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lhsi writes:

A new device has been created that attaches to a finger and will read out the text that is being pointed at (for example, menus, newspapers).

The so-called FingerReader, a prototype produced by a 3-D printer, fits like a ring on the user's finger, equipped with a small camera that scans text. A synthesized voice reads words aloud, quickly translating books, restaurant menus and other needed materials for daily living, especially away from home or office.

Reading is as easy as pointing the finger at text. Special software tracks the finger movement, identifies words and processes the information. The device has vibration motors that alert readers when they stray from the script, said Roy Shilkrot, who is developing the device at the MIT Media Lab.

For Jerry Berrier, 62, who was born blind, the promise of the FingerReader is its portability and offer of real-time functionality at school, a doctor's office and restaurants. "When I go to the doctor's office, there may be forms that I [want to] read before I sign them," Berrier said. He said there are other optical character recognition devices on the market for those with vision impairments, but none that he knows of that will read in real time.

cafebabe writes:

WP reports that researchers from the University of Melbourne surveyed 315 same-sex parents with a total of 500 children. About 80 per cent of the children have female parents, while 18 percent have male parents. The children raised by same-sex partners scored an average of six percent higher than the general population on measures of general health and family cohesion. They were equivalent to those from the general population on measures of temperament and mood, behaviour, mental health and self-esteem.

Lead researcher Dr Simon Crouch said same-sex couples are more likely to share child-care and work responsibilities more equally than heterosexual parent families, based more on skills rather than gender roles. "This appears to be contributing to a more harmonious household and having a positive impact on child health," he said. "But about two-thirds of these children experience some form of stigma due to their parents' sexual orientation."

But Benjamin Siegel, professor of pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine, said there are limits with such research. He told Boston University Today last year that none of the studies has been a randomized, controlled trial and that all studies on same-sex parenting are small since there aren't as many same-sex parents.

lhsi writes:

The online payment method CashU, popular in the middle east and north Africa, has told vpn companies it will stop processing their payments, as vpns support anonymity which "can be abused".

The response from CashU suggests that an external party is prohibiting the company from accepting VPN services. It's unclear who is behind this but TorGuard CEO Ben Van Pelt believes it may be the result of censorship forces in the region.

"Privacy online is a basic human right and fundamental building block of any free, democratic society. Unfortunately, CashU's Middle Eastern underwriting banks are not located in such a place. Censorship laws enforced by the United Arab Emirate's Telecom Regulatory Authority borderline on draconian as they decide what content is or is not acceptable," Van Pelt tells TorrentFreak.

"It seems that this new anti VPN 'transitional stage' for CashU is part of a larger issue of increased government censorship and regulation in the region," he adds.

It's worth nothing that CashU still accepts payments for VPN providers who have signed up previously. It will be interesting to see whether these merchants can keep their accounts or if they will be disconnected in the future.

AnonTechie writes:

Mark Zuckerberg sees the Internet as a vital service that should be made available to everyone across the world-a service that can be as vital as, say, the ability to call for emergency help on a telephone. In an editorial published Monday in The Wall Street Journal, the Facebook chief outlined his vision for a future of universal Internet access, and the steps he sees to get there. Currently only one-third of the world is connected, he said, with the rest lacking access due to issues like high costs or a lack of infrastructure.

lhsi writes:

Abstract: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/02/1318416111

In a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week, scientists at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Caltech found that, when they simulated market conditions for groups of investors, economic bubbles in which the price of something could differ greatly from its actual value invariably formed.

Even more remarkably, the researchers discovered a correlation between specific brain activity patterns and sensitivity to those bubbles.

Montague and colleagues enrolled 320 subjects in a market-trading simulation game. Up to two dozen participants played in each of 16 market sessions, with two or three participants simultaneously having their brains scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, a noninvasive technique that allows scientists to use microscopic blood-flow measurements as a proxy for brain activity.

At some point during the 50 trading periods of each session, a price bubble would invariably form and crash. The scientists had suspected that crowd cognition would result in some bubble formation, though they had not expected it to happen every time.

What surprised the scientists even more were the distinctive brain activity patterns that emerged among the low earners and high earners.

Traders who bought more aggressively based on activity in one brain region, the nucleus accumbens, earned less.

In contrast, the high earners seemed to ignore nucleus accumbens activity in favor of the anterior insular cortex, a brain area active during bodily discomfort and unpleasant emotional states.

Just before a bubble peaked as their brain scans were revealing an increased activity in the anterior insula the high earners would begin to sell their shares.

The scientists believe the high earners' brain activity may represent a neural early warning signal of an impending crash.

MrNemesis writes:

More than two years after the last release, Bay12 Games have unleashed Dwarf Fortress 0.40.01 on the world. From Toady's release announcement:

Here is the world activation release! Lots of processes from world generation birth, invasions, succession, site foundation, and so on now operate in the world after play has begun. Getting all of that to work led to a meandering route through various pieces of the game, some of which are described below. Aside from any bugginess, a lot of it will still feel rough and unfinished as things bump around.

