsoft products whenever possible.

microsoft is directly complicit in countless isr*eli war crimes, and the money you provide them will further proliferate this violence. i know the oblivion remake was exciting, but please, consider the lives of palestinians above your own nostalgia. no one is free until everyone is free.

[nasa]

LaRue Burbank, mathematician and computer, is just one of the many women who were instrumental to NASA missions.

4 Little Known Women Who Made Huge Contributions to NASA

Women have always played a significant role at NASA and its predecessor NACA, although for much of the agency’s history, they received neither the praise nor recognition that their contributions deserved. To celebrate Women’s History Month – and properly highlight some of the little-known women-led accomplishments of NASA’s early history – our archivists gathered the stories of four women whose work was critical to NASA’s success and paved the way for future generations.

LaRue Burbank: One of the Women Who Helped Land a Man on the Moon

LaRue Burbank was a trailblazing mathematician at NASA. Hired in 1954 at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory (now NASA’s Langley Research Center), she, like many other young women at NACA, the predecessor to NASA, had a bachelor's degree in mathematics. But unlike most, she also had a physics degree. For the next four years, she worked as a "human computer," conducting complex data analyses for engineers using calculators, slide rules, and other instruments. After NASA's founding, she continued this vital work for Project Mercury.

In 1962, she transferred to the newly established Manned Spacecraft Center (now NASA’s Johnson Space Center) in Houston, becoming one of the few female professionals and managers there.  Her expertise in electronics engineering led her to develop critical display systems used by flight controllers in Mission Control to monitor spacecraft during missions. Her work on the Apollo missions was vital to achieving President Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon.

Eilene Galloway: How NASA became… NASA

Eilene Galloway wasn't a NASA employee, but she played a huge role in its very creation. In 1957, after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, Senator Richard Russell Jr. called on Galloway, an expert on the Atomic Energy Act, to write a report on the U.S. response to the space race. Initially, legislators aimed to essentially re-write the Atomic Energy Act to handle the U.S. space goals. However, Galloway argued that the existing military framework wouldn't suffice – a new agency was needed to oversee both military and civilian aspects of space exploration. This included not just defense, but also meteorology, communications, and international cooperation.

Her work on the National Aeronautics and Space Act ensured NASA had the power to accomplish all these goals, without limitations from the Department of Defense or restrictions on international agreements. Galloway is even to thank for the name "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", as initially NASA was to be called “National Aeronautics and Space Agency” which was deemed to not carry enough weight and status for the wide-ranging role that NASA was to fill.

Barbara Scott: The “Star Trek Nerd” Who Led Our Understanding of the Stars

A self-described "Star Trek nerd," Barbara Scott's passion for space wasn't steered toward engineering by her guidance counselor. But that didn't stop her!  Fueled by her love of math and computer science, she landed at Goddard Spaceflight Center in 1977.  One of the first women working on flight software, Barbara's coding skills became instrumental on missions like the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) and the Thermal Canister Experiment on the Space Shuttle's STS-3.  For the final decade of her impressive career, Scott managed the flight software for the iconic Hubble Space Telescope, a testament to her dedication to space exploration.

Dr. Claire Parkinson: An Early Pioneer in Climate Science Whose Work is Still Saving Lives

Dr. Claire Parkinson's love of math blossomed into a passion for climate science. Inspired by the Moon landing, and the fight for civil rights, she pursued a graduate degree in climatology.  In 1978, her talents landed her at Goddard, where she continued her research on sea ice modeling. But Parkinson's impact goes beyond theory.  She began analyzing satellite data, leading to a groundbreaking discovery: a decline in Arctic sea ice coverage between 1973 and 1987. This critical finding caught the attention of Senator Al Gore, highlighting the urgency of climate change.

Parkinson's leadership extended beyond research.  As Project Scientist for the Aqua satellite, she championed making its data freely available. This real-time information has benefitted countless projects, from wildfire management to weather forecasting, even aiding in monitoring the COVID-19 pandemic. Parkinson's dedication to understanding sea ice patterns and the impact of climate change continues to be a valuable resource for our planet.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space! 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Canada shouldn’t retaliate with its US tariffs

Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.

Five years ago, Trump touted his "big, beautiful" replacement for NAFTA, the "free trade agreement" between the US, Mexico and Canada. Trump's NAFTA-2 was called the USMCA (US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) and it was pretty similar to NAFTA, to be honest.

That tells you a couple things: first, NAFTA was, broadly speaking a good thing for Trump and the ultra-wealthy donors who backed him (and got far richer as a result). That's why he kept it intact. NAFTA and USMCA are, at root, a way to make rich people richer by making poorer people poorer. Trump's base hated NAFTA because they (correctly) believed that it was being used to erode wages by chasing cheaper labor and more lax environmental controls in other countries. Neither NAFTA nor USMCA have any stipulations requiring exported goods to be manufactured by unionized workers, or in factories with robust environmental and workplace safety rules.

The point of NAFTA/USMCA is to goose profits by despoiling the environment, maiming workers, stealing their wages, paying them less, all while poisoning the Earth. Trump's "new" NAFTA was just the old NAFTA with some largely cosmetic changes so that Trump's base could be (temporarily) fooled into thinking Trump was righting the historic wrong of NAFTA.

