SoylentNews

Hugh Pickens writes:

Robinson Meyer writes in The Atlantic that in the past year, after the killings of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, many police departments and police reformists have agreed on the necessity of police-worn body cameras. But the most powerful cameras aren’t those on officer’s bodies but those wielded by bystanders. We don’t yet know who shot videos of officer officer, Michael T. Slager, shooting Walter Scott eight times as he runs away but "unknown cameramen and women lived out high democratic ideals: They watched a cop kill someone, shoot recklessly at someone running away, and they kept the camera trained on the cop," writes Robinson. "They were there, on an ordinary, hazy Saturday morning, and they chose to be courageous. They bore witness, at unknown risk to themselves."

“We have been talking about police brutality for years. And now, because of videos, we are seeing just how systemic and widespread it is,” tweeted Deray McKesson, an activist in Ferguson, after the videos emerged Tuesday night. “The videos over the past seven months have empowered us to ask deeper questions, to push more forcefully in confronting the system.” The process of ascertaining the truth of the world has to start somewhere. A video is one more assertion made about what is real concludes Robinson. "Today, through some unknown hero’s stubborn internal choice to witness instead of flee, to press record and to watch something terrible unfold, we have one more such assertion of reality."

Update: NBC News has identified the cameraman as Feidin Santana.

Hugh Pickens writes:

The Washington Post reports that according to President Obama global warming isn’t just affecting the weather, it’s harming Americans’ health, as he announced steps government and businesses will take to better understand and deal with the problem. Obama said hazards of the changing climate include wildfires sending more pollution into the air, allergy seasons growing longer and rising cases of insect-borne diseases. “We’ve got to do better in protecting our vulnerable families,” said Obama.. “You can’t cordon yourself off from air."

Speaking at Howard University Medical School, Obama announced commitments from Google, Microsoft and others to help the nation’s health system prepare for a warmer, more erratic climate. Google has promised to donate 10 million hours of advanced computing time on new tools, including risk maps and early warnings for things like wildfires and oil flares using the Google Earth Engine platform, the White House said. Google’s camera cars that gather photos for its “Street View” function will start measuring methane emissions and natural gas leaks in some cities this year. Microsoft’s research arm will develop a prototype for drones that can collect large quantities of mosquitoes, then digitally analyze their genes and pathogens. The goal is to create a system that could provide early warnings about infectious diseases that could break out if climate change worsens. “The sooner we act, the more we can do to protect the health of our communities, our kids, and those that are the most vulnerable,” according to a White House statement. The actions “will allow us to better understand, communicate and reduce the health impacts of climate change on our communities.”

tonyPick writes:

Make is currently holding voting on the PSoC (Programmable System-on-Chip) maker challenge.

Each of the projects entered in the contest had to use the new PSoC 4 BLE Pioneer Kit, a new IoT-focused developer kit manufactured by Cypress. There aren’t a lot of entries in this contest, but they are all really high caliber. And you will decide the final few projects that our judges will weigh in on. There’s one week to cast votes for your favorite project/s. You can cast one vote per project per day for as many projects as you wish through April 15.

The entries include a 'portable ECG monitoring system over BLE,' a 'smart board game', and an 'electric bicycle data collection and logging service for battery health and lifecycle monitoring'.

NotSanguine writes:

MedicalXpress is reporting on new research into how our neural systems learn new skills. Led by UC Santa Barbara's Scott Grafton and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins University, they sought to answer the question: "Why are some people able to master a new skill quickly while others require extra time or practice?"

Researches used Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to identify regions of the brain involved with learning and new skill acquisition while subjects played a simple game. Rather than focus on specific areas of the brain for short periods of time, the researchers took a more holistic approach, examining the process of learning a more complex skill over a longer period of time.

Some of the results were surprising. Interestingly, using more of your brain won't help you learn more quickly; instead, as "counterintuitive as it may seem, the participants who showed decreased neural activity learned the fastest."

From the article:

The researchers discovered that the neural activity in the quickest learners was different from that of the slowest. Their analysis provides new insight into what happens in the brain during the learning process and sheds light on the role of interactions between different regions. The findings, which appear online today in Nature Neuroscience, suggest that recruiting unnecessary parts of the brain for a given task—similar to overthinking the problem—plays a critical role in this important difference.

At UCSB's Brain Imaging Center, study participants played a simple game while their brains were scanned with fMRI. The technique measures neural activity by tracking the flow of blood in the brain, highlighting which regions are involved in a given task.

Participants responded to a sequence of color-coded notes by pressing the corresponding button on a hand-held controller.

The study continued with participants practicing at home while researchers monitored their activity remotely. Subjects returned to the Brain Imaging Center at two-, four- and six-week intervals for new scans that demonstrated how well practice had helped them master the skill. Completion time for all participants dropped over the course of the study but did so at different rates. Some picked up the sequences immediately, while others gradually improved over the six-week period.

