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Fnord666 writes:

According to a recent article in El Reg, "Microsoft has flipped the switch to activate stronger encryption on its OneDrive and Outlook.com cloud services as part of a broader effort to make it harder for the NSA and other spying agencies to snoop on its customers' data." Specifically, Outlook.com has begun using TLS for both incoming and outgoing connections whenever possible. Microsoft has also added support for PFS, or Perfect Forward Secrecy, for key exchange whenever possible.

Technically, that means any email sent using the service will be fully encrypted during transit, from end to end. But for that to actually happen, the receiving mail server must also support TLS encryption. Many don't.

To that end, Microsoft has been working with major email providers to ensure that they get TLS up and running on their servers. In a Tuesday blog post, Matt Thomlinson, VP of Redmond's Trustworthy Computing group, named Deutsche Telekom, Mail.ru, and Yandex as three examples of companies that have partnered with Redmond in this effort.

A good move by Microsoft here.

StupendousMan writes:

The Subaru Telescope on Mauna Kea has a mirror over 8 meters in diameter. Last year, it began to take images with a new wide-field digital camera, Hyper Suprime-Cam. The camera produces 870 Megapixel images 1.5 degrees in diameter, making it one of the most powerful ground-based astronomical instruments. In the past week, a new project has used Hyper Suprime-Cam to find distant supernovae, using software which automatically compared images taken this July 2-3 with images of the same area of the sky taken several years ago.

These objects have yet to be confirmed as supernovae, but this early result suggests that the project may discover many very distant supernovae over the next few years. If some can be identified as one particular type of exploding star, called Type Ia Supernovae, they may be used as standard candles to measure the distance to high-redshift galaxies and help to pin down the expansion of the universe.

AndyTheAbsurd writes:

Two pieces of news about Windows 9 (codenamed Threshold) showed up today:

First, Windows 9 will morph to fit the device it's running on which is good news for everyone who thought that Metro/Modern interface on a device with a keyboard and mouse didn't make sense.

Meaning, if you're on a traditional desktop or laptop using a mouse and keyboard, Threshold will boot directly into the Windows desktop you know and love. The Live-tiled Start screen may return for people using touch-based machines like tablets and convertible laptops.

Second, Windows 9 Preview May Arrive Later This Year, although the final released isn't expected until 2015.

I won't go as far as to say that Microsoft has learned from their mistakes, but they at least seem to moving towards what the market wants from them.

janrinok writes:

ZDNet report a update in NATO policy regarding cyber-defence:

Reflecting how all international conflicts now have some digital component, NATO has updated its cyber defence policy to make it clear that a cyber attack can be treated as the equivalent of an attack with conventional weapons.

The organisation's new cyber defence policy clarifies that a major digital attack on a member state could be covered by Article 5, the collective defence clause. That states that an attack against one member of NATO "shall be considered an attack against them all" and opens the way for members to take action against the aggressor - including the use of armed force - to restore security.

That NATO is updating its cyber defence strategy now shows how rapidly cyber warfare has jumped up the agenda. While defence strategies are usually expected to last a decade, its last cyber strategy was only published three years ago.

AnonTechie writes:

It seems like everyone is trying to learn to code: Code.org has celebrities like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Chris Bosh telling you anyone can code; CoderDojo's are springing up all over the country; the UK has made it part of their official curriculum for all grade school kids.

I think this is slightly misguided. Don't get me wrong - I do think the world would be better off if everyone had some familiarity with coding - but coding itself should not be the goal. Computers and programming are just tools. They are a means to an end. The real goal should be to teach people a new way to think. In other words, we should be trying to teach computer science and not just coding. In this blog post, inspired by Simon Peyton Jones' wonderful TED talk Teaching Creative Computer Science, I'll explain the difference between the two, and why focusing on the right one is critical for the movement to succeed.

taylorvich writes:

Most robots are powered by electrical motors that are big, bulky, heavy, and if they break, you have to replace them. Animals, on the other hand, use a biological motor - a muscle - that also requires electricity, but is far more efficient and, given a chance, can repair itself. We're just starting to be able to manipulate biological structures like these in clever enough ways to let us harness their awesomeness, and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have worked them into a tiny little "bio-bot" that uses muscle cells to walk.

