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AnonTechie writes:

"I could not let this one go uncommented by our resident experts. What do you make of this, yet another pipe dream?

New Scientist reports:

Oceanic steam engines; Jules Verne imagined this limitless power source in Victorian times.Now, 21st-century engineers say heat trapped in the oceans could provide electricity for the world. IF ANY energy source is worthy of the name, 'steampunk,' it is surely ocean thermal energy conversion. Victorian-era science fiction? Check: Jules Verne mused about its potential in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in 1870. Mechanical, vaguely 19th-century technology? Check. Compelling candidate for renewable energy in a post-apocalyptic future? Tick that box as well.

Claims for it have certainly been grandiose. In theory, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) could provide 4000 times the world's energy needs in any given year, with neither pollution nor greenhouse gases to show for it. In the real world, however, it has long been written off as impractical.

The study PDF can be found here."

nobbis writes:

" Desktop Images from Red Star 3.0, the North Korean Operating System, have been made available by Will Scott a US computer scientist who lectured in Pyongyang in 2013.

Red Star 3.0 is a Linux based OS, whose desktop now closely resembles OSX, possibly influenced by Kim Jong-un who has been pictured with an iMac; although how he obtained an iMac is unclear. Screenshots of Red Star 2.0 and a walk through of the installation of Red Star 3.0 are given in an article in North Korean Tech blog. The 8 desktop images include artillery under snow with magpies, a farming scene with 1960s era tractors, and an unconvincing city view. Will Scott has answered questions about his experiences in Pyongyang on a Reddit ask me anything."

Members kef and einar have written about some recent research:

"A new study from the University of Manitoba has claimed that internet trolls might not be so nice or mentally stable in real life. While previous studies have shown that people with negative character traits are using the internet more frequently for their own amusement, not to socialize, the results seem to link trolling to sadism. Two surveys among amazon's mechanical turk users were conducted which allowed creating a character profile of the participants. Based on the profile, internet behavior could be correlated with different character traits. Trolling appears to be correlated to sadism.

From the study:

... correlations, sometimes quite significant, between these traits and trolling behavior. What's more, it also found a relationship between all Dark Tetrad traits (except for narcissism) and the overall time that an individual spent, per day, commenting on the Internet. ... To be sure, only 5.6 percent of survey respondents actually specified that they enjoyed "trolling." By contrast, 41.3 percent of Internet users were "non-commenters," meaning they didn't like engaging online at all. So trolls are, as has often been suspected, a minority of online commenters, and an even smaller minority of overall Internet users.

Sir Garlon writes:

"Ars Technica is reporting on a critical bug in the GnuTLS library that exposes encrypted traffic to eavesdropping.

The bug is the result of commands in a section of the GnuTLS code that verify the authenticity of TLS certificates, which are often known simply as X509 certificates. The coding error, which may have been present in the code since 2005, causes critical verification checks to be terminated, drawing ironic parallels to the extremely critical "goto fail" flaw that for months put users of Apple's iOS and OS X operating systems at risk of surreptitious eavesdropping attacks. Apple developers have since patched the bug.

According to the GnuTLS Advisories page, the GNU folks have fixed their bug, too. Users are advised to upgrade or patch their versions of the library."

Fluffeh writes:

"Ars Technica is reporting on NSA data retention efforts.

From the article:

As a result of the myriad of pending lawsuits challenging the legality of the National Security Agency's bulk metadata collection program, the United States government now wants to keep its records beyond the existing five-year limit. ...must ensure that all potentially relevant evidence is retained which includes the [business records] metadata obtained in bulk from certain telecommunications service providers pursuant to this Court's production orders. To meet this obligation, the Government seeks an order that would allow the NSA to retain the [business records] metadata for non-analytic purposes until relieved of its preservation obligations...

Link to Original 14 page PDF."

Member AnonTechie guides us to an article at The Verge, "Leak reveals Cortana, Windows Phone 8.1's mashup of Siri and Google Now."

From the article:

Microsoft's upcoming Windows Phone 8.1 update will include Cortana, a personal digital assistant designed to rival Siri and Google Now. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans have revealed to The Verge how Cortana looks and operates, replacing the built-in Bing search functionality on Windows Phone 8.1. While the feature is named after the Halo game series, Cortana will take the form of a circular animated icon instead of a female character. Cortana will animate when it's speaking or thinking, forming a personality not dissimilar to Apple's Siri.

Angry Jesus writes:

"Senior advisor to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Patrick Rock, was arrested last night for possession of child abuse imagery. Mr Rock was a key player in the policy push for the UK's recently deployed, opt-out, nation-wide internet filtering system. That filter has been working pretty much as you might expect."

