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aristarchus writes:

NASA's mission to Pluto lost contact with ground controllers http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2015/07/05/nasa-loses-contact-with-new-horizons-pluto-spacecraft-enters-safe-mode/ and went into "safe mode" when contact was re-established.

Of course, New Horizons is way out there, which makes communications difficult.

Fly-by is scheduled to take place on July 14th. Can't help but wonder if this is not revenge for being demoted to a dwarf planet.

"exec" writes:

Nvidia has just provided an impressive demonstration of HairWorks 1.1, flaunting the real-time calculation of around half a million virtual hairs.

In this article from Techfrag.com, we see how Nvidia has taken their Hairworks rendering program for human hair and changed the scale from the maximum of 22,000 to 500,000 hairs in a video.

Previously, Nvidia has conducted tests with 22,000 separate strands, that has been quite a success. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is among the first games to take advantage of the Nvidia HairWorks, using which it has greatly enhanced the visible hairstyles of the characters in the game.

But the work of the latest version 1.1 is just breathtaking, as it creates a realistic looking representation of human hair.

The card used to record the video is GeForce GTX 980, and it's not used because it is enough powerful, but the fact that HairWorks functionality only supports NVIDIA cards. Which means AMD Radeon card owners won't be able to enjoy this remarkable effect.

AMD has a competitive (and Open Source) product that will run on both the AMD Radeon and Nvidia graphics cards called TressFX.

c0lo writes:

Stumbled upon this (disclaimer, I'm not affiliated and don't hold any special interest):

Aether is an app you install to your computer to connect to Aether network. This network is made of different boards (forums) where people post and discuss things. On the surface, it's fairly similar to Slashdot, Metafilter, Reddit, or any other community site on the Internet.

The different thing about Aether is that it doesn't have a server somewhere. The only thing the app does is that it finds and connects to other people using Aether. In other words, it's a distributed, peer-to-peer network.

This makes it impossible to censor, and renders its users anonymous. It's useful for people concerned about privacy, or pretty much anyone who doesn't want to be watched and catalogued for every word they write on the Internet (so, pretty much everybody).

It's also temporary. Whatever you post disappears after six months. It's designed to be an ephemeral space, and it's focused on now, rather than the past. Other people can still keep copies of what you wrote, but it won't last forever in the network itself. They also won't know who you are.

Community moderated, distributed and anonymous. Almost to good to be true, but... how do you know it is actually _gewg that's posting?

"exec" writes:

In an article from 9 News Australia, photographer Dylan O'Donnel gives us a stunning view of the ISS against the backdrop of the moon.

With the space station rocketing around the Earth at approximately 27,600 km/h, astrophotograher Dylan O'Donnell had less than a second to capture the incredible moment using his telescope and digital camera.

In this image, the space station was roughly 400km above Mr O'Donnell's home town of Byron Bay in New South Wales, but even at this distance, the distinct shape and features of the orbital outpost are clearly visible, including its solar panels and various pressurised modules.

The original hi-resolution photo can be found here.

"exec" writes:

In an article in the Hindustan Times, The American Registry is quoted as telling us that they are running out of IPV4 addresses.

On Wednesday July 1, the ARIN - in charge of North America - was forced to turn down a request for a block of IP addresses for the first time in history. The CIO Richard Jimmerson told CBS news "We are weeks away from having zero left."

oaklandwatch writes:

On a day when America looks back on those who came before, Wired is remembering a pioneering technology magazine named Mondo 2000 —

Before WIRED, there was Mondo 2000, a magazine that fused counter-culture and technology together into a surreal glossy magazine that first appeared on newsstands in 1989. A typical issue would cover everything from DIY micro-satellites to smart drugs to weird bands like The Residents.

"Mondo 2000 is here to cover the leading edge in hyper-culture," an introduction by editor Ken "R.U. Sirius" Goffman and publisher Allison "Queen Mu" Kennedy announced in the first issue. "We're talking Cyber-Chautauqua: bringing cyber-culture to the people! Artificial awareness modules. Visual music. Vidscan Magazines. Brain-boosting technologies. William Gibson's Cyberspace Matrix—full realized!"

