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AnonTechie writes:

Moscow's Don Giulio Salumeria promises "small islands of warm and sunny Italy," offering authentic Italian prosciutto, ricotta, mozzarella and tiramisu for sale in the cold lands of Russia.

Fat lot of good any of it will do Muscovites, given that Russia has banned food imports from the European Union and the US. It's not that Don Giulio can't figure out how to import it, but the shop sure can't advertise those delicious imported foods.

So what's a well-stocked salumeria to do? Pay an ad company to rig billboards with facial recognition that's been tweaked to spot the official symbols and logos on the uniforms worn by Russian police, that's what.

As Adweek reports, an ad agency called The 23 created an outdoor ad that could apparently spot police uniforms. As police approached the ad, as you can see in this YouTube video, the billboard would switch from advertising a nice, fat wedge of Don Giulio Salumeria's imported cheese, rolling over instead to an ad for a nice, completely non-contraband Matryoshka doll shop.

https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/06/01/russian-billboard-advertising-contraband-hides-when-it-recognises-cops/

[Also Covered By]: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/smart_billboard.html

takyon writes:

[editors note: for those of you that want some Blue Oyster Cult playing while reading this, here's a link ]

Godzilla has received a Japanese citizenship certificate. Address: Shinjuku-ku, Kabuki-cho, 1-19-1. Date of birth: April 9, 1954. Reason for special residency: "Promoting the entertainment of and watching over the Kabuki-cho neighborhood and drawing visitors from around the globe."

A replica of Japan's undisputed "King of Monsters" was also placed on top of the district's iconic Toho building. The Japanese film company will release a new Godzilla film in 2016, following the success of a 2014 Hollywood remake by British director Gareth Edwards. Godzilla attended an awards ceremony in April, where he was presented with a sash from Shinjuku mayor, Kenichi Yoshizumi.

In other news, Sony Pictures could lose its license to kill make James Bond films after an agreement with Metro Goldwyn-Mayer expires later this year.

middlemen writes:

Game piracy is a real problem for independent game developers, especially on platforms like Android and Linux where reverse engineering games is quite easy.

To counter this, a simple method of using OpenGL to encrypt the assets such as images and data can be done by using the graphics card or GPU for performing the encryption/decryption work completely on the GPU, by using native OpenGL calls. This uses the already established General Purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing methodology to accomplish this task. A description of a proof-of-concept is available at Stealth Labs blog and the source code is available at github.

From stealthy.io:

Suppose you are an independent game developer. You are facing piracy and fake copies of your game, and you do not have the legal and economic power to handle this problem. You want to continue making games without getting discouraged by pirates, who most likely reside in other countries. What do you do ? How do you prevent or reduce the incentive to pirate your game through reverse engineering ? Maybe you could perform encryption of your game assets, like textures, shaders and images, to thwart the piracy and copy-cat efforts ? You could use standard encryption libraries like OpenSSL, but that still leaves the decrypted data open to access, in CPU memory, by anyone running a debugger on your software. What if you could use OpenGL to do the encryption and leave the data in the framebuffer object and render it from there using OpenGL itself ? Then you would never have to even extract the data from GPU memory into CPU memory ! Debugging tools for OpenGL are not good enough, and reverse engineering tools for OpenGL are non-existent.

takyon writes:

Valve has finally announced a release date for Steam Machines, Steam Link, and the Steam Controller: November 10th. Some "early bird" customers will get the hardware on October 16th.

First and foremost, let's start with the Steam Controller. The final version of Valve's controller is pretty much identical to what we saw at GDC 2015, featuring what has become the controller's signature touchpads, along with an analog stick, motion controls, haptics (vibration), and what Valve is calling dual-stage triggers, all communicating with host systems over Bluetooth. Though ultimately lacking the touchscreens of Valve's original design, the final controller retains the touchpads and the same goals Valve had held to since the start: making more traditional mouse-driven PC games playable on the couch with a controller. [...] When not part of a Steam Machine bundle, Valve will be selling the Steam Controller stand-alone for $49.

