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Yog-Yogguth writes:

Icelandic Össur Technology announces that they have successfully made and installed subconsciously controlled prosthetic lower legs, ankles, and feet for two amputees and are preparing large-scale clinical trials. They hope to have such artificial legs (requiring surviving thighs) widely commercially available within three to five years. The company previously won the 2005 'Best of What's New' Popular Science magazine award for their artificial knee.

The legs use implants called myoelectric sensors (IMES Implanted MyoElectric Sensor) provided by the Alfred Mann Foundation from the United States. It's a bit unclear why Össur claims to be first as IMES have previously been used to trigger prosthetic leg movement by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago but it seems that Össur are the first to have amputees using such artificial legs, from the Popular Science article:

The IMES are surgically implanted in residual muscle tissue and connected to a receiver in the prosthetics, the signaling is continuous, immediate/real-time, and subconscious or instinctual (in addition to deliberate) in the same manner as with ordinary leg use.

The story has also been reported by RT which has some different images of the devices.

kaszz writes:

British airlines is accused of exposing cabin crew to breathing in fumes mixed with engine oil and other toxic chemicals like TCP, an organophosphate known to be dangerous to human health in high enough quantities. But the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) says incidents of smoke or fumes on planes are rare and there is no evidence of long-term health effects.

Safety reports submitted to the CAA show that between April 2014 and May 2015 there were at least 251 separate incidents of fumes or smoke inside a large passenger jet operated by a British airline.

Pilot Richard Westgate died in December 2012, aged 43, after complaining of long-term health problems. The coroner said the body "disclosed symptoms consistent with exposure to organophosphate compounds in aircraft cabin air". A similar case is 34-year-old Matthew Bass who died in 2014.

Time to pack a gas mask when flying?

Phoenix666 writes:

This week, Doom joined the first-ever class of the World Video Game Hall of Fame, and its reasons for being inducted now seem obvious in hindsight—particularly how the game table-flipped our expectations of things like 3D design and gun-wielding action. A few weeks before the game received that honor, game developer and educator Elizabeth LaPensée offered a less typical claim about what might have made the game so special at the time: its connection to Native American culture.

LaPensée counts Doom co-designer John Romero as a friend—along with his legendary game-designing wife, Brenda Romero—and she is intimately familiar with John's Cherokee and Yaqui heritage. As such, she brings up a topic game historians typically don't: "Something funny happened when John Romero became famous," she said. "He became white."

Doom's potential connections to Native culture go farther than that, though. "I have a theory," LaPensée said from her home in Oregon. "John Romero broke ground with Doom, but what was it that he was doing? He was expanding dimensional space in that game." The PhD graduate from Simon Fraser University, and her family, were familiar with concepts like dimensional space well before they could be related to the alternate realities of games like Doom. She talked about the teachings she drew upon as a member of the Anishinaabe and Métis communities—along with those of other communities like the Cree—and their commonalities.

"[Our communities] have always related in multiple dimensions," she said. "I believe that influenced John's work and influenced games as a whole."

If indigenous cultures lend themselves well to software, perhaps Lamaist monasteries could be the world's next great programming centers?

ticho writes:

As CBCnews.ca reports, UNB's librarian came across what appears to be an original shooting script for Star Wars.

Deep in the archives of the University of New Brunswick's library in Saint John, a famous movie script sat forgotten and collecting dust. It tells the tales of a galaxy far, far away — and no one knows how it got there.

Since February, Kristian Brown, a librarian, has been sifting through the library's extensive science fiction collection. "I was just looking actually for something else entirely and then I just found this unique looking item," Brown said.

The script is bound in blue paper, emblazoned with official Lucasfilm Industries stamps. The date of the fourth edition revised script, is March 15, 1976, which is well ahead of the film's 1977 theatrical release date.

anubi writes:

According to siliconbeat.com, it appears that the latest terms and conditions to use PayPal include you agreeing to accept telemarketing calls...

Well, says the BBC, get ready for a new barrage, because changes to PayPal's terms and conditions starting in July state that users must accept automated marketing calls, emails and texts:

The eBay-owned company told the BBC that it "would honour any customers' requests to decline marketing outreach". But no such opt-out is included in the terms and conditions. Instead customers are invited to either accept or decline.

"If you do not agree to the amended user agreement, privacy policy or acceptable use policy, you may close your account before July 1, 2015 and you will not be bound by the amended terms," the document states.