However, there was one part of USMCA that marked a huge departure from NAFTA: the "IP" chapter. USCMA bound Canada and Mexico to implementing brutal new IP laws. For example, Mexico was forced to pass an anti-circumvention law that makes it a crime to tamper with "digital locks." This means that Mexican mechanics can't bypass the locks US car companies use to lock-out third party repair. Mexican farmers can't fix their own tractors. And, of course, Mexican software developers can't make alternative app stores for games consoles and mobile devices – they must sell their software through US Big Tech companies that take 30% of every sale:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/09/free-sample/#que-viva

Shamefully, Canada had already capitulated to most of these demands. Two Canadian Conservative Party politicians, Tony Clement and James Moore, had sold the country out in 2012, throwing away 6,138 negative responses to a consultation on a new DRM law (on the grounds that they were "babyish" views of "radical extremists"), siding instead with the 54 cranks and industry shills who supported their proposal:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/15/radical-extremists/#sex-pest

When Canadian politicians are pressed on why these anti-interoperability policies are good for Canada, they'll say that it's a condition of free trade, and the benefits of being able to export Canadian goods to the US without tariffs outweigh the costs of having to pay rents to American companies for consumables (like car parts or printer ink), repair, and software sales.

Sure, when Canadian software authors sell iPhone apps to Canadian customers, the payments take a round trip through Cupertino, California and return 30% short. But Canadian consumers get to buy iPhones without paying tariffs on them, and the oil, timber, and minerals we rip out of the ground can be sent to America without tariffs, either (oh, also, a few things that are still manufactured in Canada can do this, too).

Enter Trump, carrying a 25% tariff on all Canadian goods, which he has vowed to impose on his first day in office. Obviously, this demands a policy response. What should Canada do when Trump tears up his "big, beautiful" trade deal and whacks Canadian exporters? One obvious response is to impose a 25% retaliatory tariff on American exporters:

https://mishtalk.com/economics/canada-says-it-will-match-us-tariffs-if-trump-launches-trade-war/

After all, Canada and the US are one another's mutual largest trading partners. American businesses rely on selling things to Canadians, so a massive tariff on US goods will certainly make some of Trump's business-lobby backers feel pain, and maybe they'll talk some sense into him.

I think this would be a huge mistake. The most potent political lesson of the past four years is that politicians who preside over rising prices – regardless of their role in causing them – will swiftly feel the wrath of their voters. The public is furious about inflation, whether it comes from transient covid supply chain shocks, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, or cartels using "inflation" as cover for illegal, collusive price-gouging.

Canadians are very reliant on American imports of finished goods. That's another legacy of NAFTA: it crashed Canada's manufacturing sector. Canadian manufacturing companies treated the US as a "nearshore" source of non-union labor and weak environmental and safety rules, and shipped Canadian union jobs to American scabs. Canada's economy is supposedly now all about "services" but what we really export is stuff we tear out of the Earth.

Countries that are organized around resource extraction don't need fancy social safety nets or an educational system capable of producing a high-tech workforce. All you need to extract resources is a hole in the ground surrounded by guns, which explains a lot about shifts to the Canadian political climate since the Mulroney years.

Since Canada is now substantially reorganized as an open-pit mine for American manufacturers, cutting off American imports would drive the prices of everyday good sky-high, and would be political suicide.

But there's another way.

Because, of course, Canada – like any other country – has the capacity to make all kinds of things, including high-tech things. Sure, it's unlikely that Canada will launch another Research in Motion with a Blackberry smart-phone that will put the iPhone and Android in the shade. The mobile duopoly has the market sewn up, and can use predatory pricing, refusal to deal, and other anticompetitive tactics to strangle any competitor in its cradle.

But you know what Canada could make? A Canadian App Store. That's a store that Canadian software authors could use to sell Canadian apps to Canadian customers, charging, say, the standard payment processing fee of 5% rather than Apple's 30%. Canada could make app stores for the Android, Playstation and Xbox, too.

There's no reason that a Canadian app store would have to confine itself to Canadian software authors, either. Canadian app stores could offer 5% commissions on sales to US and global software authors, and provide jailbreaking kits that allows device owners all around the world to install the Canadian app stores where software authors don't get ripped off by American Big Tech companies.

Canadian companies like Honeybee already make "front-ends" for John Deere tractors – these are the components that turn a tractor into a plow, or a thresher, or another piece of heavy agricultural equipment. Honeybee struggles constantly to get its products to interface with Deere tractors, because Deere uses digital locks to block its products:

https://honeybee.ca/

Canada could produce jailbreaking kits for John Deere tractors, too – not just for Honeybee. Every ag-tech company in the world would benefit from commercially available, professionally supported John Deere jailbreaking kits. So would farmers, because these kits would restore farmers' Right to Repair their own tractors:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

Speaking of repair: Canadian companies could jailbreak every make and model of every US automobile, and make independent, constantly updated diagnostic tools that every mechanic in the world could buy for hundreds of dollars, rather than paying the five-figure ransom that car makers charge for their own underpowered, junk versions of these tools.

Jailbreaking cars doesn't stop with repair, either. Cars like the Tesla are basically giant rent-extraction machines. If you want to use all the "features" your Tesla ships with – like access to the full charge on your battery – you have to pay tens of thousands of dollars in subscription fees over the life of the car, and when you sell your car, all that "downloadable content" is clawed back. No one will pay extra to buy your used Tesla just because you spent thousands on manufacturer upgrades, because they're all downgraded when you sign over the pink slip.

But Canadian companies could make jailbreaking kits for Teslas that unlock all the features in the car for a single low price – and again, they could sell these to every Tesla owner in the world.

Elon Musk doesn't invent anything, he just takes credit for other people's ideas, and that's as true of bad ideas as it is for good ones. Musk didn't invent the extractive Tesla rip-off: he stole it from inkjet printer companies like HP, who have used the fact that jailbreaking is illegal to turn printer ink into the most expensive fluid in the world, selling for more than $10,000/gallon.