Meanwhile as far as performance and costs go, the initial wave of Machines run the gauntlet from low-powered, console-like computers to high-end machines that are meant to take a stab at 4K rendering. The cheapest machines start at $449, such as the Alienware in its low-end, Core-i3 powered configuration, and also the iBuyPower SBX. Meanwhile at the middle of the pack are machines like the Zotac SN970 at $999, and finally at the high-end the sky's the limit. [...] As one might expect, all of the Steam Machines are shipping with one Steam Controller, with additional controllers available from Valve for $49. Meanwhile the very first Steam Machines from Alienware and Syber are already available for pre-order from GameStop and Syber respectively, while the rest are slated to be available in November.

Finally, we have the Steam Link, Valve's in-home streaming receiver for Steam. Intended to be used with Steam's existing, built-in streaming technology, the Link is designed to allow playing Steam games in other locations away from the host PC/Machines, be it things like spare bedrooms or locating the host in said spare bedroom and putting the Link in the living room. The Link features a 2x2 802.11ac for wireless connectivity, or a 100Mbit Ethernet port for wired fallback, along with a trio of USB 2.0 ports and of course the necessary HDMI port. Valve will be selling the Link on its own for $49, while a package with the controller will be $99, and somewhat surprisingly for a consumer device these days, Valve's even throwing in HDMI and Ethernet cables. As with the Steam Machines, the Link is available for pre-order through Valve or at GameStop, with a limited number of the devices shipping on October 16th.

AnonTechie wrote in with a PCWorld.com article on the batteriser, a scaled down voltage booster for small batteries.

From the article:

A completely new alkaline battery is rated to generate 1.5 volts, but once its output drops below 1.35 or even 1.4 volts, it effectively becomes useless to many devices. The battery's chemical cocktail is still loaded with juice, but the circuitry in many gadgets (especially more sophisticated ones, like Bluetooth keyboards and bathroom scales) considers the battery dead.

This is where Batteriser comes in. It's essentially a voltage booster that sucks every last drop of useable energy from ostensibly spent batteries. So, instead of using just 20 percent of all the power hidden inside of your Duracells and Energizers, Batteriser makes effective use of the remaining 80 percent.

Voltage boosters are nothing new, but Batteriser scales down the technology to the point where it can fit inside a stainless steel sleeve less than 0.1 mm thick. Roohparvar says the sleeves are thin enough to fit inside almost every battery compartment imaginable, and the combined package can extend battery life between 4.9x for devices like remote controls and 9.1x for various electronic toys.

"The Batteriser has boost circuitry that will boost the voltage from 0.6 volts to 1.5 volts and will maintain voltage at 1.5—which is a brand new battery," Roohparvar says. "There's actually no IP [intellectual property] in the boost circuitry. Our technology is really a miniaturization technique that allows us to build the sleeve. We have some IP in some of the IC circuits that are in there, but the key is we've been able to miniaturize the boost circuit to a point that no one else has been able to achieve. "

This seems like a great piece of tech, right? Almost too good to be true... When that happens alarm bells ring and it's time to investigate further. Here are articles from theness.com and EEVblog.com that say, "not so fast."

From theness.com article:

But can, then, the Batteriser extract 500% more life out of those AAs? I don't think so, and here's why. While it is true that the voltage of an alkaline battery (and all batteries) drops off as capacity drops, the big drop off doesn't occur until around 82% of the capacity has been drained, and therefore only about 18% remains.

So, can this nifty little device, when released, live up to it's claims? It seems doubtful, but if it's only at $2.50, it might be worth a shot.

tonyPick writes:

IEEE Spectrum is running a series of articles on the DARPA Robotics Challenge (DRC), which runs this weekend (the 6th & 7th of June) and in which the finalists will be scored on a set of tasks relevant to disaster response scenarios.