An anonymous coward writes:

"In March 2014 Atlassian, a software vendor for Confluence wiki and JIRA incident tracking software, announced a change to their privacy policy which will result in private user information being sent to Google. This is a distinct change from their previous privacy policy which protected user information. This policy change affects Atlassian SaaS and downloadable products. Data sent includes URLs accessed, 'passively-collected Personal Information,' page names, project keys, JQL filters, page titles, space names, license identifier, username, size and name of attachments, IP address, and other meta data. For non wiki users: This is equivalent to Microsoft Office sending Google the folder name, file name, your system logon id, your license key etc when you create and modify documents with Microsoft office.

Atlassian's stance on the privacy of its users is stated in the new policy: 'If you disagree with any changes to this Privacy Policy, you will need to stop using Atlassian Services and deactivate your account(s).' The changes to this privacy policy will mean that all user actions will be tracked and sent to Google. In many cases Confluence and JIRA accounts use actual user names as the user id making it possible to link a person's Atlassian account to a real world identity. The end result is that users paying Atlassian to use their software will be tracking in a more intrusive fashion than visiting a public web site."

FrogBlast writes:

"Last week, Broadcom released the full source of the OpenGL ES 1.1 and 2.0 driver stack for the Broadcom VideoCore IV 3D graphics core, which they provide under a 3-clause BSD license. The VideoCore IV core is used in many of Broadcom's processors, including the BCM2835 chip, which is used in the Raspberry Pi.

But because the release targets the BCM21553 3G cellphone chip, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced a bounty of $10,000 to the first person to port it to the BCM2835 chip and successfully run Quake III 'at a resolution of 1920-1080 and a minimum of 20fps, without making use of the capabilities of the blob'. The port, it says, 'should be reasonably straightforward' to accomplish."

regift_of_the_gods writes:

"A study that was published last year by two Oxford researchers predicted that 47 percent of US jobs could be computerized within the next 20 years, including both manual labor and high cognition office work. The Oxford report presented three axes to show what types of jobs were relatively safe from being routed by robots and software; those requiring high levels of social intelligence (public relations), creativity (scientist, fashion designer), or perception and manipulation (surgeon) were less likely to be displaced.

This further obsolescence of jobs due to automation may have already begun. The Financial Times describes an emerging wave of products and services from algorithmic-intensive, data-rich tech startups that will threaten increasing numbers of jobs including both knowledge and blue collar workers. The lead example is Kensho, a startup founded by ex-Google and Apple engineers that is building an engine to estimate the impact of real or hypothetical news items on security prices, with questions posed in a natural language. Specialist knowledge workers in many other fields, including law and medicine, could also be at risk. At lower income levels, the dangerous are posed by increasingly agile and autonomous robots, such as those Amazon uses to staff some of its fulfillment warehouses.

Sarasani writes:

"In a landmark decision by the International Court of Justice, Australia has been ordered to cease spying on East Timor and its legal advisers, and to seal files that ASIO, Australia's national security agency, had seized last year from a lawyer working for East Timor:

The court is of the view, the right of Timor Leste to conduct proceedings, negotiations, without interference, would suffer irreparable harm if Australia failed to immediately safeguard the confidentiality of the materials seized by its agents on December 3, 2013.

This raid, says the tiny peninsular country, targeted files alleging that its cabinet was spied on by Australia during negotiations between the two over oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea. It claims that, with the information collected through espionage, Australia gained the advantage during the $40 billion negotiations. It asked the Court of Arbitration to overturn the treaty signed between the two.

This is the first time the court has imposed restrictions on an intelligence agency belonging to one of the so-called "five eyes" intelligence alliance countries (the US, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia). It comes at a time of international concern about over-reaching espionage by western countries."

Based on your questions from a little over 10 days ago, we have our first batch of responses. I want to apologize for the delay, as everything has been moving so quickly that we're still getting our act together in so many ways. Remember that we were still in the very early stages a month ago, so bear with us in our growing pains. We chose a large number of questions, mostly highly rated ones from the community, with some additional questions that I felt deserved answers. Read on for answers from the site leadership.

migz writes:

"Reuters reports on a study form Arizona State University in Phoenix.

[Analyzing the] poll also asked participants about their exercise habits, such as whether they worked out regularly and, if so, whether they were active in the morning, afternoon or evening. Evening was considered to be within four hours of going to sleep.

Though morning exercisers reported better sleep then non-exercisers, there was no significant difference between evening exercisers and non-exercisers."

hubie writes:

"U.S. House of Representatives's Science, Space and Technology Committee had a meeting to discuss whether NASA should help out the Mars Foundation. The Mars Foundation scrapped their earlier plans to send two humans to Mars, and revised it to do a two-person fly-by. However, they want NASA help. They want a design modification to the Orion spacecraft and they want use of the Space Launch System. If this goes anywhere, it will be interesting how it is proposed that funding get allocated."