The linked article later goes on:

The user agreement goes on to state: "You consent to receive autodialed or pre-recorded calls and text messages from PayPal at any telephone number that you have provided us or that we have otherwise obtained."

See how slippery this slope is? If PayPal somehow "obtains" your grandma's home phone, grandma might also start getting unwanted calls because, as the agreement goes on to say, PayPal "may share your phone numbers with our affiliates."

PayPal does say that its robocalls would be used to help customers with account issues or resolve disputes. But it also states that they could be for "offers and promotions," perhaps the two most dreaded words these days among consumers burned out by a nonstop onslaught of in-your-face advertising for things we never wanted in the first place.

An Anonymous Coward writes with the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court case, as reported by ISCOTUS:

The decision? Intent to threaten must be demonstrated in order to convict for the criminal offense of "transmission of threats in interstate commerce". The court did not rule on whether or not "recklessness" would be sufficient.

The 7-2 ruling reversed the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and "narrowed the circumstances under which individuals can be convicted of making criminal threats under federal law when they post statements on social media like Facebook."

On Monday, the Supreme Court handed Elonis a victory by overturning his conviction. At the same time, however, the Court declined his invitation to issue a broad ruling on First Amendment grounds. Instead, the majority took a minimalist approach, deciding no more than was absolutely necessary to dispose of the case before it.

See also: Oyez and Justia.

takyon writes:

UK researchers are working with the group Surfers Against Sewage on a project called "Beach Bums". Surfers are being asked to volunteer rectal swabs in order to test the effects of marine pollution on human health:

Tests have shown water may contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Lead researcher Anne Leonard is from the European Centre for Environment and Human Health at Exeter University. "We know that surfers regularly swallow lots more seawater than other beach users - around 170 ml per session, which is more than ten times that of sea swimmers," she said. "We've already shown that this water may contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria but we have no idea how this might affect the microbes that live in our guts, or how it could impact upon health."

In the "Beach Bums" project, the swabs will give researchers an insight into the microbes which colonise surfers' guts. By comparing these samples with others from people who don't regularly spend time in the sea, they will learn more about how superbugs in the environment can affect people.

According to Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), this is the first time that the surfing community has got so closely involved with a scientific study. Andy Cummins from SAS said: "We have been laughing about swab parties going on around the country, but this is set against the background of a really important project. Whilst water quality has improved dramatically in the last 20 years, coastal waters can still be contaminated by sewage from both animals and humans, introducing billions of potentially harmful bacteria into the ocean environment. We will give this data to the scientists, to find out if there is elevated risk of being exposed to antibiotic-resistant microbes for water users. This can give us a more informed approach." SAS is calling for 300 surfers around the country to get involved. The results are expected to be released in 2016.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Digital technology has been a fantastic creator of economic wealth, particularly in the twenty years since the Internet and World Wide Web were unveiled to the masses. And with non-trivial applications of artificial intelligence (such as Apple's Siri) finally reaching the mainstream consumer market, one is tempted to agree with pundits asserting that the Second Machine Age is just getting underway.

But Yale ethicist Wendell Wallach argues that growth in wealth has been accompanied by an equally dramatic rise in income inequality; for example, stock ownership is now concentrated in the hands of a relative few (though greater than 1 percent). The increase in GDP has not led to an increase in wages, nor in median inflation-adjusted income. Furthermore, Wallach says technology is a leading cause of this shift, as it displaces workers in occupation after occupation more quickly than new career opportunities arise.

This piece led to the latest iteration of the 'will robots take all of our jobs' debate, this time on Business Insider, with Jim Edwards arguing that the jobs lost tended to be of the mindless and repetitive variety, while the increase in productive capacity has led to the creation of many new positions. This repeated earlier cycles of the industrial revolution and will be accelerated in the decades ahead. Edwards illustrated his point with a chart of UK unemployment with a trend line (note: drawn by Edwards) in a pronounced downward direction over the past 30 years. John Tamny made a similar point in Forbes last month.

As debugging efforts continue, I think most of the community should expect we're going to be running a daily story on our effort to return the site to normality. We did another bugfix rollout to production to continue cleaning up error logs, and Paul I continue to make modifications to improve site performance. As you may have already noticed, we've managed a serious coup in the battle for low page times by replacing Linode's NodeBalancer product with a self-rolled nginx-frontend proxy. The vast majority of page loads are now sub-second.