There's an overview of the course and the challenges the robots will face:

The DARPA Robotics Challenge Finals is all about the course: the sequence of eight tasks that the robots are going to try to complete in 60 minutes or less. We’ll take a look at each one of the tasks, and go through all the rules that the robots are going to have to follow as they make it through to victory.

Also a background article summarises the schedule and previous Spectrum coverage.

The associated DARPA site has additional background information and updates:

The DRC is a competition of robot systems and software teams vying to develop robots capable of assisting humans in responding to natural and man-made disasters. It was designed to be extremely difficult. Participating teams, representing some of the most advanced robotics research and development organizations in the world, are collaborating and innovating on a very short timeline to develop the hardware, software, sensors, and human-machine control interfaces that will enable their robots to complete a series of challenge tasks selected by DARPA for their relevance to disaster response.

Ed Note: See our earlier coverage of Uber Poaches Robotics Scientists from Carnegie Mellon.

TSA Tests Consistently Evade Own Airport Screenings

wantkitteh writes:

ABC News reports on internal live-testing of TSA airport passenger screening procedures that successfully evaded detection of concealed weapons and explosives prior to boarding 95% of the time.

The series of tests were conducted by Homeland Security Red Teams who pose as passengers, setting out to beat the system.

According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General's report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.

In one test an undercover agent was stopped after setting off an alarm at a magnetometer, but TSA screeners failed to detect a fake explosive device that was taped to his back during a follow-on pat down.

Officials would not divulge the exact time period of the testing other than to say it concluded recently.

While this report is alarming by itself, a TSA blog post from March 2013 commenting on the results of a previous test explains that the methods employed in these regular tests are deliberately designed to be unrealistically hard, and that the TSA's motivation is to drive improvements in security procedures ahead of terrorist capabilities to evade them:

The goal of the Red Team is to build tests that push the boundaries of our people, processes, and technology. We know that the adversary innovates and we have to push ourselves to capacity in order to remain one step ahead. With that said, our testers often make these covert tests as difficult as possible.

You might be wondering why our testers run tests that our Officers are prone to fail? It's because we want to see if our procedures, technology, and policies are or are not working. We also are constantly looking for ways to improve our performance. When a test is failed, we don't simply check a tick mark in a box and move on. Nor do we take punitive measures as this testing is a learning experience. The results are shared with TSA leadership at the airport and HQ, as well as the officers who were part of the test, noting areas for improvement where warranted.

Update

More news on this same story, now the Acting TSA director has been reassigned.

Just one of many news hits include: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/tsa-failed-undercover-airport-screening-tests/

takyon writes:

A committee of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are meeting to consider whether the FDA should approve the first drug that aims to boost a woman's libido:

The FDA has twice before rejected the drug, called flibanserin, after previous advisory panels concluded there were questions about its safety and insufficient evidence that the drug was effective for women with low sex drives. Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which makes flibanserin, has submitted more research that the company hopes will finally convince the advisers and the agency the drug is ready for the market. The company's evidence includes a study it says shows women can safely drive after using the medication. One concern about the drug is that it can leave women drowsy the day after taking it, increasing the risks for accidents. "The review of flibanserin... represents a critical milestone for the millions of American women and couples who live with the distress of this life-impacting condition without a single approved medical treatment today," Cindy Whitehead, Sprout's CEO, said in a statement before the hearing began.

Flibanserin, which the company plans to sell under the brand name Addyi if approved, shifts the balance of three key brain chemicals, increasing dopamine and norepinephrine and decreasing serotonin.

The drug has long been the focus of an intense debate. The company and some advocacy groups, including the National Organization for Women and Even the Score, have suggested that the FDA is being sexist by holding the drug to a higher standard than drugs, such as Viagra and Cialis, for male sexual problems. The FDA denies those charges. In documents posted online in advance of the hearing, Hylton Joffe, director of the FDA's Division of Bone, Reproductive and Urologic Products, said that such claims "are misleading and inaccurate." "The FDA rejects claims of gender bias," Joffe wrote. "The FDA's regulatory decision for each product is based on an assessment of whether the benefits outweigh the risks, and does not take gender into consideration." Many women's health advocates agree with the agency's caution and remain opposed to the drug despite the company's new research.