Canadian companies could sell jailbreaking kits for inkjet printers that disconnect them from "subscription" services and disable the anti-features that check for and reject third party ink. People all over the world would buy these.

What's standing in the way of a Canadian industrial policy that focuses on raiding the sky-high margins of American monopolists with third-party add-ons, mods and jailbreaks?

Only the IP laws that Canada has agreed to in order to get tariff-free access to American markets. You know, the access that Trump has promised to end in less than a week's time?

Canada should tear up these laws – and not impose tariffs on American goods. That way, Canadians can still buy cheap American goods, and then they can save billions of dollars every year on the consumables, parts, software, and service for those goods.

This is hurting American big business where it hurts – in the ongoing rents it extracts from Canadians through IP laws like Bill C-11 (the law that bans jailbreaking). Canada could become a global high-tech export powerhouse, selling "complementary" goods that disenshittify all the worst practices of US tech monopolists, from car parts to insulin pumps.

It's the only kind of trade war that Canadian politicians can win against Americans: the kind where prices for Canadians don't go up because of tariffs; where the price of apps, repair, parts, and upgrades goes way down; and where a new, high-tech manufacturing sector pulls in vast sums from customers all over the world.

Canada can win this kind of war, even against a country as big and powerful as the USA. After all, we did it once before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CK3EDncjGI

Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/15/beauty-eh/#its-the-only-war-the-yankees-lost-except-for-vietnam-and-also-the-alamo-and-the-bay-of-ham

[tangentiallly]

One way to spot patterns is to show AI models millions of labelled examples. This method requires humans to painstakingly label all this data so they can be analysed by computers. Without them, the algorithms that underpin self-driving cars or facial recognition remain blind. They cannot learn patterns.

The algorithms built in this way now augment or stand in for human judgement in areas as varied as medicine, criminal justice, social welfare and mortgage and loan decisions. Generative AI, the latest iteration of AI software, can create words, code and images. This has transformed them into creative assistants, helping teachers, financial advisers, lawyers, artists and programmers to co-create original works.

To build AI, Silicon Valley’s most illustrious companies are fighting over the limited talent of computer scientists in their backyard, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to a newly minted Ph.D. But to train and deploy them using real-world data, these same companies have turned to the likes of Sama, and their veritable armies of low-wage workers with basic digital literacy, but no stable employment.

Sama isn’t the only service of its kind globally. Start-ups such as Scale AI, Appen, Hive Micro, iMerit and Mighty AI (now owned by Uber), and more traditional IT companies such as Accenture and Wipro are all part of this growing industry estimated to be worth $17bn by 2030.

Because of the sheer volume of data that AI companies need to be labelled, most start-ups outsource their services to lower-income countries where hundreds of workers like Ian and Benja are paid to sift and interpret data that trains AI systems.

Displaced Syrian doctors train medical software that helps diagnose prostate cancer in Britain. Out-of-work college graduates in recession-hit Venezuela categorize fashion products for e-commerce sites. Impoverished women in Kolkata’s Metiabruz, a poor Muslim neighbourhood, have labelled voice clips for Amazon’s Echo speaker. Their work couches a badly kept secret about so-called artificial intelligence systems – that the technology does not ‘learn’ independently, and it needs humans, millions of them, to power it. Data workers are the invaluable human links in the global AI supply chain.

This workforce is largely fragmented, and made up of the most precarious workers in society: disadvantaged youth, women with dependents, minorities, migrants and refugees. The stated goal of AI companies and the outsourcers they work with is to include these communities in the digital revolution, giving them stable and ethical employment despite their precarity. Yet, as I came to discover, data workers are as precarious as factory workers, their labour is largely ghost work and they remain an undervalued bedrock of the AI industry.

As this community emerges from the shadows, journalists and academics are beginning to understand how these globally dispersed workers impact our daily lives: the wildly popular content generated by AI chatbots like ChatGPT, the content we scroll through on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, the items we browse when shopping online, the vehicles we drive, even the food we eat, it’s all sorted, labelled and categorized with the help of data workers.

Milagros Miceli, an Argentinian researcher based in Berlin, studies the ethnography of data work in the developing world. When she started out, she couldn’t find anything about the lived experience of AI labourers, nothing about who these people actually were and what their work was like. ‘As a sociologist, I felt it was a big gap,’ she says. ‘There are few who are putting a face to those people: who are they and how do they do their jobs, what do their work practices involve? And what are the labour conditions that they are subject to?’

Miceli was right – it was hard to find a company that would allow me access to its data labourers with minimal interference. Secrecy is often written into their contracts in the form of non-disclosure agreements that forbid direct contact with clients and public disclosure of clients’ names. This is usually imposed by clients rather than the outsourcing companies. For instance, Facebook-owner Meta, who is a client of Sama, asks workers to sign a non-disclosure agreement. Often, workers may not even know who their client is, what type of algorithmic system they are working on, or what their counterparts in other parts of the world are paid for the same job.

The arrangements of a company like Sama – low wages, secrecy, extraction of labour from vulnerable communities – is veered towards inequality. After all, this is ultimately affordable labour. Providing employment to minorities and slum youth may be empowering and uplifting to a point, but these workers are also comparatively inexpensive, with almost no relative bargaining power, leverage or resources to rebel.

Even the objective of data-labelling work felt extractive: it trains AI systems, which will eventually replace the very humans doing the training. But of the dozens of workers I spoke to over the course of two years, not one was aware of the implications of training their replacements, that they were being paid to hasten their own obsolescence.

