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AnonTechie writes:

An open-source computing system you command with your voice like Apple's Siri is designed to spark a new generation of "intelligent personal assistants" for wearables and other devices. It could also lead to much-needed advancements in the datacenter infrastructure to support them.

Sirius, built by University of Michigan engineering researchers, is similar to Siri, Microsoft Cortana and Google Now—robust applications that accept voice instructions and questions, interpret them and answer in spoken words.

Sirius even uses many of the same "fancy algorithms," said Jason Mars, U-M assistant professor of computer science and engineering and co-director of Clarity Lab where Sirius was developed. But unlike its expensive and locked-down commercial counterparts, Sirius is free and can be customized.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-siri-open-source-digital.html

[Paper]: http://jasonmars.org/wp-content/papercite-data/pdf/hauswald15asplos.pdf

[Source]: http://ns.umich.edu/new/multimedia/videos/22734-build-your-own-siri-an-open-source-digital-assistant

Hugh Pickens writes:

What do science fiction classics like Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, Van Vogt's Voyage of the Space Beagle, Simak's City, and Sturgeon's More Than Human have in common? Each of them is a "fix-up" - a novel constructed out of short stories that were previously published on their own. "This used to be one standard way to write a science fiction novel—publish a series of stories that all take place in the same world, and then knit them together into a book," says Charlie Jane Anders. "Sometimes a great deal of revision happened, to turn the separate stories into a single narrative and make sure all the threads joined up. Sometimes, the stories remain pretty separate but there are links between them."

The Golden Age science fiction publishing market was heavily geared towards magazines and short stories. And then suddenly, there was this huge demand for tons of novels. According to Andrew Liptak this left many science fiction authors caught in a hard place: Many had come to depend on the large number of magazines on the market that would pay them for their work, and as readership declined, so too did the places in which to publish original fiction. The result was an innovative solution: repackage a number of preexisting short stories by adding to or rewriting portions of them to work together as a single story. There's also something kind of beautiful about a novel in stories says Anders. You get more narrative "payoff" with a collection of stories that also forms a single continuous meta-story than you do with a single over-arching novel—because each story has its own conclusion, and yet the story builds towards a bigger resolution. Fix-ups are a good, representative example of the transition that the publishing industry faced at the time, and how its authors adapted concludes Liptak. "It’s a lesson that’s well-worth looking closely at, as the entire publishing industry faces new technological challenges and disruptions from the likes of self-publishing and micro-press platforms."

Geezer writes:

Fortune Magazine is running an article that references a study by the Princeton-based Education Testing Service indicating that American Millenials, despite their vaunted social media expertise and tech gadget mastery, are actually far less employable that their European and Asian counterparts. Have we made modern life so easy that we're dumbing ourselves down into Idiocracy, or is the education system failing to fill society's needs?

AnonTechie writes:

Magnetic reconnection could be the Universe's favorite way to make things explode. It operates anywhere magnetic fields pervade space—which is to say almost everywhere. In the cores of galaxies, magnetic reconnection sparks explosions visible billions of light-years away. On the sun, it causes solar flares as powerful as a million atomic bombs. At Earth, it powers magnetic storms and auroras. It's ubiquitous. The problem is, researchers can't explain it.

The basics are clear enough. Magnetic lines of force cross, cancel, reconnect and—Bang! Magnetic energy is unleashed, with charged-particles flying off near the speed of light. But how? How does the simple act of criss-crossing magnetic field lines trigger such a ferocious explosion?

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/10mar_mms/

[Also Covered By]: http://phys.org/news/2015-03-nasa-magnetic-explosions.html

Hugh Pickens writes:

The Washington Post reports that the $7.4 million verdict that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke copied Marvin Gaye’s music to create their hit song “Blurred Lines” could ripple across the music industry, potentially changing how artists work and opening the door to new copyright claims. Howard King, lead attorney for Thicke and Williams, said in closing arguments that a verdict for the Gaye family would have a chilling effect on musicians trying to evoke an era or create an homage to the sound of earlier artists. Williams contended during the trial that he was only trying to mimic the “feel” of Gaye’s late 1970s music but insisted he did not use elements of his idol’s work. “Today’s successful verdict, with the odds more than stacked against the Marvin Gaye estate, could redefine what copyright infringement means for recording artists,” says Glen Rothstein, an intellectual property attorney. King says record labels are going to become more reluctant to release music that’s similar to other works—an assertion disputed by Richard Busch, the lead attorney for the Gaye family. “While Mr. Williams's lawyer suggested in his closing argument that the world would come to an end, and music would cease to exist if they were found liable, I still see the sun shining,” says Busch. “The music industry will go on.”

