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gewg_ writes:

The Rude Baguette reports

Modular, Open Source, Hackable Breach is ticking all the boxes with the ambitious browser project they launched this month. The team, originally composed of TOTEMS (formerly Nitrogram) CTO Stanislas Polu, Socket.io (now Automattic)'s Guillermo Rauch, Alejandro Vizio & others, is now made up of around 80 developers collaborating on the project. Since its release last month, the product has seen over 160,000 users user the browser (according to their public Google Analytics account), with around 2,500 Daily Active users using the product.

Built on Google's open source Chromium project, Breach goes one step beyond Mozilla & Chrome, who enable developers to build 3rd party add-ons/plugins for the respective browsers when you first start Breach, it has no functionality. Functionalities are brought in by modules, meaning that everything down to the core features of a browser navigation, display, etc. are hackable.

The product isn't quite mass-market ready yet, says Polu, who says that it is more exciting for developers (especially those who love browsers built entirely on node.js), but that Developers are likely to bring some great innovation to the outdated parts of a browser "bookmarks", "tabs", and other features that have been grandfathered into the modern browser may be ready for an overhaul.

Anonymous Coward writes:

Harvard economics professor Sendhil Mullainathan writes in the New York Times about the interesting correlations between the release dates of new phones and OSes and search queries that indicate frustration with the speed of the phones that people already have. Mullainathan illustrates with graphs and provides plausible explanations for the difference on just how different the curves are over time for the search terms "iPhone slow" and "Samsung Galaxy slow."

It's easy to see with the iPhone graph especially how it could seem to users that Apple has intentionally slowed down older phones to nudge them toward upgrading. While he's careful not to rule out intentional slowing of older phone models which is a possibility after all. Mullainathan cites several factors that mean there's no need to believe in a conspiracy to slow phones, and at least two big reasons like reputation and liability for companies involved like Apple, Google, and other cellphone manufacturers like Samsung not to take part in one. Mullainathan points out various wrinkles in what the data could really indicate, including genuine but innocent slowdowns caused by optimizing for newer hardware. It's an interesting look at the difference between having mere statistics, no matter how rigorously gathered, and knowing quite what it means.

Hairyfeet writes:

Ahhh, something near and dear to this old repairman's heart! I am always on the lookout for new tools and Infoworld has The Top 25 Free Windows Tools with plenty of really good ones.

Over the years I've found my most valuable tool (besides my brain) to be a little bitty reg file that resets the sound on any version of Windows, I've used it more times than I can count. What's your favorite tool or trick to keep Windows purring along?

gewg_ writes:

Natural Society reports

The West Virginia State Supreme Court finalized a big blow to the biotech giant Monsanto this month, finishing a settlement causing Monsanto to pay $93 million to the tiny town of Nitro, West Virginia for poisoning citizens with Agent Orange chemicals. The settlement was approved last year, but details were worked out only weeks ago as to how the funds were to be spent.

The settlement will require Monsanto to do the following:

• $9 million will be spent to clean dioxin contaminated dust from 4500 homes.

• $21 million will be spent to test to see if people have been poisoned with dioxin.

• Citizens will be monitored for such poisoning for 30 years, not just a few months.

• An additional $63 million is to be allotted if additional tests for dioxin contamination testing is necessary.

• Anyone who lived in the Nitro area between Jan. 1, 1948, and Sept. 3, 2010 will be tested for dioxin. Although they must show proof they lived in the area, they will be eligible for testing even if they no longer live in Nitro.

• Former or present employees of Monsanto are not eligible for any of these benefits.

• An office will be set up to organize testing for Nitro citizens. The registration of participants is to be overlooked by Charleston attorney Thomas Flaherty, who was appointed by the court.

• Residents have a right to file individual suits against Monsanto if medical tests show they suffered physical harm due to dioxin exposure.

lhsi writes:

NASA's Mars rover, Opportunity, has been driving over Mars since 2004. In that time, it has now driven over 40 kilometres, making it the longest distance travelled off-Earth. The previous record was held by the Russian Lunokhod 2 rover, which drove 39 kilometres on the moon in 1973.