— Madhumita Murgia, Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI

[askagamedev]

Bungie is in hot water for the exposure of deep plagerism from a designer, with devs and directors following the artist for many years.

In cases like this, why didn't they hire or consult them instead of plagerising the work? It seems like such a simple solution, that i'm certain there must be something I don't understand.

Bungie has had this happen before, how does such trouble make it through the system?

Bungie's leadership says they didn't know that it happened, and I believe them. In a big studio like Bungie, there are literally hundreds of developers creating and modifying assets dozens of times on a daily basis. There is no way for any human to audit every single asset checked in to the depot against the sum total of the internet, especially when we're trying to keep things under wraps before the game is ready to be announced. Game devs don't have the kind of software tools that Youtube does to police for bad actors uploading copyrighted material.

When individual actors do this, they don't tell their bosses that they've stolen other peoples' work. They hide it and pass the work off as their own and hope nobody notices. This behavior is never condoned or encouraged by leadership because it causes nothing but a big mess for everyone involved if it gets found out. The bigger the team, the more likely somebody will notice this kind of thing. However, it isn't 100% for the same reason that players find bugs that QA missed - when a game goes public, there's often several orders of magnitude more eyes looking at it than internally. More eyeballs looking mean that it is more likely that stolen assets get found out.

After such things happen, the studio's legal representation invariably does reach out to the legally injured party (in this case Antireal) with a settlement offer. Such offers usually include a non-disclosure agreement and a non-disparagement clause in exchange for payment and either a license for the art or removal of all offending assets from the game. That is likely what is going on right now between Bungie and Antireal.

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[mariacallous]

The damage the Trump administration has done to science in a few short months is both well documented and incalculable, but in recent days that assault has taken an alarming twist. Their latest project is not firing researchers or pulling funds—although there’s still plenty of that going on. It’s the inversion of science itself.

Here’s how it works. Three “dire wolves” are born in an undisclosed location in the continental United States, and the media goes wild. This is big news for Game of Thrones fans and anyone interested in “de-extinction,” the promise of bringing back long-vanished species.

There’s a lot to unpack here: Are these dire wolves really dire wolves? (They’re technically grey wolves with edited genes, so not everyone’s convinced.) Is this a publicity stunt or a watershed moment of discovery? If we’re staying in the Song of Ice and Fire universe, can we do ice dragons next?

All more or less reasonable reactions. And then there’s secretary of the interior Doug Burgum, a former software executive and investor now charged with managing public lands in the US. “The marvel of ‘de-extinction’ technology can help forge a future where populations are never at risk,” Burgum wrote in a post on X this week. “The revival of the Dire Wolf heralds the advent of a thrilling new era of scientific wonder, showcasing how the concept of ‘de-extinction’ can serve as a bedrock for modern species conservation.”

What Burgum is suggesting here is that the answer to 18,000 threatened species—as classified and tallied by the nonprofit International Union for Conservation of Nature—is that scientists can simply slice and dice their genes back together. It’s like playing Contra with the infinite lives code, but for the global ecosystem.

This logic is wrong, the argument is bad. More to the point, though, it’s the kind of upside-down takeaway that will be used not to advance conservation efforts but to repeal them. Oh, fracking may kill off the California condor? Here’s a mutant vulture as a make-good.

“Developing genetic technology cannot be viewed as the solution to human-caused extinction, especially not when this administration is seeking to actively destroy the habitats and legal protections imperiled species need,” said Mike Senatore, senior vice president of conservation programs at the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife, in a statement. “What we are seeing is anti-wildlife, pro-business politicians vilify the Endangered Species Act and claim we can Frankenstein our way to the future.”

On Tuesday, Donald Trump put on a show of signing an executive order that promotes coal production in the United States. The EO explicitly cites the need to power data centers for artificial intelligence. Yes, AI is energy-intensive. They’ve got that right. Appropriate responses to that fact might include “can we make AI more energy-efficient?” or “Can we push AI companies to draw on renewable resources.” Instead, the Trump administration has decided that the linchpin technology of the future should be driven by the energy source of the past. You might as well push UPS to deliver exclusively by Clydesdale. Everything is twisted and nothing makes sense.

The nonsense jujitsu is absurd, but is it sincere? In some cases, it’s hard to say. In others it seems more likely that scientific illiteracy serves a cover for retribution. This week, the Commerce Department canceled federal support for three Princeton University initiatives focused on climate research. The stated reason, for one of those programs: “This cooperative agreement promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as ‘climate anxiety,’ which has increased significantly among America’s youth.”

Commerce Department, you’re so close! Climate anxiety among young people is definitely something to look out for. Telling them to close their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears while the world burns is probably not the best way to address it. If you think their climate stress is bad now, just wait until half of Miami is underwater.

There are two important pieces of broader context here. First is that Donald Trump does not believe in climate change, and therefore his administration proceeds as though it does not exist. Second is that Princeton University president Christopher Eisengruber had the audacity to suggest that the federal government not routinely shake down academic institutions under the guise of stopping antisemitism. Two weeks later, the Trump administration suspended dozens of research grants to Princeton totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. And now, “climate anxiety.”

This is all against the backdrop of a government whose leading health officials are Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Mehmet Oz, two men who, to varying degrees, have built their careers peddling unscientific malarky. The Trump administration has made clear that it will not stop at the destruction and degradation of scientific research in the United States. It will also misrepresent, misinterpret, and bastardize it to achieve distinctly unscientific ends.

