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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Samsung’s SmartTV recently came under fire when an item in its privacy policy—in place since at least October 2014—bubbled up in media reports. But the larger issue is that, because of the DMCA, chances are that any attempt by the TV's owner to protect themselves by modifying the TV's firmware would make them a felon.

"gewg_" writes:

El Reg reports

100 hour battery life and e-paper? Yes please

[...]While the first YotaPhone was little more than proof of concept, the YotaPhone 2 is an altogether more interesting bunch of bananas

Visually, there's not a lot to mark out the YotaPhone 2 as something from off the beaten track.

[...]It's not a remarkably powerful device either.

[...]The 2,500mAh capacity battery is nothing to write home about either and it is fixed in place. [...] Oh, and it will cost you £550.

The ace up the YotaPhone 2's sleeve is the second screen. The idea is to offer an energy-saving alternative to the battery draining full-colour display featured on all smartphones. In terms of practicality, the front and back of the Y2 are made from Gorilla Glass 3 -- shiny finish and flat on the front, [matte] finish and curved on the back. Under the back panel sits a 4.7-inch 960 x 540 16-level greyscale electronic paper display (so I suspect not actually the E Ink Corporation's proprietary tech) with a capacitive interface.

[...]video [on the e-ink screen] actually plays quite well. Yes, it's greyscale and yes, the refresh rate leads to serious ghosting but it is watchable at a push

[...]It's arguably the first effective improvement on how we interact with our smartphones that, in the process, finds a good use for the hitherto redundant space on the back. For that alone, I'll forgive the rather steep asking price.

LancePodstrong writes:

http://arstechnica.com/staff/2015/02/temperature-data-is-not-the-biggest-scientific-scandal-ever/

Over the weekend, another editor pointed me to this piece in The Telegraph in which columnist Christopher Booker calls scientists' handling of the temperature data "the biggest science scandal ever." The same piece also appeared in a discussion today and was sent in via the reader-feedback form. So, it seemed worth looking into.

Doing so caused a bit of a flashback—to January 2013, specifically. That was the last time that the previous year had been declared the warmest on record, an event that apparently prompts some people to question whether we can trust the temperature records at all.

The culprit that time was Fox News, but the issue was the same: the raw data from temperature measurements around the world aren't just dumped into global temperature reconstructions as-is. Instead, they're processed first. To the more conspiracy minded, you can replace "processed" with "fraudulently manipulated to make it look warmer."
...
Why would Booker latch on to this without first talking to someone with actual expertise in temperature records? A quick look at his Wikipedia entry shows that he has a lot of issues with science in general, claiming that things like asbestos and second-hand smoke are harmless, and arguing against evolution. So, this sort of immunity to well-established evidence seems to be a recurring theme in his writing.

From Christopher Booker's Wikipedia page:

On a range of health issues, Booker has put forward a view that the public is being unnecessarily "scared", as detailed in his book Scared to Death. Thus he argues that asbestos, passive smoking and Bovine spongiform encephalopathy have not been shown to be dangerous.
...
Booker has also argued in support of intelligent design, claiming that supporters of the theory of evolution "rest their case on nothing more than blind faith and unexamined a priori assumptions".

anubi writes:

According to this article , it looks like a database of no-fly zones for drones is being started.

The database is responding to the worry some people have of drones flying above their gardens or alongside windows and invading areas that have typically enjoyed a high degree of privacy. But at launch only three drone makers have agreed to honor the requests, which have no legal basis.

Noflyzone.org is operated by Ben Marcus, a private pilot and drone operator based in Santa Monica, who said that he sees it as a “fundamental piece of architecture to preserve and protect individual privacy.”

Anyone can enter an address into the database to have a no-fly zone created. There is no check to ensure that the request is being made by a resident of the property, although users are asked to enter an email address and verify the request. Marcus said a second address request from the same email address requires proof of residence. But the lack of verification for the first address could leave the system open to abuse.

Geez, I sure was hoping they would include helicopters. Not so much for privacy, but they are so darned loud.

tt0120889 writes:

Beginning in the nineteen-fifties, psychedelics had been used to treat a wide variety of conditions, including alcoholism and end-of-life anxiety. The American Psychiatric Association held meetings centered on LSD. Some of the best minds in psychiatry had seriously studied these compounds in therapeutic models, with government funding.

Between 1953 and 1973, the federal government spent four million dollars to fund a hundred and sixteen studies of LSD, involving more than seventeen hundred subjects. Through the mid-nineteen-sixties, psilocybin and LSD were legal and remarkably easy to obtain. Sandoz, the Swiss chemical company, gave away large quantities of Delysid—LSD—to any researcher who requested it, in the hope that someone would discover a marketable application.