Here's the quick list of stuff we changed over the weekend:

Rehash 15.05.3 - Changelog

• Optimized several slow queries in the frontend which were causing timeouts
• Drastically improved rehash's reporting to error_log
• Rolled out new frontend server (sodium) to handle load-balancing and SSL termination
• SSL by-default re-enabled; Firefox now loads SoylentNews extremely quickly due to the new frontend supporting SSL keepalive
• Disabled memcached on production temporarily for now (see past the break for details)

Although we've yet to formally locate and disable the cause of the 500s and HASH(*) entries you sometimes get on page load, I now have a working theory on what's going on.

AnonTechie writes:

New York Times Reports:

A team of roboticists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology claimed a $2 million prize on Saturday that was offered by a Pentagon research agency for developing a mobile robot capable of operating in hazardous environments.

Twenty-five teams of university and corporate roboticists competed for the prize, which was first proposed in 2012 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The robots were graded on their ability to complete eight tasks, including driving a vehicle, opening a door, operating a portable drill, turning a valve and climbing stairs, all in the space of an hour.

The Korean victory is a validation of the work of JunHo Oh, the designer of the Hubo family of humanoid robots that he has developed since 2002. The winning Hubo is a clever machine that can kneel and drive on wheels in addition to walking.

takyon writes:

In response to reports that their self-driving cars have not been totally free from accidents, Google has created a webpage where it will publish monthly reports detailing all of the accidents that its self-driving cars are involved in.

The first report [PDF] includes summaries of all accidents since the start of the Google X project in 2009:

The report for May showed Google cars had been involved in 12 accidents since it first began testing its self-driving cars in 2009, mostly involving rear-ending. Google said one of its vehicles was rear-ended at a stoplight in California on Thursday, bringing the total count to 13 accidents.

"That could mean that the vehicles tend to stop more quickly than human drivers expect," public interest group Consumer Watchdog said. The group called for more details on the accidents, including statements from witnesses and other drivers.

None of these accidents were caused by a fault with the car, Google said.

tonymercmobily writes:

I have been watching the evolution of the Ubuntu Software Center for quite a while now. I had doubts about its interface and its speed, but I liked the fact that it offered an easy, down-to-earth interface that allowed users to install software easily. However, I have to say that the way the Ubuntu Software Center has evolved is worrying me -- a lot. I am not against the idea of selling software. What I am against, is confusing proprietary software with non-proprietary software, The Ubuntu Software Center seems to be doing just that.

Apple is Having its Microsoft Moment

ticho writes:

Faulty code is found in every operating system, app and software program. But Apple has an outdated strategy for fixing them. Remember when Apple would advertise it was safer than Windows? No more. Apple is now where Microsoft was a decade ago.

Computer engineers, hackers and people familiar with the company's practices explained that Apple is doing five things wrong in its approach to security:

1. Apple's security updates are irregular and infrequent.
2. Secrecy.
3. Updates are only for the latest software.
4. Unwillingness to pay [bug bounties].
5. No admission of guilt.

Read more at http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/05/technology/apple-bugs/index.html?iid=SF_LN

Apple Could Learn from Microsoft on How to Handle Security

Hugh Pickens writes:

Remember when Apple would advertise it was safer than Windows? No more. Apple is now where Microsoft was ten years ago as Jose Pagliery writes at CNN that so far in 2015, five major flaws have affected Apple products putting to rest the argument that "Apple computers are safer and bug-free." Just this week, we encountered a nasty bug that lets hackers bury computer viruses so deep inside Macs, you'll never find it. A week earlier, a flaw appeared that lets a text message crash an iPhone. Of course, faulty code is found in every operating system, app and software program but Apple has an outdated strategy for fixing them.

The problem is that Apple is doing five things wrong in its approach to security:

1. Apple's security updates are irregular and infrequent. "They don't appear to have a regular patch schedule like Microsoft, nor do they appear to patch continuously like Google does with Chrome," says Tod Beardsley. "Sometimes, patches are slow to arrive, but then again, sometimes patches are difficult to develop."
2. Apple keeps quiet about its security holes. Apple didn't admit the latest Mac bug is even real (because that would entice hackers to exploit it). And while it acknowledges the text message flaw and offers advice for how to fix it, Apple hasn't explained the bug's root cause.
3. Updates are only for the latest software. If you are one of the 47% of users still on Mavericks, Mountain Lion, Lion, and Snow Leopard, you are out of luck.
4. Unwillingness to pay. Apple is one of the only major tech companies that doesn't reward researchers -- with money -- for finding potentially disastrous computer bugs.
5. No admission of guilt.