Those dire wolves aren’t going to solve anything; they’re not going to be reintroduced to the wild, they’re not going to help thin out deer and elk populations.

But buried in the announcement was something that could make a difference. It turns out Colossal also cloned a number of red wolves—a species that is critically endangered but very much not extinct—with the goal of increasing genetic diversity among the population. It doesn’t resurrect a species that humanity has wiped out. It helps one survive.

[demifiendrsa]

The 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has officially ended after 148 days on September 27, 2023 at 12:01AM.

Some details from the contract:

AI can’t write or rewrite literary material, and AI-generated material will not be considered source material .

A writer can choose to use AI but the studio can’t require the writer to use AI software

Studios must disclose to writers if any materials given to them have been generated by AI or incorporate AI-generated material.

The WGA reserves the right to assert that exploitation of writers’ material to train AI is prohibited by the agreement or other law.

The tentative agreement includes a minimum staff size of three writer-producers for a first-season show for development rooms running 20 weeks or longer, with a formula for additional seasons tied to the number of episodes.

Other gains included span — the length of time writers will be employed on scripted shows — with development rooms now guaranteed at least 10 consecutive weeks, post-greenlight rooms securing 20 weeks or the duration of the room. These terms will apply to seasons where the first episode is written after Dec. 1, 2023, which means pre-existing programs do not have to adhere to the room size or span requirements.

The WGA entered the strike asking for a cumulative 16 percent increase in residuals over the three-year MBA and wound up with 12.5 percent.

[mudora]

A few days ago, I re blogged a post describing the intense backlash Adobe is getting for certain policies involving permissions with their cloud services, and posted an article citing these agreements lack of changes until recently - and upon thinking on it for a few days, I AM noticing the apparent lack of transparency, especially since they updated those terms. But the lack of trust for Adobe remains true regardless, and further updates on this matter are far more alarming then the initial read. So, definitely try to find other programs then Adobe's products. I'll likely need to search for something myself. Sadly, I am mostly comfortable with photoshop's features, and clip studio does not work in the way that I like or prefer. I'm a user who likely does not spend as much yearly on a sub, since (and I'm not joking) my uncle does indeed work for Adobe as a programmer, and unfortunately has no clout to stop this higher level lunacy from happening. Though I might pay a smaller price tag, it doesn't change the fact that the price for their programs is astronomical. I'll likely keep using it and other software as I don't have many other options that work the way I'd like them to for my process. However some other options are always nice to look up on. Keep in mind, I am an advanced user, and simple photo manip tools are not going to cut it for painting/drawing/and visual development. I am keeping my eye on a few promising options. Thankfully for Photo manipulation and editing, there is plenty of good and free software to use. Some recs for those who can't just get off the burning Adobe Train - use your firewall to protect you from potential spying from their programs. On Windows, you can change these settings directly within your firewall settings. "No problem.

And for those wondering, on Windows both 10 & 11, go to Control Panel > Windows Defender > Advances Options > Manage Outgoing Connections > Add new rule.

From here you'll enter a wizard menu where you can pick and choose programs to block access to."

(credit to @kevinreijnders.bsky.social for this tip). I also suggest not to use the cloud for your file storage, and I rec getting a different storage device for your art files anyway, as you can take it with you anywhere you go with either an external hard drive, or usb memory stick.

[allaboutkeyingo]

SQL Server 2022 Edition and License instructions

SQL Server 2022 Editions:

• Enterprise Edition is ideal for applications requiring mission critical in-memory performance, security, and high availability

• Standard Edition delivers fully featured database capabilities for mid-tier applications and data marts

SQL Server 2022 is also available in free Developer and Express editions. Web Edition is offered in the Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) program only.

And the Online Store Keyingo Provides the SQL Server 2017/2019/2022 Standard Edition.

SQL Server 2022 licensing models 

SQL Server 2022 offers customers a variety of licensing options aligned with how customers typically purchase specific workloads. There are two main licensing models that apply to SQL Server:  PER CORE: Gives customers a more precise measure of computing power and a more consistent licensing metric, regardless of whether solutions are deployed on physical servers on-premises, or in virtual or cloud environments. 

• Core based licensing is appropriate when customers are unable to count users/devices, have Internet/Extranet workloads or systems that integrate with external facing workloads.

• Under the Per Core model, customers license either by physical server (based on the full physical core count) or by virtual machine (based on virtual cores allocated), as further explained below.

SERVER + CAL: Provides the option to license users and/or devices, with low-cost access to incremental SQL Server deployments.   

• Each server running SQL Server software requires a server license.

• Each user and/or device accessing a licensed SQL Server requires a SQL Server CAL that is the same version or newer – for example, to access a SQL Server 2019 Standard Edition server, a user would need a SQL Server 2019 or 2022 CAL.

Each SQL Server CAL allows access to multiple licensed SQL Servers, including Standard Edition and legacy Business Intelligence and Enterprise Edition Servers.SQL Server 2022 Editions availability by licensing model:  

Physical core licensing – Enterprise Edition 

• Customers can deploy an unlimited number of VMs or containers on the server and utilize the full capacity of the licensed hardware, by fully licensing the server (or server farm) with Enterprise Edition core subscription licenses or licenses with SA coverage based on the total number of physical cores on the servers.

• Subscription licenses or SA provide(s) the option to run an unlimited number of virtual machines or containers to handle dynamic workloads and fully utilize the hardware’s computing power.