Although many of us will be waiting around for extra stability and for our mods and tilesets to support the new version, many more will be sharpening their pickaxes and hoping they can create the next Planepacked.

AnonTechie links to a story at esciencenews.com:

Fully automated "deep learning" by computers greatly improves the odds of discovering particles such as the Higgs boson, beating even veteran physicists' abilities, according to findings by UC Irvine researchers published today in the journal Nature Communications. "We are thrilled with the publication of our work," said co-author Pierre Baldi, Chancellor's Professor of computer science, "and even more so with the hope that deep learning may help solve fundamental open questions about the nature of matter, gravity and the origin of the universe."

Baldi, along with computer science Ph.D. student Peter Sadowski and associate professor of physics & astronomy Daniel Whiteson, found quicker, more efficient ways to analyze data obtained from particle accelerators/colliders to better detect rare particles. The Higgs boson first theorized in 1964 and whose existence was finally confirmed in 2012 at the massive, underground Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland could help explain why some particles have mass, among other primary questions of physics. Finding these particles requires sorting out relevant data from huge amounts of background noise; machine learning techniques are already used in analyzing these sets of "big data."

lhsi writes:

Abstract: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/07/02/1402663111

New research has found that the time of day and sleep deprivation have a significant effect on our metabolism, which means that when a blood sample is collected for certain tests could be important.

Researchers from the University of Surrey and The Institute of Cancer Research, London, investigated the links between sleep deprivation, body clock disruption and metabolism, and discovered a clear variation in metabolism according to the time of day.

Healthy male volunteers were put in an environment where light, sleep, meals and posture were controlled. Researchers collected blood samples every two hours to show how metabolic biomarkers change during the day. For the first 24 hours, the participants experienced a normal wake/sleep cycle. This was followed by 24 hours of wakefulness, to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on metabolic rhythms. The results showed that metabolic processes are significantly increased during sleep deprivation. 27 metabolites, including serotonin, were found at higher levels in periods of sleep deprivation compared to levels during sleep.

Lead author Professor Debra Skene from the University of Surrey, said: "Our results show that if we want to develop a diagnostic test for a disease, it is imperative to take the time of day when taking blood samples into account, since this has a significant effect on metabolism. This is also key for administering medicines and determining when they will be at their most effective. Of course, this will have to be considered on a case-by-case basis, since many people such as shift workers will have a different sleep/wake cycle and timings will need to be adapted to their body clocks."

AnonTechie writes:

The earth's magnetic field, which protects the planet from huge blasts of deadly solar radiation, has been weakening over the past six months, according to data collected by a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite array called Swarm. The biggest weak spots in the magnetic field which extends 370,000 miles (600,000 kilometers) above the planet's surface have sprung up over the Western Hemisphere, while the field has strengthened over areas like the southern Indian Ocean, according to the magnetometers onboard the three Swarm satellites, with two separate satellites floating in tandem.

The scientists who conducted the study are still unsure why the magnetic field is weakening, but one likely reason is that Earth's magnetic poles are getting ready to flip, said Rune Floberghagen, the ESA's Swarm mission manager. In fact, the data suggest magnetic north is moving toward Siberia. "Such a flip is not instantaneous, but would take many hundred if not a few thousand years," Floberghagen told Live Science. "They have happened many times in the past."( 50 Amazing Facts About Planet Earth )

cafebabe writes:

From Science of Us:

You know you're at least a little curious. And so was Vanessa Brown, a senior lecturer of art and design at Nottingham Trent University in the U.K. Her research focuses on the meaning we assign to commonplace, everyday objects, and in an academic book that's coming out early next year, she explores the cultural and psychological relationship between sunglasses and our modern idea of "cool." In an email to Science of Us, Brown explained what her research has uncovered about why most of us look better in shades.

Because they really do make your misshapen face look better. Put on a pair of sunglasses, and voilà - instant symmetry! The dark lenses cover up any asymmetrical oddities around your eyes, and research on facial attractiveness shows a clear link between symmetry and our perception of beauty.

As an added bonus, Brown pointed out, sunglasses provide a kind of scaffolding effect, imposing the appearance of an external, extra-chiseled bone structure on top of your relatively softer-featured face.

Two other detailed reasons are also given.

AnonTechie writes:

Rise-Of-Clueless-Dept.

Over the past few years, social psychologists have come under fire for publishing work based on falsified and non-reproducible evidence. And now one social psychologist has published an awe-inspiringly clueless rant about this situation that will leave you smashing your face into your desk.

