SoylentNews

tonyPick writes:

Spotted on The Verge is a demonstration video of Quake running on an Oscilloscope.

This is a demonstration by Pekka Väänänen, and he provides additional details on how this done (TLDR; Scope XY mode, with a modified Quake engine renderer to generate line segments). The source engine port used is DarkPlaces, and the scope in question is an elderly Hitachi V-422 (Dual channel, 40MHz B/W).

Direct YouTube link, and the same story on Kotaku

Anonoob writes:

Long time reader, first time submitter here. Noticed this article today about a father and son effort to create a small scale (10-50kg payload) re-entry vehicle, progressing further on the concept and funding stages. Thought it might be of some interest to SN readership, as a worthy project for those still enamoured by crowd funding, or merely to generate another discussion on citizens entering the space race. The Project Thunderstruck website has this to say about their goals :

There is a commercial opportunity to design and create a winged re-entry vehicle specifically for delicate payloads and experiments that last for more than 4 minutes in a weightless environment (tourist sounding flights to space). These are experiments and payloads that would find a parachute landing too harsh. There is a final output of the work and that is a spacecraft for experiments or even a payload taxi service back to earth. The most important aspect of this work is determining the smallest size of a winged spacecraft that can remain stable during re-entry. There are three stages of the physical testing:

1. Transonic – Project ThunderStruck in 6 months time (April 2015)
2. Re-entry from space (delivered on a sounding rocket – no orbit); 2-3 years away.
3. Re-entry from orbit; 6 years away

There are two science components to the upcoming testing over the next 6 months:

1. Stability of a small aircraft at mach 1.5 / 1,800kph / 1,120mph and lower speeds for landing,
2. Testing a new type of surface for high-speed flight. (not a heat shield).

Not very new news, given the project was launched back in October, and apparently fell short in earlier funding round. However just before Christmas they announced that the Australian Government, through the Defence Scientific and Technology Organisation (DSTO) has become a sponsor, by providing equipment, test facilities and advice.

AnonTechie writes:

Right now in Hamburg, Germany, the largest European hacker association, the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), is holding its 31st annual congress that's a four-day fest of all things hacking. Other than having a pretty rad name, CCC is well-known for detailing all the crazy (and sometimes scary) shit they can do. They've just added another one to the list.

On Saturday, security researcher and biometrics expert Jan Krissler, known as Starbug, detailed in an hour-long presentation (German) ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIY6k4gvQsY ) how he recreated German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen's fingerprints using only a "standard photo camera" and publicly available software called VeriFinger ( http://www.neurotechnology.com/verifinger.html ).

http://gizmodo.com/chaos-computer-club-says-they-can-hack-your-fingerprint-1675845311

AnonTechie writes:

The UK government has raised objections to current EU proposals that would require businesses seeking to rely on "consent" as the lawful basis for processing personal data to ensure that that consent has been unambiguously given "for one or more specific purposes".

It said those proposals are "unjustified" and called on EU law makers to instead turn to the definition of consent under existing EU data protection rules instead for setting the legal standard businesses would need to achieve for consent under the draft new General Data Protection Regulation.

Under the 1995 Data Protection Directive, set to be replaced by the Regulation, individuals' consent is defined as "any freely given specific and informed indication of ... wishes by which the data subject signifies his agreement to personal data relating to him being processed".

However, organisations wishing to rely on individuals' consent to process their data are obliged to ensure that "the data subject has unambiguously given his consent". The UK government is arguing for this requirement to be removed. Its concerns are detailed in a Council of Ministers (Council) document published by information law business Amberhawk Training (PDF). ( http://amberhawk.typepad.com/files/dapix-text-eu-council-dp-reg-december-2014.pdf )

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/12/29/uk_trashes_consent_plans_in_eu_data_protection_reforms/

AnonTechie writes:

The Russian government declassified the Earth-sensing data received from civilian domestic and foreign satellites according to the Russian legislation. The Russian government said Friday it will provide public access to previously classified Earth-sensing data received from domestic and foreign satellites.