Virtual core licensing – Standard/Enterprise Edition 

When licensing by virtual core on a virtual OSE with subscription licenses or SA coverage on all virtual cores (including hyperthreaded cores) on the virtual OSE, customers may run any number of containers in that virtual OSE. This benefit applies both to Standard and Enterprise Edition.

Licensing for non-production use 

SQL Server 2022 Developer Edition provides a fully featured version of SQL Server software—including all the features and capabilities of Enterprise Edition—licensed for  development, test and demonstration purposes only.  Customers may install and run the SQL Server Developer Edition software on any number of devices. This is  significant because it allows customers to run the software  on multiple devices (for testing purposes, for example)  without having to license each non-production server  system for SQL Server.  

A production environment is defined as an environment  that is accessed by end-users of an application (such as an  Internet website) and that is used for more than gathering  feedback or acceptance testing of that application.   

SQL Server 2022 Developer Edition is a free product !

[justforbooks]

Source Code: My Beginnings by Bill Gates

In contrast to the current crop of swaggering tech bros, the Microsoft founder comes across as wry and self-deprecating in this memoir of starting out

Bill Gates is the John McEnroe of the tech world: once a snotty brat whom everyone loved to hate, now grown up into a beloved elder statesman. Former rivals, most notably Apple’s Steve Jobs, have since departed this dimension, while the Gates Foundation, focusing on unsexy but important technologies such as malaria nets, was doing “effective altruism” long before that became a fashionable term among philosophically minded tech bros. Time, then, to look back. In the first of what the author threatens will be a trilogy of memoirs, Gates recounts the first two decades of his life, from his birth in 1955 to the founding of Microsoft and its agreement to supply a version of the Basic programming language to Apple Computer in 1977.

He grows up in a pleasant suburb of Seattle with a lawyer father and a schoolteacher mother. His intellectual development is keyed to an origin scene in which he is fascinated by his grandmother’s skill at card games around the family dining table. The eight-year-old Gates realises that gin rummy and sevens are systems of dynamic data that the player can learn to manipulate.

As he tells it, Gates was a rather disruptive schoolchild, always playing the smart alec and not wanting to try too hard, until he first learned to use a computer terminal under the guidance of an influential maths teacher named Bill Dougall. (I wanted to learn more about this man than Gates supplies in a still extraordinary thumbnail sketch: “He had been a World War II Navy pilot and worked as an aeronautical engineer at Boeing. Somewhere along the way he earned a degree in French Literature from the Sorbonne in Paris on top of graduate degrees in engineering and education.”) Ah, the computer terminal. It is 1968, so the school terminal communicates with a mainframe elsewhere. Soon enough, the 13-year-old Gates has taught it to play noughts and crosses. He is hooked. He befriends another pupil, Paul Allen – who will later introduce him to alcohol and LSD – and together they pore over programming manuals deep into the night. Gates plans a vast simulation war game, but he and his friends get their first taste of writing actually useful software when they are asked to automate class scheduling after their school merges with another. Success with this leads the children, now calling themselves the Lakeside Programming Group, to write a payroll program for local businesses, and later to create software for traffic engineers.

There follows a smooth transition to Harvard, where in the ferment of anti-war campus protests our hero is more interested in the arrival, one day in 1969, of a PDP-10 computer. Gates takes classes in maths but also chemistry and the Greek classics. Realising he doesn’t have it in him to become a pure mathematician, he goes all-in on computers once a new home machine, the Altair, is announced. He and Paul Allen will write its Basic, having decided to call themselves “Micro-Soft”.

The early home computer scene, Gates notes, was a countercultural, hippy thing: cheap computers “represented a triumph of the masses against the monolithic corporations and establishment forces that controlled access to computing”, and so software was widely “shared”, or copied among people for free. It was Gates himself who, notoriously, pushed back against this culture when he found out most users of his Basic weren’t paying for it. By “stealing software”, he wrote in an open letter in 1976, “you prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing?” This rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way and still does, at least in the more militant parts of the “open-source” world. But he had a point. And that, readers, is why your Office 365 account just renewed for another year. Fans of Word and Excel, though, will have to wait for subsequent volumes of Gates’s recollections, as will those who want more about his later battles with Apple, though Steve Jobs does get an amusing walk-on part. (Micro-Soft’s general manager keeps a notebook of sales calls, on one page of which we read: “11.15 Steve Jobs calls. Was very rude.”). This volume, still, is more than just a geek’s inventory of early achievements. There is a genuine gratitude for influential mentors, and a wry mood of self-deprecation throughout. Gates gleefully records his first preschool report: “He seemed determined to impress us with his complete lack of concern for any phase of school life.” Later, he explains how he acquired a sudden interest in theatre classes. “Admittedly the main draw for me was the higher percentage of girls in drama. And since the main activity in the class was to read lines to each other, the odds were very good that I’d actually talk to one.” Strikingly, unlike most “self-made” billionaires, Gates emphasises the “unearned privilege” of his upbringing and the peculiar circumstances – “mostly out of my control” – that enabled his career. Adorably, he even admits to still having panic dreams about his university exams. The book’s most touching pages recount how one of his closest friends and colleagues in the programming group, Kent Evans, died in a mountaineering accident when he was 17. “Throughout my life, I have tended to deal with loss by avoiding it,” Gates writes. He says later that if he were growing up today, he would probably be identified as “on the autism spectrum”, and now regrets some of his early behaviour, though “I wouldn’t change the brain I was given for anything”. There is a sense of the writer, older and wiser, trying to redeem the past through understanding it better, a thing that no one has yet seen Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg attempt in public. That alone makes Bill Gates a more human tech titan than most of his rivals, past and present.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[theink-stainedfolk]

How to Ruin High Society in Ten Easy Steps

---

It started, as most absurd things do, with an argument.