AnonTechie writes:

In a world that's warming up quickly, researchers are looking for ways to cool down. Australian researchers have an additional motivation: their country is heating up faster than other places, adding an additional level of urgency to their work.

Now researchers at the University of Technology in Sydney have developed a neat new material that can keep roofs cooler than the air above them, even in direct sunlight. By preventing roofs from warming up, homeowners can expend less energy on air conditioning, and reduce the heat island effect in their city.

The material is made from layers of specialized plastics stacked on top of a layer of silver. The material reflects heat so well that it doesn't warm up, even on bright sunny days, only absorbing three percent of the sunlight that hits it. Compared to currently available roofing materials that are designed to reduce temperature (usually white roofs that reflect sunlight), the test material stayed more than 50 degrees Fahrenheit cooler. A test roof was placed on an existing rooftop in downtown Sydney and monitored for days. Even when the roof got dirty (something that happens in cities), the material still worked.

http://www.popsci.com/new-material-could-make-your-roof-cool-even-hot-summer-day

[Source]: http://newsroom.uts.edu.au/news/2015/05/super-cool-roof-solution-being-hot-city

[Paper]: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.201500119/full

A $25 Blood Test Could Detect Every Virus That has Ever Infected You

AnonTechie writes:

Every time a virus gets you sick, your immune system keeps a record. This essentially becomes a kill list that lets your body recognize and readily dispatch of any virus that tries to invade again. Scientists have now created $25 test blood test that prints out this list—an easy and cheap way to find out every virus that's ever made you sick.

To understand how this test, called VirScan, works, you need to know a bit about human immunity. The immune system responds to a viral infection by making antibodies, proteins that then bind to viral proteins and render them useless. Small amounts of these antibodies keep circulating in your blood even after you recover. They lie in wait for the next time you encounter that virus.

Existing tests for viruses—say for HIV or hepatitis C—in fact already look for these antibodies. What makes VirScan different is that it can look for antibodies matching virtually every virus known to infect humans at once. That's 1000 strains from 206 species.

http://gizmodo.com/a-25-blood-test-could-detect-every-virus-thats-ever-in-1709096154

[Also Covered By]: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-06/hhmi-yvi060115.php

[Abstract]: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/348/6239/aaa0698

VirScan Blood Test to Identify Past Exposure to All Known Human Virus Infections

takyon writes:

Harvard University Medical School US researchers have developed a blood test that can determine past exposure to every known human virus infection. It examines virus-specific antibodies present in a drop of blood using bacteriophages:

Prof Stephen Elledge from the Harvard University Medical School US, who led the research team, told Science in Action that the new technique will overcome this limitation [of testing limited numbers of virus strains]: "You can ask questions about all viruses rather than have to do things one at a time, so it allows you to discover connections between different populations or different diseases amongst groups of people. Now that we can look at all viruses, it's a complete game-changer."

Researchers have been working out the genetic sequence - the blueprint - of all human viruses for many years. The team used this information to generate a pool of bacteriophage - viruses that grow easily in the laboratory - with each bacteriophage expressing a tiny fragment of this human-virus blueprint on its surface. Antibodies present in a drop of human blood could then be used as bait to go fishing in this phage pool - only bacteriophage that express protein fragments recognised by the antibodies in the blood sample will be caught. Sequencing the bacteriophage DNA reveals the human viruses that an individual has been exposed to.

The team used their test to interrogate sera obtained from more than 500 people of different ages and living in different global locations. The data showed that the number of virus infections detected in people increased during life. The study also suggested that those living in the US were exposed to fewer infections than people living in South Africa, Thailand or Peru. The greatest number of virus infections that were detected in any single individual was around 80, but the average number was only 10. Prof Elledge thought that this was because some individual virus protein fragments can represent many related viruses.