At issue in this essay by Harvard's Jason Mitchell is the specific accusation, leveled against many social psychologists, that their results cannot be reproduced. Though the idea of reproducibility is essential to the scientific process indeed, some would argue the very definition of it [PDF]. Mitchell believes that the emphasis on reproducibility is nothing more than "hand-wringing ( http://io9.com/the-rise-of-the-evolutionary-psychology-douchebag-757550990 )".

gewg_ writes:

Ars reports:

The website of Argentina's equivalent of the Recording Industry Association of America was hacked Tuesday and transformed into a Pirate Bay proxy, serving up torrents instead of industry lobbying affairs.

Nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the intrusion of the Argentine Chamber of Phonograms and Videograms Producers' site, which went offline early Tuesday. TorrentFreak noted that the site was transformed into a Pirate Bay proxy for about 10 hours following the organization winning injunctions demanding that 11 ISPs block 256 IP addresses and 12 domains of the Pirate Bay.

cafebabe writes:

The Daily Mail reports that:

Basil the blind dog was picked up by rescuers who noticed he could not walk five yards without bumping into something.

Now, thanks to an innovative new gadget from America, Basil has been given a new lease of life - and his carers hope they will now be able to find a family to permanently house him.

The four-year-old Corgi cross has been given a special guard to wear around his head, which manufacturers call the 'Muffin's Halo'. The light-weight tubular metal ring stops Basil from bumping into objects, allowing him to run around freely without bruising himself. It is attached to his body with a harness and a pillow, which is fashioned to look like angel wings. The 'halo' is designed to be slightly longer and wider than the wearer and when it touches an object, it puts pressure on Basil's shoulders, teaching him to turn away.

Yes, the device is as simple as it sounds but it seems to work and the dog seems happy. Sometimes, going hi-tech just isn't necessary.

lhsi writes:

A researcher has found that taking a short smartphone break improves employee happiness and well-being, as it allows them to refresh, in a similar way to other microbreaks (getting coffee, walking around the hallway).

Through a study of 72 full-time workers from various industries, Kim discovered that employees only spend an average of 22 minutes out of an eight-hour workday playing on their smartphones. He also found that employees who take smartphone breaks throughout the day are happier at the end of the workday.

"A smartphone microbreak can be beneficial for both the employee and the organization," Kim said. "For example, if I would play a game for an hour during my working hours, it would definitely hurt my work performance. But if I take short breaks of one or two minutes throughout the day, it could provide me with refreshment to do my job."

Taking a break throughout the workday is important because it is difficult and nearly impossible for an employee to concentrate for eight straight hours a day without a break, Kim said. Smartphone microbreaks are similar to other microbreaks throughout the workday: chatting with coworkers, walking around the hallway or getting a cup of coffee. Such breaks are important because they can help employees cope with the demands of the workplace.

AnonTechie writes:

The Register reports that:

Scripts for the first five episodes of the yet-to-be-screened and highly-anticipated series eight of Doctor Who have been leaked online.

The leak is said to have come from BBC Worldwide's new Miami office, which was arranging translation of the new series for non-English speaking markets. The scripts are said to bear a BBC watermark, the name of a staffer and to be extremely detailed post-production scripts describing on-screen action as well as dialogue.

Unconfirmed rumours claimed the scripts were placed on a public server which was indexed by a search engine. An innocent search stumbled upon the scripts, which eventually made their way into torrents and sites such as Scribd.

lhsi and dryriver write:

The fossil remains of a bird [abstract] has shown that it has the largest known avian wingspan; twice the size of the wandering albatross, the largest living bird. Simulations suggest that the long wings meant that it was an excellent glider, and could soar for miles over the ocean without flapping its wings.

Scientists have identified the fossilized remains of an extinct giant bird that could be the biggest flying bird ever found. With an estimated 20-24-foot wingspan, the creature surpassed size estimates based on wing bones from the previous record holder a long-extinct bird named Argentavis magnificens and was twice as big as the Royal Albatross, the largest flying bird today.

Anonymous Coward writes:

In 2011 the FBI tagged fans of the Insane Clown Posse (ICP), aka juggalos, as a gang. As a result, ICP fans have faced discrimination by government authorities, for example one man was denied enlistment in the US Army because his juggalo tattoo was considered a gang tattoo. ICP and the ACLU of Michigan filed suit to make the government rescind the gang designation.

But, U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland dismissed the lawsuit saying that federal government can't be blamed for any fallout from the FBI report because the gang designation was 'descriptive' and not 'prescriptive.'

cafebabe writes:

The Daily Mail reports that:

'The block allows for faster, cheaper, more precise, and stronger building than is available through traditional building methods,' continued the firm.

'Architects consulted in brick development see a whole new world of possibilities and opportunities with the brick for making inexpensive, revolutionary structures, from single homes to multi-storey towers.

'The brick's patented design is flexible enough to be relevant from Vietnam to London.'

Other benefits quoted by the company include a 50 per cent reduction in building costs, controlled room temperatures for significantly lower running costs and 'virtually no debris left at building sites'.

However, it is unclear if mortar is required or if it's based on other familiar toys.