Now, forty years after the Nixon Administration effectively shut down most psychedelic research, the government is gingerly allowing a small number of scientists to resume working with these powerful and still somewhat mysterious molecules.

"gewg_" writes:

El Reg reports

Another month, another Patch Tuesday, but this release has a special sting in the tail: a flaw in the fundamental design of Windows that's taken a year to correct, and is unfixable on Server 2003.

The critical blunder allows miscreants to completely take over a domain-configured Windows system if it is connected to a malicious network--wirelessly or wired. Most home users shouldn't be hit by this, as they are not usually domain-configured, but it's a massive pain in the ASCII for IT pros because work computers are typically set up to join a corporate-controlled domain.

Plug a corporate laptop, say, into a dodgy network in a cafe, and it's game over. According to Microsoft:

An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. An attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights.

This remote-code execution flaw affects all supported versions of Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows RT, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2, and Windows RT 8.1.

So, with EoL for Windows Server 2003 slated for July 14, 2015, who's still running that and what are your plans?

q.kontinuum writes:

Are you a proud owner of a Raspberry Pi model 2? Well, be careful when you plan your next photo-shooting with your Pi. According to their homepage, the raspberry is suffering an interesting problem triggered by intense light bursts like xenon flashes or laserpointers.

"Flashes of high-intensity, long-wave light -- so laser pointers or xenon flashes in cameras -- cause the device that is responsible for regulating the processor core power (it's the chip marked U16 in the silkscreening on your Pi 2, between the USB power supply and the HDMI port -- you can recognise it because it's a bit shinier than the components around it) to get confused and make the core voltage drop," Raspberry Pi Foundation spokeswoman Liz Upton wrote in a blog post on Monday.

However, they also emphasize that this bug is not triggered by everyday-conditions. Bright sunshine, switching on the room light etc. should not have any effect. Also, if you really want to be on the safe side, a drop of paint on the component, a piece of cardboard or anything alike is sufficient to protect your device.

tonyPick writes:

Reported at Linux Gizmos is the news that Linaro have launched an open source reference SBC specification for ARM boards.

The first platform features a Huawei octa-core SoC, and the 96boards homepage has details on the released board

stormwyrm writes:

It has been recently reported that Google Glass has ceased commercial sale, apparently leaving that project shattered, although Google has also announced that internal development on Glass will continue. Some further details of this internal development effort have come to light. Ars Technica reports that former Nest CEO Tony Fadell has been put in charge of the project. Fadell, prior to founding Nest Labs in 2010 (which was subsequently acquired by Google in 2014), had been senior vice president at Apple's iPod division. From the article:

The move put Glass under Nest CEO Tony Fadell's control, and according to the report, Fadell wants to "redesign the product from scratch."

The report quotes an adviser to Fadell as saying, “There will be no public experimentation. Tony is a product guy and he’s not going to release something until it’s perfect.” This matches up with the "graduation" announcement, which ended the Explorer beta test program and said new versions of Glass would be shown off "when they’re ready."

Ignacio Agulló writes:

In an ever-evolving world where every technology gets a transition sooner or later, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) seemed the exception: it went on unchanged for fifteen years. Too much time for Google, who started developing its own alternative: SPDY. As time would have it, SPDY became the cornerstone for the work on the new HTTP/2, and now that this new standard is so close as to be in IETF Last Call state, Google is happy to say Hello HTTP/2, Goodbye SPDY, move in to the new standard, and drop SPDY support on Google Chrome in about a year.

This news is available in Ars Technica and Slashdot too.

"gewg_" writes:

TechDirt reports

The [Electronic Freedom Frontier] recently kicked off a contest for the "most outrageous response to a Freedom of Information Act request" and we already have a frontrunner for the first inaugural "Foilie." MuckRock's loose confederation of FOIA rabblerousers has been hit with a $1.4 million price tag for John Dyer's request for documents related to the "localization and capture" of Mexican drug lord "El Chapo" (or Joaquin Guzman, as he was presumably known to his mom).

The price tag for the requested documents is almost absurdly high. Almost. There are some mitigating factors that might keep this request from snagging the coveted "Foilie." For one, there's a whole lot of responsive documents.

In fairness, the request is quite broad in scope, and the estimated 13,051 case files would create considerable workload.

But on the other hand, the estimate seems to have been pulled out of thin air, rather than based on any actual calculations.

But assuming that $200,000 of that fee came from photocopying (which would put the total number of pages at two million), that would put the time estimate at over 40,000 hours, or 1785 days. That's almost five years of constant work without breaks.