Commenting on the significance of the new technique Will Irving, professor of virology at the University of Nottingham said: "It is a technology which is probably best applied on a population-basis rather than an individual patient basis. "Whilst its accuracy in defining who had HCV or HIV infection could be massaged up to very respectable levels, I'd be nervous about using it as a diagnostic test to see if an individual patient has HIV infection. "However, it will be a fabulous tool for looking at virus-disease associations which are speculative, or even currently unknown. For example, primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) has been reported, controversially, to arise from viral infection, so it would be great to compare the virome of PBC patients with those without the disease. Maybe you'd identify a consistent pattern suggesting a specific viral cause.

takyon writes:

NASA has released a long-awaited Nuclear Power Assessment Study that examines the prospects for the use of nuclear power in civilian space missions over the next 20 years.

The Study concludes that there is a continuing demand for radioisotope power systems, which have been used in deep space exploration for decades, but that there is no imminent requirement for a new fission reactor program.

The 177-page Study, prepared for NASA by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, had been completed several months ago but was withheld from public release due to unspecified "security concerns," according to Space News. Those concerns may have involved the discussion of the proposed use of highly enriched uranium as fuel for a space reactor, or the handling of plutonium-238 for radioisotope power sources.

"The United States has spent billions of dollars on space reactor programs, which have resulted in only one flight of an FPS [fission power source]," the new NASA report noted. That was the 1965 launch of the SNAP 10-A reactor on the SNAPSHOT mission. It had an electrical failure after a month's operation and "it remains in a 1300-km altitude, 'nuclear-safe' orbit, although debris-shedding events of some level may have occurred," the report said.

In any case, specific presidential approval is required for the launch of a nuclear power source into space, pursuant to Presidential Directive 25 of 1977.

AnonTechie writes:

In May of 2013, the Air Force successfully tested the X-51 WaveRider — an uncrewed, hypersonic "scramjet" capable of reaching Mach 5.1, or more than five times the speed of sound — by flying it at hypersonic speeds over the Pacific Ocean. Now, the Air Force is looking ahead to its next aircraft.

Air Force Chief Scientist Mica Endsley told Military.com this week that the agency is working on the next generation of its hypersonic vehicle. While the X-51 was a test designed to show that a scramjet craft was feasible, the Air Force now wants a vehicle that can "operate at the kind of temperatures you have when you are going at hypersonic speeds," and plans on building a guidance system that can also work at extreme speeds. The goal is to produce the new craft by 2023.

That is, of course, a long while away, and the US military has had some trouble with hypersonic defense technology. The X-51 was only successful after a string of high-profile failures, and last year, a hypersonic missile being tested by Department of Defense exploded during takeoff.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/6/2/8708255/x-51-waverider-mach-5-2023

AnonTechie writes:

This week, the Associated Press reported that the FBI is regularly flying "spy planes" over American cities (we covered it, too). It's the latest in a series of media reports about government-operated planes outfitted with technology that mimics a phone tower to pick up information from the phones of people below, allowing agencies to locate fugitives on the run, for example. But when the planes fly overhead, they pick up on phone information from lots of innocent people as well (and, annoyingly, can disrupt phone service).

The report, which revealed the front companies the FBI uses to fly the planes, wasn't a surprise to John Wiseman, a technologist in Los Angeles. Based on public records, he had already figured out some of the planes the FBI was flying and, using a device he programmed to intercept airplane transmissions, had identified over the last month the ones flying overhead in L.A. in real time.

The thing is, when you fly planes in the U.S., you have to fill out lots of official forms that become part of the public record. Because the FBI didn't want to publicly acknowledge it was sending "spy planes" out to circle American cities (and potentially alert its targets), it created front companies for them. It seems the FBI is uncreative when it comes to spy craft; the fake companies tracked down by the AP and by Wiseman mainly had three-letter names, including FVX Research, KQM Aviation, NBR Aviation and PXW Services. Because flight records in the U.S. are public, and planes are trackable on radar, the AP was able to track down where these planes flew.