Music copyright trials are rare, but allegations that a song copies another artist’s work are common. Singers Sam Smith and Tom Petty recently reached an agreement that conferred songwriting credit to Petty on Smith’s song, “Stay With Me,” which resembled Petty’s hit “I Won’t Back Down.” Other music copyright cases include Former Beatle George Harrison's 1970 solo song "My Sweet Lord" which had a melody heavy with echoes of "He's So Fine," the 1962 hit from The Chiffons. The copyright owner sued Harrison. A judge said that while the tunes were nearly identical, Harrison was guilty only of "subconscious plagiarism." Harrison would eventually pay out $587,000. Probably the most bizarre case of musical infringement was when John Fogerty was accused of stealing from John Fogerty. The Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman was sued for his 1985 solo song "The Old Man Down the Road" because his former label thought it sounded too much like the 1970 Fogerty-penned "Run Through the Jungle," a song it owned the rights to.

takyon writes:

TorrentFreak reports that the UK is beginning to block sites that merely link to Pirate Bay proxies. Under a series of High Court orders, copyright holders are able to update a list of "infringing domains," including torrent sites and proxies, that must be blocked by UK ISPs. Now "proxy aggregators" are being targeted:

Among the blocked sites are piratebayproxy.co.uk, piratebayproxylist.com and ukbay.org. Both sites are currently inaccessible on Virgin Media and TalkTalk, and other providers are expected to follow suit.

TF spoke with Dan, the operator of UKBay.org, who’s baffled by the newly implemented blockade. He moved his site to a new domain to make the site accessible again, for the time being at least. “The new blocks are unbelievable and totally unreasonable. To block a site that simply links to another site just shows the level of censorship we are allowing ISP’s to get away with,” Dan says. “UKBay is not even a PirateBay proxy. It simply provides links to proxies. If they continue blocking sites, that link to sites, that link to sites.. there’l [sic] be nothing left,” he adds.

One of the other blocked sites, piratebayproxy.co.uk, doesn’t have any direct links to infringing material. Instead, it provides an overview of short Pirate Bay news articles while listing the URLs of various proxies on the side.

Music group BPI, who are responsible for obtaining the original blocking order against The Pirate Bay, tells [TorrentFreak] that proxy aggregators are also covered by the court’s decision. “Under BPI’s existing blocking Orders relating to 63 illegal websites, ISPs are required to block the illegal sites themselves, and proxies and proxy aggregators whose sole or predominant purpose is to give access to the illegal sites,” a BPI spokesperson says.

[Editor's Comment: A time of editing, the TPB can be found at https://pirateproxy.sx/ ]

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If you want to know what this mysterious 'Rehash' is, check past the break.

SlimmPickens writes:

SDX central reports:

Following links and searching from TFA makes it seem that Broadcom, Intel and Mellanox have reference hardware for just about every open programmable switch interface that's been announced in recent times.

The SDN march continues...

AnonTechie writes:

Computer scientist David Jefferson at Lawrence Livermore National Labs has some critical things to say about the concept of voting online:

Contrary to popular belief, the fundamental security risks and privacy problems of Internet voting are too great to allow it to be used for public elections, and those problems will not be resolved any time soon, according to David Jefferson, who has studied the issue for more than 15 years.

Jefferson, a computer scientist in the Lawrence Livermore’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing, discussed his findings in a recent Computation Seminar Series presentation, entitled “Intractable Security Risks of Internet Voting.” His study of Internet voting issues is independent of his Lawrence Livermore research work.

Nonetheless, he reminded the audience that “election security is a part of national security,” noting that this is a primary reason he is so passionate about this issue. “I am both a technical expert on this subject and an activist,” Jefferson emphasized in his introductory remarks. “Election security is an aspect of national security and must be treated as such.”

https://www.llnl.gov/news/security-risks-and-privacy-issues-are-too-great-moving-ballot-box-internet

AnonTechie writes:

The president and managing partner of Google Ventures, Bill Maris, has stated that it is possible to live to be 500, according to a lengthy and uncritical article appearing on the cover of the April 2015 issue of Bloomberg Markets. ( http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-09/google-ventures-bill-maris-investing-in-idea-of-living-to-500 )

Bill Maris has $425 million to invest this year, and the freedom to invest it however he wants. He's looking for companies that will slow aging, reverse disease, and extend life.

And not only is it possible to live to be 500, but Google is investing in the companies that will help consumers do just that.

Historically, biotech investment has been limited by investor ignorance of the field's research costs. Today's venture capitalists, however, with their billions and their chinos, are less wary of such collaboration and excited about what it has already helped develop.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/10/use_google_until_youre_500/

Nobuddy writes:

With most of the Expanded Universe declared officially non-canon, the Universe is relatively open and unexplored. Disney publishing along with Lucasarts have announced 20 new stories to fill in some of the details before the new movie is released.

Some love all the extra background material, while others never bothered. Are there any of the EU stories that you felt made for a better setting overall, and why? What might they do better this time around?

GungnirSniper writes:

The Endocrine Society issued a press release about a small study that showed the use of Oxytocin (the "love hormone") in a nasal spray lowered the number of calories men consumed at a subsequent breakfast. It also showed that metabolic measures, such as insulin sensitivity improved.

“Our results are really exciting,” said lead investigator Elizabeth Lawson, MD, MMSc, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston. “Further study is needed, but I think oxytocin is a promising treatment for obesity and its metabolic complications.”