This work represents an important first step in the development and control of biological machines that can be stimulated, trained, or programmed to do work. It's exciting to think that this system could eventually evolve into a generation of biological machines that could aid in drug delivery, surgical robotics, 'smart' implants, or mobile environmental analyzers, among countless other applications.

cafebabe writes:

An article in the Daily Mail reveals the 'secret' behind certain action scenes.

Rather than using a fan, commercial and movie studios sometimes employ 'greenscreen fluffers' - people dressed in chroma key gimpsuits who stand behind models and painstakingly flick their hair.

And it's not just haircare commercials that secretly feature these odd-looking helpers; even Superman gets the greenscreen fluffer treatment during flying scenes.

The accompanying gifanim is a meme in the making.

lhsi writes:

The deliberate practice model (DPM) of expertise holds that talent does not exist or makes a negligible contribution to performance, and that initial performance will be unrelated to achieving expertise and that 10 years of deliberate practice is necessary. A study looked at the performance of sprinters before formal training to see whether the model applied and found that in almost all cases, world class sprinters were exceptional already before any training.

Our studies are the first to systematically show that: (1) a strong predictor, probably a precondition, for elite sprinting performance is exceptional speed prior to formal training, (2) this exceptional ability is at least partly specific to sprinting, and (3) many elite sprinters reach world class status in far less than 10 years, although they usually make modest improvements even after that.

BlackHole writes:

In January, a team of scientists from the RIKEN Institute in Kobe, Japan, and Harvard University published two high-profile papers in the prestigious scientific journal Nature (paper 1, paper 2), in which they reported the discovery of a simple method for reprogramming somatic cells (e.g., skin cells, blood cells, etc.) to a totipotent state (i.e., like an early-stage embryo, capable of forming a new copy of the donor organism (a.k.a., a "clone")). The method, which they termed "STAP" (for Stimulus-Triggered Acquisition of Pluripotency) involves using a mildly acidic solution to stress cells taken from any of a variety of tissues (skin, blood, etc.). After stressing, the cells are grown under standard culture conditions for several days, at which point, with no further intervention, the cells become totipotent.

The discovery was celebrated for its broad clinical potential (the resulting cells have all of the capabilities of embryonic stem cells they can be directed to differentiate in culture into any cell type (neurons, bone cells, cardiac cells, etc.)). However, unlike therapies that use embryonic stem cells, because STAP cells are patient-derived, STAP-cell therapies would not carry a risk of transplant rejection. Also, STAP cells are free of the ethical and logistical (i.e., limited supply) issues that plague embryonic stem cell methods.

The reported technique is amazingly fast, shockingly efficient, astoundingly simple, and... wait for it... completely unreproducible. Both papers have now been formally retracted (retraction 1, retraction 2).

However, the bottom line is that this entire episode has affected research elsewhere:

lhsi writes:

A study conducted by UC Davis (Sacremento) has looked at video-conferencing with family, friends for pediatric patients:

To ease isolation during extended hospitalizations, UC Davis Children's Hospital offers secure video-conferencing for patients and families. While anecdotal accounts have suggested the Family-Link program enhances quality of life during long hospital stays, clinicians wondered if the technology also offered clinical benefits. To answer that, a team led by UC Davis professor James Marcin studied 367 children who were hospitalized for at least four days. They found that access to Family-Link significantly reduced patient stress. The study was published in the journal Pediatrics.

As the popularity of applications like Skype and FaceTime have increased, so has the number of patients interested in using these applications to communicate with family and friends. UC Davis Children's Hospital pioneered the Family-Link program, which provides patients with laptops, web-cams and secure internet connections. Overall, children who used Family-Link experienced a greater reduction in stress than children who did not use Family-Link. Oddly, this effect was even more pronounced for children who lived closer to the hospital and had shorter hospitalizations. This group experienced a 37 percent stress reduction when using Family-Link.

In addition to the stress survey, families were also asked about the quality of the video, audio and overall Family-Link experience. The responses were uniformly positive with the majority of parents rating the program excellent or good.