My guess: A ton of magic markers to redact all of DEA's criminal activity.

Hugh Pickens writes:

Russell Berman writes at The Atlantic that the government may have won its case against Silk Road's Ross Ulbricht, but the high-profile trial gave a lot of publicity to the dark web, and both the number of sites and the volume of people using them have increased since Silk Road was shuttered. “Just as on the rest of the internet, users on the dark net are very quick to move on to new things and move away from those products and websites that seem stale and old,” says Adam Benson. The cat-and-mouse game between users of the dark web and law enforcement appears to be shifting as well. Newer dark sites (two major ones are Agora and Evolution) are likely to protect their servers by basing them in countries "hostile to U.S. law enforcement," says Nicholas Weaver. "The markets will keep moving overseas, but law enforcement will keep going after the dealers," Weaver says, referring to the people who actually ship and deliver the drugs sold online.

Evolution Marketplace is a much different animal than Silk Road, according to Dan Palumbo, the group’s research director. Evolution sells "weapons, stolen credit cards, and more nefarious items that were forbidden on both versions of Silk Road. Silk Road sold a lot of dangerous things, but operators drew the line at their version of ‘victimless crimes,’ i.e. no child pornography, weapons, or identity theft. Now, four of the top five DarkNet Marketplaces sell weapons while three of the top five sell stolen financial data." This is a darker DarkNet and it speaks to the challenge facing law enforcement as they knock one set of bad actors offline, another comes along with bigger and bolder intentions.

canopic jug writes:

As the general dissatisfaction with systemd grows, people are exploring options which more and more include the BSDs, especially FreeBSD. Having a polished desktop is possible from stock FreeBSD but takes quite a bit of time and work. PC-BSD covers much of that ground by adding to a plain vanilla FreeBSD and configuring it for desktop use. iTWire has an interview with Kris Moore of PC-BSD about the project.

And for those of you who have already given a BSD a try, what did you like/dislike about it? Were you able to get up and running in a reasonably short timeframe - or did you find that the differences ruined your productivity? Did you have any hardware compatibility problems?

Netflix to Cuba: Bienvenida, Cuba!

SamE writes:

Netflix is coming to Cuba. Despite only 26% of Cubans having access to an internet connection, and a slow connection at that, Netflix is trying to secure the first mover advantage in an opening market.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/02/09/netflix-cuba/23134419/

Netflix launches in Cuba

stormwyrm writes:

In a press release, Netflix has just announced that they will be offering streaming service in Cuba, as diplomatic relations between the island country and the United States thaw.

Starting today, people in Cuba with Internet connections and access to international payment methods will be able to subscribe to Netflix and instantly watch a curated selection of popular movies and TV shows.

“We are delighted to finally be able to offer Netflix to the people of Cuba, connecting them with stories they will love from all over the world,” said Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings. “Cuba has great filmmakers and a robust arts culture and one day we hope to be able to bring their work to our global audience of over 57 million members.”

This comes after the United States announced a resumption of diplomatic relations with Cuba, and subsequently an easing of the trade embargo that has been in place since 1962. The Internet in Cuba however is still very tightly controlled, and it seems few people there have the required connectivity to be able to use Netflix effectively.

Hugh Pickens writes:

The Chicago Sun Times reports that in a disturbing California Bay Area trend, parents wary of vaccinating their kids are considering having their unvaccinated children attend measles parties with those who are infected. The idea is the same as a chicken pox party. Parents bring their children to these gatherings to get them sick once so they won’t have to deal with the virus again. Except, most cases of chicken pox aren’t deadly. Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis says that although his office has received no reports of such parties, officials have fielded several calls from parents asking about the benefits of "natural immunity," or the idea that immunity gained from contracting a disease is superior to immunity conferred through vaccination. Measles is a serious illness that can cause brain swelling, long-term neurological effects and even death, Willis says. Plus, he added, there is no evidence that immunity gained through becoming sick with measles is any better than vaccine-imparted immunity. "Any parents who are considering this, they should have a look at a child who’s really sick with measles, and I think they’d change their minds."

Willis and other health officials suspect the concept of a measles party may have grown out of "pox parties," which were popular in the 1980s, before the chickenpox vaccine was widely available. Some parents, reports said, even arranged to pay strangers for licked lollipops, saliva or other items from infected children. Willis says he still hears reports of “pox parties” occurring in Marin today, even though a chickenpox vaccine has been available for more than two decades. "It was not a good idea then, and it's still not a good idea," says Wilbert Mason.