"Opportunity has driven farther than any other wheeled vehicle on another world," said Mars Exploration Rover Project Manager John Callas, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "This is so remarkable considering Opportunity was intended to drive about one kilometer and was never designed for distance. But what is really important is not how many miles the rover has racked up, but how much exploration and discovery we have accomplished over that distance."

A drive of 157 feet (48 meters) on July 27 put Opportunity's total odometry at 25.01 miles (40.25 kilometers). This month's driving brought the rover southward along the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The rover had driven more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) before arriving at Endeavour Crater in 2011, where it has examined outcrops on the crater's rim containing clay and sulfate-bearing minerals. The sites are yielding evidence of ancient environments with less acidic water than those examined at Opportunity's landing site.

If the rover can continue to operate the distance of a marathon — 26.2 miles (about 42.2 kilometers) — it will approach the next major investigation site mission scientists have dubbed "Marathon Valley." Observations from spacecraft orbiting Mars suggest several clay minerals are exposed close together at this valley site, surrounded by steep slopes where the relationships among different layers may be evident.

What projects have you worked on that have greatly exceeded their design specifications? Alternatively, what products have you purchased that have far exceeded your expectations?

gewg_ writes:

The Local Europe reports

One of Germany's top universities wants to ditch German and switch almost all of its master's programmes to English in the next six years, prompting fears that the academic standing of the German language is under serious threat.

Munich's Technical University (TU), one of the highest ranked in Germany, already uses English in 30 of its 99 master's courses. Now the board of trustees has followed a recommendation by the university's president, Wolfgang Herrmann, to switch to English for most other master's modules by 2020.

"English is the lingua franca in academia and of the economy," Herrmann told the Suddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday. He said it was important to prepare students for a professional life in which they would be expected to speak English.

Herrmann also said he wanted to send a "strong signal" that would allow TU to compete for the brightest master's students globally.

A spokesman for the university told The Local the TU did not have a target for the number of modules it would offer in English. He added the plans were based on demands from students.
"We want to expand our offers in English. This will not affect all modules," the spokesman said.
The university declined to give further details.

Students sceptical

But Sebastian Biermann, chair of TU's student parliament, disputed that students had called for English across the board.
"This came from the university's management, not from students or the university's departments," he told The Local.

While Biermann said student representatives were open to more English, "generally switching all master's degrees to English is something we view rather critically".
Biermann said the reform made sense for some departments like computer sciences, where English is already common. It was not the right solution for courses like constructional engineering, he said, where textbooks and legal requirements were mostly in German.

Switching TU master's programmes to English also requires fluency among academic and administrative staff and more language support for students. Biermann said students doubted this could be achieved by 2020.

lhsi writes:

The City of London Police have started putting banner ads over sites they believe are offering copyright infringing content.

The City of London police has started placing banner advertisements on websites believed to be offering pirated content illegally.

The messages, which will appear instead of paid-for ads, will ask users to close their web browsers.

The move comes as part of a continuing effort to stop piracy sites from earning money through advertising.

Police said the ads would make it harder for piracy site owners to make their pages look authentic.

gewg_ writes:

El Reg reports

Ridley Scott has signed on to make Philip K Dick's Nazis-in-America story The Man in the High Castle for Amazon Studios, according to industry mag Deadline.

Scott's production firm Scott Free and X-Files writer Frank Spotnitz will make the alternate reality tale in which the Nazis won an extended World War II and are occupying the US in the '60s. The project was originally supposed to be made by Syfy into a four-hour miniseries.

The sci-fi author is clearly a favourite for Scott, who previously directed Blade Runner, and for Hollywood fodder in general. Two versions of Total Recall movies have been made, along with Minority Report and The Adjustment Bureau.

The Man in the High Castle, a Hugo-Award-winning novel, is set in 1962 and tells the story of American life under Fascist rule while the Axis Powers Japan, Italy and Germany plot against each other.