When hackers broke into celebrity iCloud accounts and exposed nude photos last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company would beef up security measures. But he blamed users, saying the problem was "not really an engineering thing."

According to researchers Apple needs to overhaul its bug-reporting system to one similar to what Microsoft did years ago. In 2003, Microsoft introduced Patch Tuesday. Once a month, users would get a flood of updates to keep them safe. According to Microsoft, sending patches only once a month simplifies patch management. Because the date is known in advance, system administrators can plan for the day. In 2005, Microsoft started hosting Blue Hat, an invitation-only security conference to meet face-to-face with curious (and often aggressive) researchers. In 2013 Microsoft introduced its "bug bounty" program and stopped fighting the legion of hackers -- and turned them into a ragtag army of Microsoft guardians. "Microsoft had worm after worm before meaningful security changes were made," says Katie Moussouris, Microsoft's former chief security strategist who implemented the bug bounty program. "Hopefully, Apple will adapt quickly."

[Ed note: The Hugh Pickens submission somehow lost its formatting and links when the story submissions were merged. We failed to notice that before the story went live. The story has been updated and we apologize for the error.]

Fnord666 writes:

According to a news article on cleveland.com, starting Monday June 1st, Amazon began collecting sales tax from Ohio consumers.

Ohio retailers and retail associations have spent years trying to persuade Congress to pass laws requiring online retailers to collect and remit the same state sales taxes that brick-and-mortar stores are required to.

"What great news for Ohio," said Gordon Gough, president and chief executive of the Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, which represents more than 6,400 members. His group is applauding the fact that not only is Amazon making a substantial commitment to the state by creating 1,000 jobs here, but "they're going to come to Ohio and play by the same rules as all the other retailers."

According to Gough "Ohio will become the 25th state where the online retailer collects sales tax." The article goes on to say that "In exchange, the Ohio Tax Credit Authority gave Amazon an exemption on sales taxes for equipment purchases at the data centers and a payroll tax credit for new jobs, according to Bloomberg News. The incentives are valued at about $81 million over 15 years."

Hugh Pickens writes:

There are some good reasons it's been 37 years since the last triple-crown winner as Lexi Pandell wrote on June 3 that post-race recovery is no joke for a thousand-pound animal that can run more than 40 miles per hour. There are two weeks between the Derby and the Preakness, and three weeks between the Preakness and the Belmont. That tight schedule—and the super-specific needs of racehorses—means horses competing in the grueling back-to-back-to-back Triple Crown races have a big disadvantage against fresh horses. First, as a horse races, its muscles produce lactic acid. In humans, glycogen recoup takes about 24 hours. But horses take several days to process lactic acid and restore glycogen reserves. Trainers make sure their charges drink plenty of water and sometimes even use intravenous fluids to aid that repair process. Secondly, in addition to being the last race of the Triple Crown, the Belmont Stakes is also the longest. That's no easy feat, even for a racehorse. When a horse runs a tough race (or has a new workout at a longer distance), its muscles break down. Then, during rest, they reknit and adapt. A horse that has skipped the Preakness, however, has the luxury of time. Mubtaahij, who some picked to win the Belmont, had plenty of rest so he could be pushed for hard workouts two weeks prior to the Belmont.

Finally, at different points in its stride, a galloping horse puts all its weight on a single leg. That limb bears three times more weight than usual when galloping on a straightaway and, thanks to centrifugal force, a load five to 10 times greater on turns. This translates to skeletal microdamage. Race a horse during that critical period and you increase the risk of serious injuries mid-race. Two weeks [seven years] ago, vets were forced to euthanize the promising gray thoroughbred filly, Eight Belles, when she collapsed on the track after completing the race at Churchill Downs, suffering from two shattered ankles in her front legs. A fresh horse won't face any of those problems. Even a horse that ran in the Derby but skipped the Preakness will have five weeks to rest, and plenty of time for normal skeletal damage to repair, before the Belmont. "So, American Pharoah [sic], it'd be awesome if you win the Triple Crown, but you probably won't," concluded Pandell. "It's not your fault. It's science and those pesky fresh horses." Science was wrong.

[Ed note: The proper spelling of the title for an ancient Egyptian king is "Pharaoh." This ABC News story American Pharoah Rides Misspelled Name to Brink of History notes the registered name for the horse is "American Pharoah" and provides some background on how that came to be.]