AMD patches CVE-2025–0033 “RMPocalypse,” a flaw allowing full SEV-SNP VM compromise via RMP overwrite.
Category: computing – Page 9
Secure Boot bypass risk threatens nearly 200,000 Linux Framework laptops
Around 200,000 Linux computer systems from American computer maker Framework were shipped with signed UEFI shell components that could be exploited to bypass Secure Boot protections.
An attacker could take advantage to load bootkits (e.g. BlackLotus, HybridPetya, and Bootkitty) that can evade OS-level security controls and persist across OS re-installs.
Powerful mm command.
Nobel Prize in physics awarded for ultracold electronics research that launched a quantum technology
Quantum mechanics describes the weird behavior of microscopic particles. Using quantum systems to perform computation promises to allow researchers to solve problems in areas from chemistry to cryptography that have so many possible solutions that they are beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful nonquantum computers possible.
Quantum computing depends on researchers developing practical quantum technologies. Superconducting electrical circuits are a promising technology, but not so long ago it was unclear whether they even showed quantum behavior. The 2025 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to three scientists for their work demonstrating that quantum effects persist even in large electrical circuits, which has enabled the development of practical quantum technologies.
I’m a physicist who studies superconducting circuits for quantum computing and other uses. The work in my field stems from the groundbreaking research the Nobel laureates conducted.
Super-thin semiconductor overcomes trade-off between speed and thermal stability
A team led by academician Huang Ru and Professor Wu Yanqing from the School of Integrated Circuits at Peking University has developed a super-thin, high-performance semiconductor with enhanced heat conductivity, enabled by a silicon carbide (SiC) substrate. The research, published in Nature Electronics under the title “Amorphous indium tin oxide transistors for power amplification above 10 GHz,” marks a significant step forward in next-generation radio-frequency (RF) electronics.
Amorphous oxide semiconductors (AOS) enable low-temperature, large-area, and chip-compatible processing with high carrier mobility. However, their inherently low thermal conductivity leads to self-heating effects, which limit top-gate scaling and high-frequency operation in applications such as 5G communications and the Internet of Things. Overcoming this trade-off between speed and thermal stability remains a central challenge.
This breakthrough using a SiC substrate overcomes the trade-off between speed and thermal stability in AOS, paving the way for low-cost, flexible, and chip-compatible RF electronics. It demonstrates how combining high-frequency design with effective thermal management can deliver both performance and reliability in high-speed devices.
Rewriting the rules of genetics: Study reveals gene boundaries are dynamic, not fixed
Molecular biologists have long believed that the beginning of a gene launched the process of transcription—the process by which a segment of DNA is copied into RNA and then RNA helps make the proteins that cells need to function.
But a new study published in Science by researchers at Boston University and the University of Massachusetts T.H. Chan School of Medicine challenges that understanding, revealing that the beginning and end of genes are not fixed points, but move together—reshaping how cells build proteins and adapt through evolution.
“This work rewrites a textbook idea: the beginning of a gene doesn’t just launch transcription—it helps decide where it stops and what protein you ultimately make,” says Ana Fiszbein, assistant professor of biology and faculty fellow of computing & data sciences, and one of the lead authors of the study.
The playbook for perfect polaritons: Rules for creating quasiparticles that can power optical computers, quantum devices
Light is fast, but travels in long wavelengths and interacts weakly with itself. The particles that make up matter are tiny and interact strongly with each other, but move slowly. Together, the two can combine into a hybrid quasiparticle called a polariton that is part light, part matter.
In a new paper published today in Chem, a team of Columbia chemists has identified how to combine matter and light to get the best of both worlds: polaritons with strong interactions and fast, wavelike flow. These distinctive behaviors can be used to power optical computers and other light-based quantum devices.
“We’ve written a playbook for the ‘perfect’ polariton that will guide our research, and we hope, that of the entire field working on strong light-matter interactions,” said Milan Delor, associate professor of chemistry at Columbia.
Stable ferroaxial states offer a new type of light-controlled non-volatile memory
Ferroic materials such as ferromagnets and ferroelectrics underpin modern data storage, yet face limits: They switch slowly, or suffer from unstable polarization due to depolarizing fields respectively. A new class, ferroaxials, avoids these issues by hosting vortices of dipoles with clockwise or anticlockwise textures, but are hard to control.
Researchers at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (MPSD) and the University of Oxford now show that bi-stable ferroaxial states can be switched with single flashes of polarized terahertz light. This enables ultrafast, light-controlled and stable switching, a platform for next-generation non-volatile data storage. The work is published in the journal Science.
Modern society relies on digital technologies, where all information is fundamentally encoded in a binary system of 0s and 1s. Consequently, any physical system capable of reliably switching between two stable states can, in principle, serve as a medium for digital data storage.
Controlling atomic interactions in ultracold gas ‘at the push of a button’
Changing interactions between the smallest particles at the touch of a button: Quantum researchers at RPTU have developed a new tool that makes this possible. The new approach—a temporally oscillating magnetic field—has the potential to significantly expand fundamental knowledge in the field of quantum physics. It also opens completely new perspectives on the development of new materials.
Computer chips, imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging, laser printers, transistors, and navigation systems: many milestones in our modern everyday world would not have been possible without the discoveries of quantum physics. What is remarkable is that it was only about a hundred years ago that physicists discovered that the world at the smallest scales cannot be explained by the laws of classical physics.
Atoms and their components, protons, neutrons, and electrons—but also light particles—sometimes exhibit physical behaviors that are unknown in the macroscopic world. To this day, the quantum world therefore holds unclear and surprising phenomena that—once understood and controllable—could revolutionize future technologies.
California physicist and Nobel laureate John Martinis won’t quit on quantum computers
A California physicist and Nobel laureate who laid the foundation for quantum computing isn’t done working.
For the last 40 years, John Martinis has worked—mostly within California—to create the fastest computers ever built.
“It’s kind of my professional dream to do this by the time I’m really too old to retire. I should retire now, but I’m not doing that,” the now 67-year-old said.