"Previous brain imaging research has mostly looked at skill learning over—at most—a few days of practice, which is silly," said Grafton, who is also a member of UCSB's Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies. "Who ever learned to play the violin in an afternoon? By studying the effects of dedicated practice over many weeks, we gain insight into never before observed changes in the brain. These reveal fundamental insights into skill learning that are akin to the kinds of learning we must achieve in the real world."

"gewg_" writes:

El Reg reports Besmirched brontosaurus brought back into being by brilliant Britons' bone boffinry breakthrough

In 1879, [...] paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh named a collection of bones a brontosaurus, or Thunder Lizard, and described a massive herbivore with a long neck and tail that wandered across the plains of what is now America.

[...]within a couple of decades, the existence of the Thunder Lizard was called into question and the scientific community decided that the stumbled-upon brontosaurus was just an adolescent apatosaurus. There then followed a 100-year campaign to expunge the word brontosaurus from textbooks, but the name proved just too popular.

Now, a study looking at the largest range of fossils of the genus has shown that the brontosaurus was a distinct genus. While the dino does have strong similarities to the apatosaurus, there are enough differences to separate the two, the study's authors concluded.

[...]The initial argument for the non-existence of the brontosaurus was down to its sacrum bones, which link the tail to the base of the spine. The first Thunder Lizard found had five of these, compared to the apatosaurus' three, but it was assumed that the brontosaurus bones were young and would have merged together to form these three bones.

But as more and more specimens were found, this theory started to look a little off. That was reinforced by other fossil evidence, so the new study turned to statistics to find out what was going on.

[...]It's not a done deal yet however. The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature will have to rule on the matter.

NotSanguine writes:

Phys.org is reporting on research published last month in Nature Communications, which suggests that spontaneous self-assembly of DNA is possible, and may have been robust enough to kick start the evolution of life on Earth.

From the phys.org article:

The self-organization properties of DNA-like molecular fragments four billion years ago may have guided their own growth into repeating chemical chains long enough to act as a basis for primitive life, says a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Milan.

While studies of ancient mineral formations contain evidence for the evolution of bacteria from 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago—just half a billion years after the stabilization of Earth's crust—what might have preceded the formation of such unicellular organisms is still a mystery. The new findings suggest a novel scenario for the non-biological origins of nucleic acids, which are the building blocks of living organisms, said CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark, a study co-author.

...

The discovery in the 1980's of the ability of RNA to chemically alter its own structure by CU-Boulder Nobel laureate and Distinguished Professor Tom Cech and his research team led to the development of the concept of an "RNA world" in which primordial life was a pool of RNA chains capable of synthesizing other chains from simpler molecules available in the environment. While there now is consensus among origin-of-life researchers that RNA chains are too specialized to have been created as a product of random chemical reactions, the new findings suggest a viable alternative, said Clark.

The new research demonstrates that the spontaneous self-assembly of DNA fragments just a few nanometers in length into ordered liquid crystal phases has the ability to drive the formation of chemical bonds that connect together short DNA chains to form long ones, without the aid of biological mechanisms. Liquid crystals are a form of matter that has properties between those of conventional liquids and those of a solid crystal—a liquid crystal may flow like a liquid, for example, but its molecules may be oriented more like a crystal.

"Our observations are suggestive of what may have happened on the early Earth when the first DNA-like molecular fragments appeared," said Clark.

tt2800038 writes:

Not too long ago both Rand and Ron Paul were pushing a copyright maximalist agenda. Today the chickens have come home to roost. Rand Paul's presidential announcement has been blocked by a copyright claim from Warner Music Group due to a clip of a song used in the announcement. Even more apropos of the (less and less as time goes by) libertarian-leaning Republican candidate, it wasn't a DMCA takedown raining on his parade, but the purely private ContentID system that Youtube put in place in order to appease the copyright cartel.

Here is a transcript of Rand Paul's announcement.

takyon writes:

Google's YouTube Kids application has come under fire from advocates who argue that the platform exposes kids to deceptive advertising practices disguised as entertainment. The YouTube Kids app was announced in February, and was designed to include an easy-to-use interface, content filtering, and parental controls.

"YouTube Kids is the most hyper-commercialized media environment for children I have ever seen," commented Dale Kunkel, a professor of communication at University of Arizona. "Many of these advertising tactics are considered illegal on television, and it's sad to see Google trying to get away with using them in digital media."