"This study shows that we have another tool to help children during their hospital stays", said Yang. "The improvement in stress scores shows that Family-Link is really helping many children and might possibly be improving outcomes."

AnonTechie writes regarding a story from Ars Technica:

Two Germany-based Tor Directory Authority servers, among others, have been specifically targeted by the National Security Agency's XKeyscore program, according to a new report from German public broadcaster ARD. Tor is a well-known open source project designed to keep users anonymous and untraceable-users' traffic is encrypted and bounced across various computers worldwide to keep it hidden.

This marks the first time that actual source code from XKeyscore has been published. ARD did not say how or where it obtained the code. Unlike many other NSA-related stories, the broadcaster did not specifically mention the information being part of the trove leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

AnonTechie writes:

Way back in 2010, Gliese 581g made waves as "the Goldilocks planet". It was the first planet scientists found within the habitable zone - the region around a star where it's not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to endure on a planet's surface. But after the initial excitement about finding a planet that could potentially support life, some scientists started to seriously doubt whether Gliese 581g was really there, because the signal was weak. Despite all the debate, lots of astronomers listed Gliese 581g as the top spot to look for alien life. Now, new research says that Gliese 581g doesn't actually exist.

Astronomers can't actually see the planets in the Gliese 581 star system. Instead, they detected the planetary candidates by monitoring the star's light. As a planet orbits, its gravity tugs on the star and distorts the light coming off it, changing the wavelengths and thus the color of light that reaches telescopes here on Earth. (Here's a longer explanation of the radial velocity technique, if you're interested.) The problem is that the star also moves, and as it rotates its sunspots and other solar activity also distort the light coming off of it.

As a general rule, I don't post site news on weekends or holidays, but I'm making an exception due to the unique circumstances. I'm pleased to announce that as of today, our articles of incorporation have been accepted and signed off by the State of Delaware, and "SoylentNews PBC" is a licensed public benefit corporation, ready to accept business, effective today.

I feel that its fitting to post this today on July 4th, Independence Day, given the mission and unique history of SN. I'm going to do a follow-up post on Monday with more information on where we go now. Until then, have an awesome Independence Day, and a great weekend :-)

AnonTechie writes:

Reuters reports:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc said a contractor emailed confidential client data to a stranger's Gmail account by mistake, and the bank has asked a U.S. judge to order Google Inc to delete the email to avert a "needless and massive" breach of privacy.

The breach occurred on June 23 and included "highly confidential brokerage account information," Goldman said in a complaint filed last Friday in a New York state court in Manhattan.

Ars Technica reports:

At the request of investment bank Goldman Sachs, Google has blocked access to a sensitive e-mail that the bank mistakenly sent to a random Gmail account. Google confirmed to Goldman Sachs that the e-mail had not yet been opened by the recipient, according to a report late Wednesday from Reuters.

The e-mail in question, filled with confidential brokerage account information, was accidentally sent to a gmail.com address instead of a gs.com address by a contractor on June 23. Goldman Sachs tried to contact the e-mail account holder and then got in touch with Google, which initially said it would not take action without a court order. Goldman Sachs then filed for such a court order in a New York state court.

lhsi writes:

In a number of studies people were left alone with their thoughts and no outside activities. Most reported they did not like it and found it uncomfortable.

The period of time that Wilson and his colleagues asked participants to be alone with their thoughts ranged from six to 15 minutes. Many of the first studies involved college student participants, most of whom reported that this "thinking period" wasn't very enjoyable and that it was hard to concentrate. So Wilson conducted another study with participants from a broad selection of backgrounds, ranging in age from 18 to 77, and found essentially the same results.

"That was surprising — that even older people did not show any particular fondness for being alone thinking," Wilson said.

He does not necessarily attribute this to the fast pace of modern society, or the prevalence of readily available electronic devices, such as smartphones. Instead, he thinks the devices might be a response to people's desire to always have something to do.

A further study allowed participants to self-administer an unpleasant electric shock. Over half of the men and a quarter of the women did this.

Most people seem to prefer to be doing something rather than nothing, even if that something is negative.

Abstract is available here.