The story is one of a number of new projects to be greenlit by Amazon Studios as video-on-demand firms ramp up original in-house productions. Netflix has enjoyed huge success with series House of Cards and Orange is the New Black which have racked up Emmy Award nominations and wins and Amazon has been racing to catch up with projects like Alpha House and Betas.

AnonTechie writes:

Why are techno-futurists so freaked out by Roko's Basilisk?

Slender Man. Smile Dog. Goatse. These are some of the urban legends spawned by the Internet. Yet none is as all-powerful and threatening as Roko's Basilisk. For Roko's Basilisk is an evil, godlike form of artificial intelligence, so dangerous that if you see it, or even think about it too hard, you will spend the rest of eternity screaming in its torture chamber. It's like the videotape in The Ring. Even death is no escape, for if you die, Roko's Basilisk will resurrect you and begin the torture again.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/07/roko_s_basilisk_the_most_terrifying_thought_experiment_of_all_time.single.html

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWrong

janrinok writes:

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is warning that two iconic Australian astronomy facilities the Parkes radio-telescope and the Australia Telescope Compact Array at Narrabri, are at risk of closure after the federal government pulled $AU114 million from the agency's funding.

The cuts, announced in the government's May budget, have already stung part of the compact array, with its nearby Mopra telescope to run out of funds in 2015. According to CSIRO astronomy and space science head Lewis Ball, reported by The Guardian in Australia, the cuts mean "we have to make significant changes right now," adding that the cuts to the current year's budget happened with only "six weeks' notice." Ball was speaking to the Australian Astronomical Society's meeting, which took place last week.

According to Paul Girdler of the staff association, speaking to the ABC's AM current affairs program, part of the problem is that CSIRO also has to maintain Australia's commitment to the international Square Kilometre Array project. "CSIRO is going to have to cannibalise Parkes and Narrabri in order to keep funding the Western Australia operation," Girdler said.

gewg_ writes:

A little diversion from The Center for American Progress for those of us who got old but still refuse to grow up

Melissa Hunter is an LA-based comedian who noticed a little something about boys. Namely, how they seemed to stay... boys. Bros living with a dozen roommates. Guys eating Pop-Tarts for dinner. Dudes never buying toilet paper. Even when, perhaps, they should be men. Because they are 33 years old. Hypothetically speaking. Channeling her frustration into hilarity, Hunter, along with writer-actress Megan Rosati, wrote and filmed "1-800-Adopt-A-Dude," which asks us, "Will you be an angel for a fully grown, yet utterly helpless man?"
[...]
I called [up Hunter] to talk 1-800-Adopt-A-Dude, which went up [on YouTube] Wednesday.

What's the Adopt-a-Dude origin story?

It came about based on our single dating experiences in Los Angeles, and trying to find grown men who act like grown men. I would often date a guy and then find out he shared a bedroom, or didn't have a car, or a job. It just didn't make sense to me that there was this epidemic of men acting like they were still in college. So we started joking about that out of frustration, and how funny it would be to place them in one of those "adopt a child" or "adopt an animal" videos. I love those, like the Sarah McLachlan ones. They're so ripe for parody.
[...]
Aside from the cultural pressures and male expectations you've talked about, do you think some of this is a pressure women put on ourselves? That there are girls who go into relationships kind of excited about the prospect of, for lack of a better phrase, a fixer-upper?

I think we're all kind of complicit in it, and that's part of the commentary that we wanted to put forward: it's not anyone's fault, necessarily, it's just the way our society works right now. Maybe it's something that we want men to change, to be the guy that we want them to be, so being able to change the way they dress or eat is almost an easy way to think that they're going to be better people, better boyfriends, better partners. There's a satisfaction to teaching someone about something. I think that's true in any relationship. I've been in a relationship where someone knew everything about music, and he was so excited to teach me about classic rock. It was something he could bring to the table. And also maybe it's like, we can't control or change the way men think in a macro level, so maybe on a micro level, we can do that.
[...]
Which of these jokes in the video feel the most true to you?