[...] "There is nothing 'child friendly' about an app that obliterates long-standing principles designed to protect kids from commercialism. YouTube Kids exploits children's developmental vulnerabilities by delivering a steady stream of advertising that masquerades as programming," said Josh Golin, director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

The complaint [PDF] was written by The Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), Campaign for a Commercial Free Childhood (CCFC), American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Center for Science in the Public Interest, Children Now, Consumer Federation of America, Consumer Watchdog, and Public Citizen. It alleges that the intermixing of advertising and entertainment, the proliferation of undisclosed product endorsements, and lackluster screening of ads by YouTube's policy team all violate Section 5 of the FTC Act.

The campaigners cite "unboxing videos" as a particular concern. In one example:

This 7:41 segment is essentially a 7-minute long commercial for McDonald's. The entire segment is filmed in a play scene of McDonald's where dolls from Disney's Frozen movies enjoy toy versions of McDonald's products. According to the person in the video, "We are at McDonald's with Elsa and Ana... Ana is having her favorite ice cream sundae and Elsa is having a Sprite."

chromas writes:

In other Soylent news, the powdered foodstuff has a new "version release":

Soylent founder Rob Rhinehart has continued to update Soylent's formula, tweaking the contents and altering the micro- and macronutrient blend in response to user feedback and also actual science and lab-work. The latest change, to "version 1.4," is the most significant since the product's launch: in addition to ditching the often leaky bottles of oil, the amount of soluble fiber has been greatly reduced, from 10g per pouch to 3.9g; the total amount of fiber has been reduced from 30g to 16g per pouch.

Other changes include reduced portion size (the pouches indicate 4 rather than 3 servings), a smoother texture, a more neutral and less dough-like flavor, and less "butt stuff." Why? "Some people's gut bacteria are not accustomed to the soluble fiber."

takyon writes in with a an article from HPCWire about a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Air Force to researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The grant will fund research into the potential of neuromorphic computing in next-generation supercomputers. The researchers will use their own AMOS supercomputer to simulate various designs for hybrid supercomputers that incorporate classical and neuromorphic processors.

HPCwire separately published this analysis of the project which credits IBM's TrueNorth chip for sparking significant interest in the field of neuromorphic computing. Unveiled last year, TrueNorth currently integrates 5.4 billion transistors and 4,096 cores into a 28nm-process chip with a power consumption of just 70 mW, and is capable of simulating "one million individually programmable neurons". Hybrid supercomputing could mirror the recent trend towards mixed computing systems, in which CPUs are paired with general-purpose GPUs and coprocessors such as Intel's Xeon Phi.

From the HPCWire announcement article:

"The question we're asking is: What if future supercomputer designs were to have several embedded neuromorphic processors?" said Christopher Carothers, director of the Center for Computational Innovations, in the official announcement. "How would you design that computer? And what new capabilities would it offer?"

Neuromorphic computing is built on a computational model patterned on the human brain, incorporating an interconnected network of nodes or “neurons” that make it possible to encode information far more efficiently than classic computer chips. Computers that incorporate a neuromorphic approach excel at pattern recognition, with far less energy usage (and heat) than conventional chips, and have the potential to overcome looming barriers to increased computing speed.

Although computer scientists have used algorithms to approximate neuromorphic computing (an approach commonly called a “neural net”), IBM only recently built this first neuromorphic chip as part of a DARPA-funded research effort. The Rensselaer researchers will base their work on the specifications of IBM’s “True North” neuromorphic processor and simulation development kit.

mendax writes:

El Reg has published a story which discusses the steps Google and Mozilla are taking, in response to the apparent misuse of a China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) intermediate Cetificate Authority (CA) administered by MCS Holdings, who claim it was all just a big mistake.

Firefox-maker Mozilla has joined Google in refusing to recognize SSL certificates issued by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC).

This should not be a surprise since:

This comes after a security biz in Egypt used a CNNIC-issued intermediate certificate to create unauthorized SSL certs that could be used to trick people into connecting to bogus, password-stealing Gmail.com or Google.com websites.

As a result:

[A]ll Mozilla products – including the Firefox web browser and the Thunderbird email client, among others – will be updated so that all CNNIC-based certificates issued on or after April 1, 2015 are considered untrusted.

Mozilla said it also plans to ask CNNIC for a comprehensive list of all of its current valid certificates. Any certificates issued before April 1 that are not included on this whitelist will also be subject to potential "further action."

Microsoft has also revoked the suspect CNNIC intermediate CA:

Microsoft is updating the Certificate Trust list (CTL) to remove the trust of the subordinate CA certificate. The trusted root Certificate Authority, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), has also revoked the certificate of the subordinate CA.

"gewg_" writes:

Ars Technica reports

A second-tier German professional basketball team has been relegated to an even lower tier as a result of being penalized for starting a recent game late—because the Windows laptop that powered the scoreboard required 17 minutes to perform system updates.