"The Earth-sensing data received from civilian domestic and foreign satellites are no longer considered state secrets and it will be open to public access in line with the Russian legislation," the government said in a statement posted on its legal database portal.

http://sputniknews.com/russia/20141219/1016039079.html

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Neowin has been following the tweet war between the two hacker collectives Lizard Squad and Anonymous as the former tries to take down the Tor anonymity network. Lizard Squad apparently called off its successful attack on the PlayStation and Xbox networks on Christmas day following a deal or bribe from Kim Dotcom, who offered the attackers free cloud storage. It's not clear what the relationship between Anonymous and Tor is, but Anonymous claims that Tor is going strong in spite of the attack, and that moreover, Lizard Squad is a bunch of lamers.

However, Lizard Squad claims the tweet was faked. Tech Times has another report.

MichaelDavidCrawford writes:

I have some gripes about 9-1-1 Emergency Dispatch, of which this first is the most serious.

The Mulnomah County, Oregon dispatchers tells me they cannot geolocate Cricket mobile phones. This was confirmed by two different dispatchers, after the first passed my - nonemergency - call to her supervisor. She told me they can't ping Cricket phones, and that if they can locate them at all, they can only do so to within 5000 feet.

Oddly, both dispatchers accept this.

They were unaware that United States Federal Communications Commission regulations require cell phones and cell towers to support signal strength triangulation. Don't all United States mobile phones have to be certified by the Federal Communications? Even if Cricket's engineers are slacking on the job, I am flummoxed that the FCC's would be.

The original cell phone technology did not provide for geolocation at all. The signal strength triangulation system designed to enable locating a phone to within a fifty foot radius, provided it was within range of three different towers. One of the dispatchers told me that the best they could ever get is one hundred feet.

I expect that part of the problem is that there are so many more mobile phones and tablet computers are in use now than was the case when the rules were first implemented; analog cell technology was still in use at the time.

Perhaps digital signaling would requires less power than analog, so it would be harder to detect a signal at all. Do GSM and CDMA digital use higher frequencies than analog? While one can pinpoint a higher frequency transmitter with greater precision, higher frequencies are loathe to go around corners.

I will call the FCC tomorrow morning.

frojack writes:

PSMag is running an article that addresses some of the problems discussed here on Soylent News, regarding the problems with the Trustworthiness of published science.

Several proposals for reproducing results of important science projects are on the table. One from The Science Exchange Network would have scientists submit their studies to a third party for a reproducible study. Submitted experiments are matched with an appropriate, verified Science Exchange lab which would (for a fee) reproduce the experiments.

The problems with this approach are many. Replication of results is desirable, replication of exact experiments is a waste of time and money according to Canada's National Research Council. Often, results can't be reproduced, without exact replication of the experiment. One such case came down to how a solution was stirred at a critical stage.

More often, nobody tries to reproduce results at all. Even when they do try, researchers rarely publish an attempt to replicate someone else’s experiment, and are even less likely to reproduce a failed attempt. Therefore it is unknown what fraction of published studies aren't reproducible.

The article goes on to discuss problems with published results, retractions, and the trustworthiness of published science in general. It is an interesting read without getting bogged down in too much minutia.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

"Forget Iran, Iraq, Ukraine, and Syria this is where WWIII will start"

Should the rise of conflicts across the Middle East and Ukraine serve as a warning sign that something much more dangerous is approaching? According to Jim Rickards, the CIA's Asymmetric Warfare Advisor, the answer is yes. In a startling interview he reveals that all 16 U.S. Intelligence Agencies have begun to prepare for World War III. Making matters worse, his colleagues believe it could begin within the next 6 months.

However, what is being forecast is not a war but is a massive US financial collapse leading to 'a 25 year-long depression' which could 'possibly begin within 6 months'. The link provided points to a (I believe) video of a 46-minute American TV interview with Jim Rickards on a program called "Money Morning".

I, as a European, do not know whether this program is highly regarded or whether this is a interview which has already been discounted by many. Indeed, I do not even know when the program was initially aired. I will leave it to the viewer to make his own decisions. It is also worth noting that Jim Rickards is also using the interview to push his book on the same topic.

"gewg_" writes:

ITWeb reports

Zimbra, a global leader in unified collaboration software, [together with] open source specialist LSD Information Technology, [December 11] released the Ponemon Institute's "The Open Source Collaboration Study: Viewpoints on Security and Privacy in the US and EMEA" report.

The report findings confirm a changing perception of open source, to a platform for the development of quality software that enhances privacy and security. Findings from the survey, which was conducted in 18 countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) as well as the United States, show that 66% of EMEA respondents agreed that commercial backing and code transparency reduces applications' privacy risks, and 67% agree these improve application security.

