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lhsi writes:

The BBC report that:

North Korea has promised "merciless" retaliation if a forthcoming Hollywood movie about killing Kim Jong-un is released, say agencies.

A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman said in state media that the movie's release would be an "act of war".

He did not mention the title, but a Hollywood movie called The Interview with a similar plot is due in October.

kaszz writes:

A machine-learning project at UK's University of Sheffield are using simple drones and have created automatic-control software that enables the "flying robot" to learn about its surroundings using a camera and an array of sensors. The robot starts with no information about its environment and the objects within it. But by overlaying different frames from the camera and selecting key reference points within the scene, it builds up a 3D map of the world around it. Other sensors pick up barometric and ultrasonic data, which gives additional clues about the environment. This information is fed into autopilot software to enable the robot to navigate safely and learn about the objects nearby and navigate to specific items. The process of taking a large number of images of the same scene, possibly with inaccurate data about where they were taken, and building a 3D model is called Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM).

This reminds me when PlayStation 2 exports were restricted in 2000 because the graphics chip was powerful enough to control missiles equipped with terrain reading navigation systems. To prevent the console falling into the hands of Saddam, Qaddafi et al, no one could take more than two PlayStation 2s out of Japan. No flying PlayStations have been spotted but that may now change.

Blackmoore writes:

NASA Spaceflight bring us Recovering SpaceX's Falcon 9 Ocean Landing Video -- How it was done

When SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket last April, most eyes were on the vehicle's passenger, the CRS-3 Dragon spacecraft, en route to another mission to the ISS. However, for many SpaceX followers, a hugely interesting aspect of the mission was its secondary objective - to bring the first stage back from space to a soft splashdown in the ocean after stage separation. While this goal was achieved, video footage suffered from heavy interference, leading to a huge crowd sourcing effort to restore the historic imagery.

This is a great tale of how the community managed to recover an historic video, and ought to remind us of what we can accomplish when we work together.

Gelatinous Coward writes:

Microsoft Redox Power Systems LLC, and the University of Maryland have been awarded a $5M USD government grant to test fuel cell technology in Microsoft's data centers. The grant comes courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E) group. The grant is from ARPA-E's Reliable Electricity Based on Electrochemical Systems (REBELS) program, which is looking to fund novel on-site power generation technologies.

Redox Power's founder, Professor Eric Wachsman, is an instructor at the university and is director of the University of Maryland Energy Research Center (UMERC). He holds key patents on the technology which he claims will offer 100 times the density per cost of current cells, including Bloom's Energy Server. He claims his cells are 1/10th the cost of commercial alternatives and are also 1/10th the size.

One strength of Redox Power's cell design is flexibility. It is designed to primarily run off natural gas, but can also generate power using propane, gasoline, biofuel, and hydrogen. At its maximum efficiency, when processing natural gas and doubling as backup heaters, the cells can output heat and electricity at 80 percent efficiency (and 70 percent efficiency for electrical generation only).

Full Article Here.

AnonTechie writes:

California's top court agreed Friday to decide whether government employees' personal texts and e-mails are subject to disclosure under public records law. At least one other state high court, Alaska's, has already required disclosure and preservation of those communications if they deal with government business. Arizona's highest court has ruled that private communications with a "substantial nexus" to government activity are subject to disclosure.

Still, there's been a hodgepodge of lower-court state rulings nationwide on the topic, leaving much of the country's public officials across the 50 states to conceal their official communications ( http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/05/15/when-are-public-officials-calls-and-emails-public-records/ ) from public review. Federal officials' private electronic communications, however, are subject to the Freedom of Information Act ( http://informationrightsandwrongs.com/2012/04/12/when-are-emails-subject-to-foia/ ) if they concern government business.

The story from Ars Technica is here.

dryriver writes:

The BBC reports (http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140627-how-our-descendants-will-hate-us):'How will the future view us? Tom Chatfield asked some of the world's best minds, and discovered that we will be seen as barbaric in ways we may not even realise. Far more interesting, we felt, is this question: how will our generation be looked back on? What will our own descendants deplore about us that we take for granted? Will our descendants abhor our refusal to banish nuclear weapons for example? Some possibilities are more obvious than others. Eating meat and factory farming may move towards the margins of acceptability, given the intensive use of resources and cruelty they represent. Another kind of profligacy the future might regret is the over-prescription of antibiotics. In terms of prejudice, meanwhile, our descendants may hopefully wonder how still-marginalised groups like transgender people ever faced intolerance; let alone how some parts of the world continued to criminalise homosexuality, reject equal rights for women, or hold some groups of workers in modern slavery. All this, of course, is really about what we ought to deal with right now; about those wishes we desperately hope to see fulfilled, and the kind of world we hope to leave behind. What, I wondered, would some of today's most influential thinkers make of my question?'