Appalbarry writes:

"It's my birthday, and that means it's time to renew my Driver's Licence for another five years.

New this year in British Columbia is a new edict that your Drivers' Licence will now be part of the BC Services Card which will also be used as your Medical Services Plan (MSP) card (that's universal healthcare), and presumably for most other government services in the future.

I'm not overly paranoid, but using the same card for accessing my driving record and my medical records feels like very, very bad idea. Between Snowden, Anonymous, and a more or less daily list of hacked systems and sites, it seems to me that I'll be much better protected if my health records stay in their own little box, away from anything else.

In simple terms, if Buddy at the car rental agency or at a bar can read the magnetic stripe to get my DL number, I'm going to assume that he can also get at my MSP number.

Which is why I'm currently engaged in a loooong e-mail exchange with a faceless bureaucrat*, whose only line of defense is:
 

Personal information collected when applying for a BC Services Card will only be used to confirm your identity and eligibility when you choose to enrol in a service. Your personal information will only be disclosed to services you have accessed with your card. Unless it is authorized by law, you records will not be shared across agencies providing services.

Your medical and driver's licence records are not shared between agencies. A health care provider will not able to access your driving record and a police officer will not be able to access your health records.

Interestingly, they have yet to specifically say that I can't insist that my Medical Services ID not be included on my Drivers' Licence, so I'm thinking it's possible, but they don't want to say so.

* literally they don't identify themselves, and are known only as 'Identity Services Desk.'"

hubie writes:

"A group at the Institut de Microbiologie de la Mediterranee, Aix Marseille Universite, revived a "giant" virus that had been embedded in permafrost for approximately 30,000 years. The virus was found in the tundra near East Siberia and is thus named Pithovirus sibericum. It is the latest entry in the class of large viruses called Megaviridae, which are so large that they are visible under an ordinary optical microscope:

P. sibericum is, on the scale of viruses, a giant - it has 500 genes, whereas the influenza virus has only eight.

This particular virus is harmless to humans and animals, but it demonstrates there could be unknown health repercussions as more permafrost thaws as the result of a warming planet."

GungnirSniper writes:

"ITV.com reports Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Communications or Roskomnadzor published a statement online that it had been ordered by the general prosecutor's office to shut down pages on Russia's leading social media website, VKontakte. VK is Russia's equivalent to Facebook. Among the blocked pages are those of Ukrainian hardliners Right Sector and its leader Dmytro Yarosh. Many news outlets say only 13 pages are affected.

Last year, Russia began requiring sites to remove material that the officials determined was objectionable. At the time, Russian 'opposition leaders railed against the law as a crack in the doorway to broader Internet censorship. They say they worry that social networks, which have been used to arrange protests against President Vladimir Putin, will be stifled.'

Cybervandalism and information blackouts have begun."

Anonymous Coward writes:

"In a timely way for those of us building a new community at Soylent News, the BBC has collected musings on the importance of failure. A few quotes:

'The quest for perfectionism is 'the enemy of achievement' and that the more we seek to get everything exactly right, the less we actually get done.' Heather Hainbury, Headmistress of Wimbledon High School.

'If the failure was our own fault we become more tolerant of human error, and if the failure was the result of external factors, of circumstance, an unkind coalition beyond our control, then we learn about the limits of willpower and self-determination. We see how our own agency interacts with context and fortune.' Ed Smith, Author and former professional cricketer.

'If your venture doesn't work out, but you did everything you could to make it a success, that's what we call an honest failure, and that's seen as an honourable thing... Whereas if your venture didn't work out because you spent too much time at networking events, you weren't doing your customer research, and you were just lazing around, then that's what we would call a dishonest failure.' Stewart McTavish, Director of IdeaSpace in Cambridge, a community and support network for entrepreneurs."

Fluffeh writes:

"In its first DMCA takedown request sent to Google, Voltage Pictures, the folks behind Dallas Buyers Club, a movie that earned Oscars for its leading men, has issued a whole swath of URLs that are apparently too naughty to link to for Google. Of course, some of those links are questionable. An article on CNN promoting the movie, a link to Google FAQ talking about robots.txt and how to block google but the utter gem is a link to Comcast's perfectly legal XFinity service. Google, not impressed with the quality of the whole 388 URL takedown requests, has decided to remove NONE of the links."

tlezer writes:

"With seven Academy Awards, Gravity represents a unique opportunity for NASA PR. However, they have to balance 'a broad public interest in space and space exploration' with the many 'scientific errors made in the name of artistic license.' Wired examines the choices made by the filmmakers, and have supplemented their article with a respectful collection of tweets under the hashtag #RealGravity, including some stunning images."