The Oxytocin nasal spray (made by Novartis) is approved in Europe but not in the U.S. other than in clinical trials.

Oxytocin also reportedly increased the use of body fat as a fuel for energy.

In a different study reported in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that infusions of Oxytocin in rats caused reversed alcohol-induced behaviors. The University of Sydney's School of Psychology notes, "the researchers demonstrated that oxytocin prevents alcohol from accessing specific sites in the brain that cause alcohol's intoxicating effects, sites known as delta-subunit GABA-A receptors." Lead author of the study, Dr. Michael Bowen is quoted:

"In the rat equivalent of a sobriety test, the rats given alcohol and oxytocin passed with flying colours, while those given alcohol without oxytocin were seriously impaired."

"Alcohol impairs your coordination by inhibiting the activity of brain regions that provide fine motor control. Oxytocin prevents this effect to the point where we can't tell from their behaviour that the rats are actually drunk. It's a truly remarkable effect."

LiveScience has additional coverage.

cnst writes:

Theo de Raadt writes a fascinating story from the s2k15 hackathon in Brisbane about the reasons that the mice and keyboards were problematic on the new ThinkPad X1, specifically, having keyboard repeat and shutter during install, eventually being figured out to happen due to the large and extra sensitive touchpad. It all came down to the pms driver, or lack thereof, as it's missing only on the RAMDISK kernels used on the install media, and they were the only ones being visibly affected.

"The solution is to forcibly reset the mouse port at attach," de Raadt proclaims. Some other keyboard issues, notably boot -c not working on some machines, were also determined to be caused by the mouse ports, too.

But the changes are risky, and require lots of testing prior to commit, due to the plethora of keyboard controller models, so, it didn't make the cut for the upcoming 5.7 release.

wantkitteh writes:

Ars Technica reports that Kaspersky Labs have released further details tying the NSA to a group of expert hackers dubbed "Equation Group".

The Kaspersky researchers once again stopped short of saying the hacking collective they dubbed Equation Group was the handiwork of the NSA, saying only that the operation had to have been sponsored by a nation-state with nearly unlimited resources to dedicate to the project. Still, they heaped new findings on top of a mountain of existing evidence that already strongly implicated the spy agency. The strongest new tie to the NSA was the string "BACKSNARF_AB25" discovered only a few days ago embedded in a newly found sample of the Equation Group espionage platform dubbed "EquationDrug." "BACKSNARF," according to page 19 of this undated NSA presentation [PDF], was the name of a project tied to the NSA's Tailored Access Operations.

Similarities have been noted in the procedures and capabilities of Equation Group and those detailed in Edward Snowden's disclosures concerning the NSA, most notably the the ability to interdict hardware and software during shipping to be replaced with duplicates infected with highly sophisticated malware. The article also points to timestamp analysis that indicates the authors of the captured malware worked regular office hours: 8-5, Monday-Friday in the UTC-3 and UTC-4 time-zones. The Kaspersky report discounted intentional manipulation of these timestamps and suggests that Equation Group are located in the eastern United States.

Hugh Pickens writes:

Erica Goode writes in the NYT that no-till soil-conservation farming, a movement that promotes leaving fields untilled, “green manures” and other soil-enhancing methods, is gaining converts as propnents say the technology mimics the biology of virgin land, to revive degenerated earth, minimize erosion, encourage plant growth and increase farmers’ profits, “It’s a massive paradigm shift,” says Ray Archuleta, an agronomist at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the federal Agriculture Department, which endorses the soil-conservation approach. Neatly tilled fields have long been a hallmark of American agriculture and its farmers, by and large traditionalists who often distrust practices that diverge from time-honored methods. Tilling also helps mix in fertilizers and manure and loosens the top layer of the soil. But repeated plowing exacts a price. It degrades soil, killing off its biology, including beneficial fungi and earthworms, and leaving it, as Archuleta puts it, “naked, thirsty, hungry and running a fever.” Soil health proponents say that by leaving fields unplowed and using cover crops, which act as sinks for nitrogen and other nutrients, growers can increase the amount of organic matter in their soil, making it better able to absorb and retain water.

One recent study led by the Environmental Defense Fund suggested that the widespread use of cover crops and other soil-health practices could reduce nitrogen pollution in the Upper Mississippi and Ohio River basins by 30 percent, helping to shrink the giant “dead zone” of oxygen-depleted water in the Gulf of Mexico. But the movement also has critics, who argue that no-tillage and other methods are impractical and too expensive for many growers. A farmer who wants to shift to no-tillage, for example, must purchase new equipment, like a no-till seeder. Even farmers who enthusiastically adopt no-till and other soil-conservation methods rarely do so for environmental reasons; their motivation is more pragmatic. “My goal is to improve my soil so I can grow a better crop so I can make more money,” says Terry McAlister, who farms 6,000 acres of drought-stricken cropland in North Texas. “If I can help the environment in the process, fine, but that’s not my goal.”