Jovan stormed into Julan’s chambers, his boots thudding against the polished floor. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” he snapped, slamming the door behind him.

Julan—or rather, Landon Xavier—barely looked up from the book he was pretending to read. He lounged on the chaise, his posture the picture of indifference. “Good morning to you too, little brother. To what do I owe this delightful visit?”

“You insulted Lord Hargrave at the ball last night! The man holds half the trade routes to the north, and now he’s threatening to pull out of our family’s contracts!”

Julan smirked. “I didn’t insult him. I merely pointed out that his wig was on backward. Hardly my fault he doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

Jovan groaned, dragging a hand through his hair. “You’re impossible.”

“Oh, come on. You used to be much better at insults yourself.” Julan shot him a sidelong glance, his smirk faltering. “What happened to you, Jovan? You were a brat, sure, but you had some bite. Now you’re just... boring.”

Jovan froze. His gaze sharpened, and a flicker of something unreadable crossed his face.

“And you,” Jovan said slowly, pointing an accusing finger at Julan, “you’re not my brother.”

The room went still.

Julan raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“You’re not my brother,” Jovan repeated, his voice low but firm. “You’re too different. Smarter. Calmer. You actually read books now instead of using them as paperweights.”

Julan set his book down, his smirk returning. “And you’re suspiciously more competent than you used to be. So, what’s your excuse?”

Jovan’s eyes widened. “Wait. You’re...?”

“Not Julan?” Julan finished for him, leaning forward with a conspiratorial grin. “Bingo. Name’s Landon Xavier. Software developer. Thirty-two. I woke up in this nightmare of corsets and wigs about a month ago.”

Jovan blinked, his jaw slack. “You... you came from the future?”

“And you...” Julan tilted his head, studying him. “...you’re not the useless little brother everyone thinks you are anymore. You regressed, didn’t you?”

The words hung in the air for a moment before Jovan let out a bark of laughter. “Unbelievable. I thought I was the only one cursed with this madness.”

“Cursed?” Julan echoed, standing up. “You got a second chance! I’d kill for that.”

“You might have to, considering your track record,” Jovan quipped, his grin widening.

For a moment, the two stared at each other, a strange understanding settling between them. Then, as if by some unspoken agreement, they both burst into uncontrollable laughter.

By the time they calmed down, Julan was sprawled on the chaise again, wiping tears from his eyes. “You have no idea how relieved I am. I’ve been dying to talk to someone who gets it.”

Jovan sat on the edge of the desk, a rare, genuine smile on his face. “Same. Do you know how hard it is to pretend I’m still that reckless idiot while trying to fix everything before it goes to hell again?”

“Well, you’re doing a decent job of it,” Julan said, giving him a mock salute. “Everyone thinks you’ve turned over a new leaf. It’s almost inspiring.”

“And you...” Jovan gestured at him. “...you’re fooling everyone too. Even Lanivel, who hates your guts, is starting to notice you’re not the same.”

At the mention of Lanivel, Julan groaned. “Don’t remind me. That guy watches me like I’m a ticking time bomb. Which, to be fair, I was before. But now? I’m just trying to stay out of trouble.”

Jovan smirked. “Oh, you’re in trouble, all right. You should’ve seen the way Lanivel was glaring at you when Emlyn defended you at dinner last night.”

“Emlyn?” Julan frowned. “What’s her deal, anyway? She hates me—well, the old me—but now she’s being all... nice.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Jovan warned. “She’s probably plotting something.”

“Oh, she definitely is,” Julan said, grinning. “And I’m going to help her. Breaking this engagement is priority number one.”

Jovan raised an eyebrow. “You’re actually working with her? You really have changed.”

“Hey, I’m a modern man in a medieval world. Adapt or die, right?”

For a moment, Jovan just stared at him, then shook his head with a chuckle. “You know, for once, I think this family might actually survive.”

Julan grinned. “You and me, little bro. The unstoppable duo.”

Jovan smirked, extending his hand. “Partners in crime?”

Julan took it with a firm shake. “Always.”

---

My ♡s: @paeliae-occasionally @willtheweaver @drchenquill @wyked-ao3 @the-inkwell-variable

@corinneglass @seastarblue @frostedlemonwriter-deactivated2

[usafphantom2]

Lockheed Martin F-35s delivered with ‘robust' TR-3 training software

2024-09-04

Triservice formation of US Air Force F-35A (lead), US Marine Corps F-35B, and US Navy F-35C. F-35s are being delivered with training-capable TR-3 software and hardware, but a full combat-capable version will not be delivered until 2025. (US Air Force)

Lockheed Martin is delivering F-35 Lightning IIs with a “robust” but not yet combat-capable version of the Technology Refresh-3 (TR-3) software, according to the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO), which administers acquisitions on behalf of the aircraft's customers.

The new software build marks an improvement over the TR-3 hardware and software load delivered starting in July, when the JPO resumed accepting aircraft following a year-long suspension. The improvements include updates to displays, added computer memory, and increased processing power, the JPO told Janes .

The JPO and Lockheed Martin said in a joint statement that they have “reached an agreement for the acceptance and delivery of TR-3-enabled aircraft with robust combat training capability. As part of the agreement, the JPO will withhold a portion of final aircraft delivery payments from Lockheed Martin until TR-3 combat capability is qualified and delivered”.

The JPO said that the withheld payments amount to approximately USD5 million per aircraft, which will be held back until a combat-ready version of TR-3 is delivered.