The March 13 match between the Chemnitz Niners and the Paderborn Baskets was set to begin normally, when Paderborn (the host) connected its laptop to the scoreboard in the 90 minutes leading up to the game.

In an interview with the German newspaper, Die Zeit (Google Translate), Patrick Seidel, the general manager of Paderborn Baskets said that at 6:00pm, an hour and a half before the scheduled start time, the laptop was connected "as usual."

"But as both teams warmed up, the computer crashed," he said. "When we booted it again at 7:20pm, it started automatically downloading updates. But we did not initiate anything."

After all the updates were installed, Paderborn was ready to start the game at 7:55pm.

By the end of the match, Paderborn won 69-62. But then Chemnitz formally protested, saying that because Paderborn had delayed the start time of the match by 25 minutes (instead of the 15-minute maximum as allowed under the German basketball rules), they should be penalized. As a result, Paderborn lost another point in the standings (Google Translate), according to a Basketball Budesliga press release, which meant that it would certainly be relegated to the "ProB" league of German pro basketball.

fliptop writes:

Wired had a story Sunday where they make the case that, between it's own wireless service and current negotiations with phone companies that would let customers move its service and international cellular networks at no extra cost, Google is doing its best to keep users locked into its network:

...you'd be able to travel across the US, the UK, Italy, Hong Hong, and Sri Lanka while paying the same fees for calls, text, and data—an attractive option for anyone who's ever carried a phone overseas. Carriers tend to charge inflated rates for this kind of "roaming," forcing you to think twice about using your phone at all while traveling. "Roaming fees in Europe and Asia can kill you," says Richard Doherty, an analyst with New York-based research firm Envisioneering.

...Google said it doesn’t comment on "rumor or speculation." But the report fits nicely with what we already know about Google's plans for its unconventional wireless service. Google appears to be envisioning a wireless world where we can move effortlessly from one wireless network to another, making it easier for us to stay online.

Of course that just means more ad revenue for Google:

The more you're online, the more you'll use Google's search engine and other apps—and the more the company can serve you ads. "Google needs reach," Doherty says. And what better way to extend that reach than by offering what so many of us want: ready access to the internet at all times?

Having just opened my wireless bill that included a recent week spent in Cancun, Mexico I can personally attest that roaming charges hurt not just in Europe and Asia.

fliptop writes:

Bosch thinks a "fascinating" user interface will develop more enthusiasm for electric vehicles. Exploratory ideas include:

...the hunch mode (hunches about things that might interest Birgit as she drives), the energy flow display, the next mile guide, and remote monitoring and control.

The ideas in Birgit's electric car are the work of the Bosch user experience team. In four project phases – and using a new approach to development – the team members gain a number of insights into the possible design of a future human-machine interface (HMI) for electric vehicles. These insights are then applied to a prototype, and members of the public are asked what they think of the concepts that have been developed.

One wonders if the engineers at Bosch are even considering that "fascinating" probably means "more complicated" and therefore more things can go wrong.

Hugh Pickens writes:

John Markoff writes in the NYT that in the aftermath of the co-pilot crashing a Germanwings plane into a mountain, aviation experts are beginning to wonder if human pilots are really necessary aboard commercial planes. Advances in sensor technology, computing and artificial intelligence are making human pilots less necessary than ever in the cockpit and government agencies are already experimenting with replacing the co-pilot, perhaps even both pilots on cargo planes, with robots or remote operators. What the Germanwings crash “has done has elevated the question of should there or not be ways to externally control commercial aircraft,” says Mary Cummings. NASA is exploring a related possibility: moving the co-pilot out of the cockpit on commercial flights, and instead using a single remote operator to serve as co-pilot for multiple aircraft. In this scenario, a ground controller might operate as a dispatcher managing a dozen or more flights simultaneously. It would be possible for the ground controller to “beam” into individual planes when needed and to land a plane remotely in the event that the pilot became incapacitated — or worse. “Could we have a single-pilot aircraft with the ability to remotely control the aircraft from the ground that is safer than today’s systems?" asks Cummings. "The answer is yes.”

Automating that job may save money. But will passengers ever set foot on plane piloted by robots, or humans thousands of miles from the cockpit? In written testimony submitted to the Senate last month, the Air Line Pilots Association warned, “It is vitally important that the pressure to capitalize on the technology not lead to an incomplete safety analysis of the aircraft and operations.” The association defended the unique skills of a human pilot: “A pilot on board an aircraft can see, feel, smell or hear many indications of an impending problem (PDF) and begin to formulate a course of action before even sophisticated sensors and indicators provide positive indications of trouble.” Not all of the scientists and engineers believe that increasingly sophisticated planes will always be safer planes. "Technology can have costs of its own,” says Amy Pritchett. “If you put more technology in the cockpit, you have more technology that can fail.”