I think there were two the roll of toilet paper, that's probably my favorite joke. Because it seems SO simple, and so basic, that of course, you can have toilet paper too! All it costs is the cost of a roll of toilet paper. It seems silly that it's so hard. And the other joke is the one where Megan is reading the book and it says "Donate in the next five minutes, and you'll get a text every day from your dude, asking, like, you know, how your day was. Really basic shit." Because I feel like that's something, when I'm dating someone, or my friend is dating someone, everything that we have to ask of them seems SO basic. If you're in a relationship, just checking in every day.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

There are many embedded boards but this one will be more feature complete while costing as much as Raspberry Pi:

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dpt-board-linux-and-wifi-becomes-easy

Software: OpenWRT. Hardware specs: 400MHz MIPS processor, 64MiB DDR2 RAM, USB 2.0, UART, 16MiB flash memory, WiFi g/n 150Mbps with on board antenna, 20 GPIO ports, 2x 100Mbps ethernet, 7 high-power (500mA) outputs, 3 ultra-protected inputs (0 — 50V resistant), 5 normal 2.5 volt IO ports with software I2C, SPI capability, power consumption: 0.36 Watt

janrinok writes:

Forbes is reporting that Verizon plans to limit download speeds for some of its 4G LTE users:

Verizon Wireless launched a "network optimization" policy three years ago to limit the data speeds of its heaviest 3G data users subscribers with unlimited data plans whose data usage is in the top 5% of all users. A majority of Verizon's users have switched over to a data plan that is capped at a tiered amount, but there is still a large number of subscribers that were grandfathered into unlimited data plans after it was no longer an option. On October 1st, Verizon will apply the network optimization policy to the top 5% of data users on its 4G network also.

The data speed of the top 5% of users will be slowed down when they are connected to cell sites that are experiencing heavy demand "so that all data users will enjoy a quality wireless data experience." If those users move to a different cell site or eases down on usage, then the speed returns to normal. These users may experience video buffering, a lag while gaming online and slower Internet browsing. The network optimization policy will apply to the top 5% users that have passed their minimum contract term and consume around 4.7GB of data per month or more.[...]

Verizon said that its network optimization policy is not considered "throttling" because it uses network intelligence. Throttling means that your wireless data speed is reduced for the entire lifecycle, 100% of the time no matter where you are. Verizon's Network Optimization suggests that your connection should be as good as possible as long as it doesn't cause congestion. Once you are no longer connected to the site that experiences high demand, the speed could return to normal in seconds or hours based on the location and time of day.

So, what do you think? Is this throttling by a different name or a reasonable way to manage the current limited network capacity or, indeed, both?

Blackmoore writes:

EFF brings us Deeper Dive into EFF's Motion on Backbone Surveillance.

[EFF] filed a motion for partial summary judgment in our long running Jewel v. NSA case, focusing on the government's admitted seizure and search of communications from the Internet backbone, also called "upstream." We've asked the judge to rule that there are two ways in which this is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.

Bonus: insightful Infographic

janrinok writes:

Patches are ready for I2P, the vulnerable component in Tails, but it's not clear when Tails will update.

Tails, a portable operating system that employs a host of privacy-focused components, plans to patch flaws contained in I2P, a networking tool developed by the Invisible Internet Project that provides greater anonymity when browsing. It's similar in concept to Tor.

On Saturday, I2P developers released several fixes for XSS (cross-site scripting) and remote execution flaws found by Exodus Intelligence, a vulnerability broker that irked some by announcing first on Twitter it knew of flaws but didn't immediately inform Tails.

The IT World article continues:

On Friday, Tails advised that users can take steps to protect themselves in the meantime. It recommended that I2P not be intentionally launched in Tails version 1.1 and earlier. Luckily, I2P is not launched by default when Tails is started. But Tails warned that an attacker could use some other undisclosed security holes to launch Tails and then try to de-anonymize a user. To be sure that doesn't happen, the I2P software package should be removed when Tails is launched.