“Additionally, Lockheed Martin and its industry partners are making significant investments in development labs and digital infrastructure that benefit the F-35 enterprise's speed and agility in fielding capabilities to the most advanced and connected fighter jet,” the statement said.

Lockheed Martin declined to detail the investments.

@JANESintel via X

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Australian data experts to support world’s largest sky survey

Australian Astronomical Optics at Macquarie University has partnered with Swinburne University to process a cosmic data deluge from the Rubin Observatory, supporting the world's largest sky survey capturing 20 terabytes of data nightly.

A team of data experts from Australian Astronomical Optics at Macquarie have joined a global effort to process a cosmic data deluge as a new Chilean observatory project comes online.

The Vera C. Rubin Observatory will capture the entire available night sky every few nights in its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST).

Macquarie University’s Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) team in partnership with Swinburne University of Technology’s Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing will host and process more than seven petabytes of data from the Observatory each year.

The AAO Research Data & Software (AAO RDS) team will provide essential software and data engineering expertise for an LSST Independent Data Access Centre (IDAC) hosted at Swinburne, making the data available to the national astronomy community.

The collaboration operates under Astronomy Data and Computing Services (ADACS), an initiative of Astronomy Australia Limited, with nodes at Macquarie, Swinburne and Curtin universities.

Starting this week, the LSST will conduct a ten-year survey of the southern hemisphere sky, capturing images every night with a 3,200 megapixel camera. The survey will reveal billions of previously unimaged stars and galaxies, generating approximately 20 terabytes of raw data nightly.

“It’s a huge volume - most astronomers might deal with 20 terabytes of data over a year, rather than in one night,” says Dr Simon O’Toole, Head of Research Data & Software at AAO.

“As the next generation of large telescopes and surveys comes online, the challenge is to get this data out to astronomers to do their analyses and all of the associated cool science.”

The project represents Australia’s in-kind contribution to the LSST, established through an agreement between Astronomy Australia Limited and the Rubin Observatory. The Australian team will enhance the observatory’s science platform software to help process the vast data volumes and create comprehensive catalogues for global astronomical analysis.

The work is supported by more than $1 million in funding from LIEF grants, NCRIS funding via Astronomy Australia Limited, and UNSW allocations.

Macquarie’s AAO RDS team is leading the development of a game-changing software platform to manage and deliver Rubin’s enormous data flow, supporting large-scale data processing and access for astronomers worldwide.

“We’re making sure the software is robust, so that when someone adds a new feature to do a particular kind of science, it doesn’t break the whole system,” Dr O’Toole says.

Professor Jarrod Hurley, Professor and Supercomputing Manager at Swinburne’s Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing, leads the hardware infrastructure for the project.

“This project positions Australia at the cutting edge of big data astronomy - the techniques we develop here will be essential for the next generation of mega-surveys,” Professor Hurley says.

Dr O’Toole says the project will enable discoveries across timescales never before possible, from tracking asteroids in our solar system to detecting explosive events in distant galaxies.

“I'm really excited about capturing the universe in motion - everything from stars exploding and neutron stars colliding, to black holes merging. And closer to home, we can also track asteroids and other solar system bodies,” he says.

The Rubin Observatory, located on Cerro Pachón in Chile, is currently in final commissioning stages, with first look images revealed this week. Over its ten-year operation, the survey will create an astronomical dataset without precedent, cataloguing billions of objects and tracking their changes over time.

Australian astronomers will have early access to this data alongside their US and Chilean colleagues, positioning Australia at the forefront of next-generation sky surveys.

IMAGE: Triffid and Lagoon Nebulae Rubin Observatory Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

[jordanianroyals]

19 November 2024: Queen Rania visited the King Hussein School of Computing Sciences at the Princess Sumaya University for Technology (PSUT), in conjunction with the university’s participation in Global Entrepreneurship Week.

Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan, PSUT Founder and Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, and PSUT President Wejdan Abu Elhaija, welcomed Queen Rania at the university, and led her on a tour of the King Hussein School of Computing Sciences. Established in 2005, the school offers Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Cybersecurity, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Graphics and Animation.

The school, which boasts a 96% employability rate among its graduates, is internationally recognized for its quality education and research, with accreditations from the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET) for its Computer Science program, and a EUR-ACE accreditation for its Software Engineering program.

Her Majesty stopped by an IT lecture before attending another on artificial intelligence, where students were presenting projects on using AI to address societal challenges. The Queen also watched students analyze and respond to a simulated real-time cyber-attack. Her Majesty also met with several other students gathered at the university’s canteen, and talked to them about their learning experiences.

Established in 1991 by Princess Sumaya bint El Hassan under the auspices of the Royal Scientific Society (RSS), the Princess Sumaya University for Technology is home to the Queen Rania Center for Entrepreneurship (QRCE), founded by Princess Sumaya in 2006 to support innovation and entrepreneurship as vital components of sustainable development. Since 2009, the center has celebrated the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Jordan, bringing together individuals and institutions to encourage and support their entrepreneurial capacities.

A leader at cultivating long-lasting relationships with renowned local and international IT companies, the university has also signed several agreements with well-known academic institutions and universities around the world to exchange expertise, knowledge, and technological advancements.

Her Majesty’s visit coincided with the university’s participation in Global Entrepreneurship Week. This initiative aims to celebrate entrepreneurship and innovation around the world by shedding light on the accomplishments of entrepreneurs across various fields and countries, and motivate the upcoming generation of entrepreneurs to create and enact positive change.