Snippings

xxx

An Israeli startup has secured $26m in series A funding to build what it claims is the world’s first one million qubit quantum computer contained within a single cryostat.

From: QuamCore secures $26m to build million-qubit quantum computer.

xxx

xxx

If it seems like there’s a satellite launch almost every day, the numbers will back you up.

The US Space Force’s Mission Delta 2 is a unit that reports to Space Operations Command, with the job of sorting out the nearly 50,000 trackable objects humans have launched into orbit.

Dozens of satellites are being launched each week, primarily by SpaceX to continue deploying the Starlink broadband network. The US military has advance notice of these launches—most of them originate from Space Force property—and knows exactly where they’re going and what they’re doing.

That’s usually not the case when China or Russia (and occasionally Iran or North Korea) launches something into orbit. With rare exceptions, like human spaceflight missions, Chinese and Russian officials don’t publish any specifics about what their rockets are carrying or what altitude they’re going to.

From: The military’s squad of satellite trackers is now routinely going on alert – Ars Technica.

xxx

xxx

The context. That’s because people have real fears about children being increasingly exposed to harmful content. Research shows that

half of 13 year olds have been exposed to porn, including degrading and violent behaviour, with many stumbling across it accidentally;
a quarter of child suicides have been linked to online content; and
roughly 20 per cent of children aged 10 to 15 years old have been contacted by strangers on the internet.

What’s more… The government is still trying to figure out how to respond to the surge in VPN use. Ministers say they are looking into it “very closely”.

From: Let’s see some ID.

xxx

xxx

I was then sent an email in which I was told I need to verify as an adult, by clicking on a link. If this method isn’t being exploited by phishing firms already, it will be nothing short of a miracle.

From: Bluesky Made Me Prove I Was An Adult—Here’s How I Did It.

xxx

xxx

The Eurosystem’s exploratory work confirmed market demand for, and interest in, the settlement of DLT-based assets in CeBM, with an active ecosystem of incumbents and new entrants identified in Europe. Several market participants now wish to scale up and grow.

From: The Eurosystem’s exploratory work on new technologies for wholesale central bank money settlement.

xxx

Jürgen Schaaf, an economist and advisor to the European Central Bank’s Market Infrastructure and Payments division, has already said that more support should be provided for properly regulated euro-denominated stablecoins to ward off the threat posed by US dollar-backed tokens.

In 2017 a British surgeon, Ian Paterson, was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for wounding with intent and unlawful wounding after carrying out unecessary suregry on multiple patients. The official report on him said that this was “not simply a story about a rogue surgeon” but organisational cultures of “wilful blindness”. One of the key lessons of the report was that whistleblowers are likely to suffer: some medical professionals who had raised concerns were reluctant to talk because they either did not want to draw attention to themselves or preferred not to be involved at all. Encourgaging whistleblowers in this context saves lives, so it is important that we encourage it but simultaenously use the new technologies of digital identity to prtoect those whistleblowers.

 

xxx

In March, President Donald Trump ordered the US federal government to phase out the use of paper cheques and to centralise payment processing in an effort to crack down on fraud.

From: US bank groups call for quick transition as Treasury phases out paper cheques.

xxx

Well, sort of. According to the White House 

xxx

Exceptions will be made for people without banking or electronic payment access, certain emergency payments, certain law enforcement activities, and other special cases qualifying for an exception under the Order or other existing law.

From: Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Modernizes Payments to and from America’s Bank Account – ].

xxx

xxx

A2A facilitates communication between a “client” agent and a “remote” agent, providing a standardized way of interaction.
1
Capability Discovery
Agents can advertise their capabilities using an “Agent Card” in JSON format, allowing the client agent to identify the best agent for a task.
2
Task Management
Communication between client and remote agent is task-oriented. The “Task” object is defined by the protocol and has a lifecycle.
3
Collaboration
Agents can send messages to each other to convey context, responses, artifacts, or user instructions.
4
UX Negotiation
Each message includes “parts”, allowing the client and remote agent to negotiate the proper format and user interface capabilities.

From: A2A Protocol – Agent to Agent Communication Framework by Google.

xxx

xxx

MCP focuses on how a single agent interfaces with its environment — APIs, tools, file systems, databases, and more. You can think of MCP as a kind of “universal adapter” or USB port: it standardizes how agents “plug into” external resources, allowing them to access the tools they need to think, reason, and act.
A2A, in contrast, is all about agent-to-agent communication. It defines how agents discover each other, negotiate tasks, exchange messages, and collaborate across systems. If MCP equips an agent to be powerful on its own, A2A enables that agent to become part of a networked team.

From: A2A, MCP, and ADK — Clarifying Their Roles in the AI Ecosystem | by #TheGenAIGirl — code, community, and GenAI. | Google Cloud – Community | Medium.

xxx