[...]By its nature, open source provides a layer of transparency not available in proprietary software. This transparency provides a method to trust but verify, whether a patch's efficacy, for hidden components or backdoors and that software development best practices are followed. This transparency improves code quality, which is an equal partner to security. In support of this, the Ponemon Institute survey found that 76% of EMEA respondents agree that commercial backing and code transparency improves application integrity and trustworthiness.

[...]A sampling frame of 17,680 US and 16,700 EMEA experienced IT and IT security practitioners were selected as participants to this survey. By design, 79% of US respondents and 74% of EMEA respondents are at or above the supervisory levels.[...]

[Ed's Note: There is a hint of 'slashvertisement' here as Zimbra are pushing their own products which, surprise surprise, are based on OS software although that need not negate the results of the survey.]

mendax writes:

From the NY TImes comes the following story:

North Korea accused the United States on Saturday of being responsible for Internet outages it experienced in recent days amid a confrontation between them over the hacking of the film studio Sony Pictures. [...]

"The United States, with its large physical size and oblivious to the shame of playing hide and seek as children with runny noses would, has begun disrupting the Internet operations of the main media outlets of our republic," the North's National Defense Commission said in a statement.

"It is truly laughable," a spokesman for the commission said in comments carried by the North's official KCNA news agency. [...]

"Obama had better thrust himself to cleaning up all the evil doings that the U.S. has committed out of its hostile policy against (North Korea) if he seeks peace on U.S. soil. Then all will be well."

Kim Jong-un must have been unhappy that he couldn't watch YouTube videos during the outage. Well, he can continue to pout unless he gets his hackers to shut down Google.

darkfeline writes:

http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/12/when-the-doctors-away-the-patient-is-more-likely-to-survive/

A study shows that cardiology patients are more likely to survive when specialists are absent. This study was done as a followup to studies that have shown increased mortality of patients admitted during weekends to investigate whether differences in staffing caused the increase in mortality. Unexpectedly, they found that the patients did significantly better when the relevant specialists were unavailable. The study considered a number of possible causes, including a lower number of aggressive procedures or internal staffing changes.

frojack writes:

In their year end review The Scientist is carrying two stories that trumpet the BAD news in science over the last year.

The lists the Top Ten Retractions in 2014, which seems like more than previous years.

The retractions include:

• STAP stem cell paper retractions from Nature
• Spiking rabbit blood samples with human blood to make it look like an HIV vaccine was working.
• A “peer review and citation ring” got 60 articles yanked
• 120 bogus papers produced by the random text generator

In addition there was A List of the top Science Scandals of the year, some of which are included in the above, but also major containment issues at US government labs, including the discovery of undocumented pathogens in questionable storage.

It wasn't all bad news, a third story listed their nominations for The Years greatest breakthroughs.

Regardless of what we hear in the popular press, it is interesting to see what scientists themselves find most troublesome in their various fields. And it is interesting to note that many of the issues revolve around the review and publishing process.

"gewg_" writes:

The Tesla Motors Blog announces

We have long been excited to apply our learning back to our first vehicle, and are thrilled to do just that with the prototype Roadster 3.0 package. It consists of three main improvement areas.

1. Batteries
[...]We have identified a new cell that has 31% more energy than the original Roadster cell.

2. Aerodynamics
[...]we expect to make a 15% improvement

3. Rolling Resistance
[...]about a 20% improvement

[...]Combining all of these improvements we can achieve a predicted 40-50% improvement on range between the original Roadster and Roadster 3.0. There is a set of speeds and driving conditions where we can confidently drive the Roadster 3.0 over 400 miles. We will be demonstrating this in the real world during a non-stop drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles in the early weeks of 2015.

Appointments for upgrading Roadsters will be taken this spring once the new battery pack finishes safety validation. We are confident that this will not be the last update the Roadster will receive in the many years to come.

janrinok writes:

AirAsia flight QZ8501 from Indonesia to Singapore missing

An AirAsia flight travelling from Indonesia to Singapore with 162 people on board lost contact with air traffic control.

Flight QZ8501 lost contact at 07:24 (23:24 GMT), Malaysia-based AirAsia tweeted.

Search and rescue operations are under way.