You can also track them fairly easily if you're so inclined. Wiseman used public records to get flight routes, and real-time local information using a customized radio receiver that picks up on transmissions sent by aircraft overhead in his hometown of Los Angeles. Wiseman wrote in a Hacker News comment in May about his findings, revealing a month ago what the AP reported today. He also summed up his findings in a blog post Tuesday.

http://fusion.net/story/143739/how-you-can-track-the-fbis-spy-planes/

How John Wiseman tracked FBI aerial surveillance

Hugh Pickens writes:

Vikas Bajaj writes in The New York Times that the results are in and the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows that customer satisfaction with cable TV, Internet and phone service providers have declined to a seven-year low. Of the 43 industries on which the survey solicits opinions, TV and Internet companies tied for last place in customer satisfaction. "Internet and TV have always been among the lowest scoring," says David VanAmburg, director of the Index. "But this year they're at the very bottom."

The study, which is based on more than 14,000 consumer surveys, gives companies a rating from 0 to 100. The ACSI reports huge drops in customer satisfaction for Comcast and Time Warner Cable, following their failed merger. Already one of the lowest-scoring companies in the ACSI, Comcast sheds 10 percent to a customer satisfaction score of 54. Meanwhile, Time Warner Cable earns the distinction as least-satisfying company in the Index after falling 9 percent to 51. Joining Time Warner Cable in the basement is ACSI newcomer Mediacom Communications (51), which serves smaller markets in the Midwest and South. "Customer service in these industries has long been bad," says VanAmburg of Internet and TV providers. "They don't have a good business model for handling inquiries with efficiency and respect. It goes back a decade plus."

Even though those complaints are longstanding, customer frustration has risen along with the ever-rising prices. "You compound all that with the prices customers are paying, and that's the final straw," says VanAmburg. "They're opening bills each month and saying 'I'm paying how much?'" In an age of over-the-top viewing options like Hulu and Netflix, customer dissatisfaction may increasingly translate to companies' bottom lines. "There was a time when pay TV could get away with discontented users without being penalized by revenue losses from defecting customers," says Claes Fornell, chairman and founder of the Index. "But those days are over."

takyon writes:

Kim Dotcom has temporarily halted the forfeiture of $67 million in seized assets to New Zealand pending a judicial review:

After claiming that assets seized during the 2012 raid on Megaupload were obtained through copyright and money laundering crimes, last July the U.S. government asked the court to forfeit bank accounts, cars and other seized possessions connected to the site's operators. Dotcom and his co-defendants protested, but the Government deemed them fugitives and therefore disentitled to seek relief from the court. As a result District Court Judge Liam O'Grady ordered a default judgment in favor of the U.S. Government against assets worth an estimated $67m.

Following a subsequent request from the U.S., New Zealand's Commissioner of Police moved to have the U.S. forfeiture orders registered locally, meaning that the seized property would become the property of the Crown. Authorization from the Deputy Solicitor-General was granted April 9, 2015 and an application for registration was made shortly after. In response, Kim Dotcom and co-defendant Bram Van der Kolk requested a judicial review of the decision and sought interim orders that would prevent the Commissioner from progressing the registration application, pending a review. The Commissioner responded with an application to stop the judicial review.

In a lengthy decision handed down this morning, Justice Ellis denied the application of the Commissioner while handing a significant interim victory to Kim Dotcom. Noting that the "fugitive disentitlement" doctrine forms no part of New Zealand common law, Justice Ellis highlighted the predicament faced by those seeking to defend themselves while under its constraints.

[...] "The big fights are yet to come and I can't wait to expose the US government and Hollywood for the most unlawful and corrupt law enforcement action ever taken against an Internet service provider. US attorney Jay Prabhu, the DOJ clown who lost control of the Megaupload domain recently, will only find a job at the MPAA after we are done with him," Dotcom concludes.

[More after the break...]