AnonTechie writes:

What do you think ? Do you think this approach is better than Google ?

When you do a Google search, before you scroll down there's a good chance your screen is mostly just filled up with ads. If this were to launch today, would you use it ? Like, seriously use it ? Sure, it's accessible. But there's a thick layer of commercial imperatives, quality judgments and assumptions that lie between you and the information that you get to see.

Leap.it results come up displayed on cards. For each search, it integrates social links, searching into Twitter streams, with real-time news and historical information. It's like Google, plus Google News, rolled in with a Twitter search. If you log in and create an account you can curate and share your own search 'perspectives' with others.

http://pando.com/2014/06/27/leap-it-thinks-that-a-visual-social-approach-to-search-can-unseat-google-from-its-throne/

Anonymous Coward writes:

This ones for Ethanolfuelled.

The verge is reporting...

Technology and sex have always been intertwined. Many of humanity's biggest technological advances; from photography to the telephone to motion pictures to Google Glass most recently, have been quickly repurposed to provide people, usually adult men, with avenues for sexual arousal and release. This week, Apple's iPad belatedly joined that list with the Fleshlight Launchpad. The product is an iPad case with a holster that grips a separate penetrative sex toy called the Fleshlight. The Launchpad only works with older full-sized iPad models (iPad 2 through fourth generation), and includes "rugged handgrips on either side."

http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/27/5850136/fleshlight-launchpad-sex-toy-penetrative-ipad

AnonTechie writes:

Food is cultural, social and deeply personal, so it's no surprise that modifications to the way food is produced, distributed and consumed can often lead to ethical debates. Developments in the genetic modification of foods and crops has resulted in a lot of debate.

Ethics can help here. While science determines whether we can safely modify the genetic makeup of certain organisms, ethics asks whether we should. Ethics tries to move beyond factual statements about what is, to evaluative statements about the way we should act towards ourselves, each other and the environment we inhabit. But things are not always so clear-cut. Three areas of ethics can help frame some of the concerns with GM food and crops: virtue, moral status and consequences.

What are your feelings on this highly controversial topic?

lhsi writes:

Scientists who want to study environmental effects on plant growth and how variations in climate and soil characteristics affect root growth are using LEGOs as an inexpensive way of storing required materials in way that could be duplicated in many other places in the world.

LEGO bricks are commercially available interlocking pieces of plastic that are conventionally used as toys. We describe their use to build engineered environments for cm-scale biological systems, in particular plant roots. Specifically, we take advantage of the unique modularity of these building blocks to create inexpensive, transparent, reconfigurable, and highly scalable environments for plant growth in which structural obstacles and chemical gradients can be precisely engineered to mimic soil.

"Forget for a minute that they're used as toys," Ludovico Cademartiri, Iowa State professor of Materials Science and Engineering, said. "They're actually pieces of high-quality plastic, built to extraordinary standards of precision, that you can use to build stuff."

They're also "a good example of how something simple can solve a complex design problem," he said.

You can read the entire paper at PLOS One.

gewg_ writes:

Rep. Grayson asks if Keith Alexander is selling classified information to get $1 million per month.

We recently noted that former NSA boss Keith Alexander is running around asking for $600k to $1 million per month for his new "cybersecurity" consulting firm. While some people thought that the number was "low" for banks, that doesn't make any sense. You could hire a lot of really good actual security professionals for that kind of cash. So it made us wonder just what banks thought they were getting for that $1 million. Actual security professional Bruce Schneier wondered that as well, and wondered aloud if the one difference was that... Alexander could give them classified info such as where he hid the backdoors in their routers.

That statement apparently caught the attention of Rep. Alan Grayson [D-FL 9], who has been a vocal opponent of NSA overreach. He's now sent a letter to the Financial [Services Roundtable] to point out that selling classified info is a crime:

Security expert Bruce Schneier noted that this fee for Alexander's services is on its face unreasonable. "Think of how much actual security they could buy with that $600k a month. Unless he's giving them classified information." Schneier also quoted Recode.net, which headlined this news as: "For another million, I'll show you the back door we put in your router."

gewg_ writes:

Roundup-Ready GMO Maize Causes Serious Health Damage

A scientific study [has] identified serious health impacts on rats fed on 'Roundup ready' GMO maize

[The] paper by Prof Gilles-Eric Seralini and colleagues has been republished after a stringent peer review process.

The original study, published in Food and Chemical Toxicology (FCT) in September 2012, found severe liver and kidney damage and hormonal disturbances in rats fed the GM maize and low levels of Roundup that are below those permitted in drinking water in the EU.

However it was retracted by the editor-in-chief of the Journal in November 2013 after a sustained campaign of criticism and defamation by pro-GMO scientists.

The second review involved a non-transparent examination of Prof Seralini's raw data by a secret panel of unnamed persons organized by the editor-in-chief of FCT, A. Wallace Hayes, in response to criticisms of the study by pro-GMO scientists.

In a letter to Prof Seralini, Hayes admitted that the anonymous reviewers found nothing incorrect about the results, but argued that the tumour and mortality observations in the paper were "inconclusive", and this justified his decision to retract the study

Now the study has passed a third peer review arranged by the journal that is republishing the study, Environmental Sciences Europe.

It will be interesting to see what response this study will draw from regulators regarding the review of GMO and agro-chemical licenses and licensing procedures.

lhsi writes:

Researchers have discovered (abstract) how one of the Earth's oldest reefs, now located on dry land in Namibia, was formed by the first animals to have hard shells.

Scientists say it was at this point that tiny aquatic creatures developed the ability to construct hard protective coats and build reefs to shelter and protect them in an increasingly dangerous world.

They were the first animals to build structures similar to non-living reefs, which are created through the natural processes of erosion and sediment deposition.

The study reveals that the animals attached themselves to fixed surfaces and to each other by producing natural cement composed of calcium carbonate, to form rigid structures.

The creatures known as Cloudina built reefs in ancient seas that now form part of Namibia. Their fossilised remains are the oldest reefs of their type in the world.

lhsi writes:

Researchers from the University of Granada have shown that some of us are "morning-types" and others "'evening-types", as a function of the time of day when our biological and cognitive functions are more active. This has a marked influence on the individual's capacity to react when behind the driving wheel.

Evening-types drive worse during their "off time" - in the early morning - by comparison with their optimal time - during the evening. But, morning-types are more stable drivers, both in the morning and the evening.

In fact, evening-types are much worse drivers - they pay less attention - at their "non-optimal" time of day (early in the morning) by comparison with their optimal time (during the evening). However, in this experiment morning-types were more stable drivers than evening-types and drove relatively well both in the morning and the evening

The University of Granada researchers [also] warn that driving after more than 18 hours wakefulness e.g. at 2.00 in the early morning after waking at 8.00 the previous morning, which is quite common, "entails the same level of risk as driving with the legal maximum level of blood alcohol, because our level of vigilance declines considerably".

gewg_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports:

SumAll, a data analytics company, makes all of its employees' compensation public to everyone in the company.
[...]
when he started SumAll three years ago, [CEO Dane Atkinson] and his core team decided to make transparency a "foundational concept", from compensation to documentation to reviews. "We made sure everyone had a chance to see what was happening in the business", he said. And there have been many quantifiable benefits to the company's performance ever since.

"The real benefits where you get money back from your team is in much more productivity... a much higher degree of trust", he said. People are less focused on trying to figure out if they're being paid fairly and more focused on their jobs. "It's stunning how much stress exists in the workplace around compensation, how much time is spent by employees trying to be treated fairly", he said. "When you take that all away, it's not only more productive for the company but a huge relief on the team."

Productivity is also boosted because workers don't feel compelled to impress the boss to get a raise or to move up, but to do work that will be recognized by everyone, given that it's made clear up front how and when they'll get increases.

"They strive to achieve in the eyes of the people that really matter... not just make me the CEO feel good", he said. And with all of the company's financials out in the open, employees often help make decisions to boost the bottom line. "You end up getting a much bigger brain trust for running the business", he said.
[...]
"Our expectation is over the next decade the tech industry will be the lead for it, but we believe [this transparency] will be adopted more widely", he said. "It works, so things that work in efficient systems tend to get taken to."