Wired goes on to share a video of Mondo 2000 editors' legendary appearance on a mid-90s PBS series, "The Internet Cafe".

When its host questioned them about cyberpunk, they turned the interview into an ironic media stunt by providing a live, sneering cyberpunk model named Malice (wearing a fake neural implant on his head), as the words "real cyberpunk" jokingly flashed on the bottom of the screen.

"At a time when few people outside academia had access to the internet, Mondo 2000 was many a wannabe hacker's introduction to the online world," Wired remembers fondly, even acknowledging that they'd "borrowed" their own magazine's design motif from Mondo 2000, in those early years before ISPs started popularizing consumer internet access.

martyb writes:

According to Forbes, Apple Music Could Wreck Your iTunes Library:

At its heart, Apple Music is a simple proposition. For your monthly subscription fee, Apple will offer you access to a library of over 30 million tracks. You can listen, explore, and discover to your heart's content, and you can take that music with you wherever you go. But subscribing to Apple Music and making full use of the streaming service requires a sacrifice.

You have to hand over control of your iTunes music library to Apple and hope that Cupertino's arrogance will preserve your music collection.

[...] The issue that is upsetting many Apple users is that moment when you turn on iCloud Music for the first time and your tracks are synced to the cloud. Apple's methodology on this is not clear, but from reports and feedback from users across the internet, it appears that Apple's view of metadata and what the 'correct' track is, will take precedence over your custom edits.

The Verge's Chris Welch highlights his preference of listening to early tracks from The Beatles in mono format (just as they were recorded) rather than the automatic matching services' preferences for stereo versions. Support forums talk of collections approaching 20,00 songs becoming corrupted and full of duplicate entries, incorrect meta-data overwriting current entries, album art switched out to show the wrong albums, and more stories of personal pain. 

HughPickens.com writes:

The Washington Post reports that this is becoming another Summer of the Shark as there have been seven recent shark attacks in North Carolina and scientists are looking for what might be luring the usually shy sharks so close to shore and among the swimmers they usually avoid. North Carolina's seven shark attacks is an unusual number for a state that recorded 25 attacks between 2005 and 2014. Even with the recent incidents, researchers emphasize that sharks are a very low-level threat to humans, compared with other forms of wildlife. Bees, for example, are much more dangerous. And swimming itself is hazardous even without sharks around.

George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida's Florida Museum of Natural History, speculates that several environmental factors could be pushing sharks to congregate in the Outer Banks. It is a warm year, and the water has a higher level of salinity because of a low-level drought in the area. Also, a common species of forage fish — menhaden — has been abundant this year and might have attracted more sharks to the area. Burgess also says some fishermen put bait in the water near piers, which could lure the predators closer to shore; two of the encounters took place within 100 yards of a pier. "That's a formula for shark attacks," Burgess says of these conditions, taken together. "Now, does that explain seven attacks in three weeks? No, it doesn't."

Burgess says not to swim near seals, where fishing is occurring, or near other things that sharks find tasty. Sharks can sniff out blood, so don't swim with open wounds. And leave your bling on the beach -- sharks are curious about bright, shiny objects, so don't lure them with baubles. Also avoid swimming at dawn and dusk, when sharks tend to feed. Stick together in groups and stay out of the water during and after storms. Aside from dangerous surf and rip currents, decreased water visibility can confuse sharks, prompting mistaken-identity bites. "Always remember," concludes Burgess. "They have bigger teeth, but we have bigger brains."

An Anonymous Coward wrote to inform us of a potential Bitcoin double-spend issue that has arisen. The incident's status page at bitcoin.org, Some Miners Generating Invalid Blocks, supplies a succinct summary:

Summary

Your bitcoins are safe if you received them in transactions confirmed before 2015-07-04 15:00 UTC.

However, there has been a problem with a planned upgrade. For bitcoins received later than the time above, confirmation scores are significantly less reliable then they usually are for users of certain software:

• Lightweight (SPV) wallet users should wait an additional 30 confirmations more than you would normally wait.
• Bitcoin Core 0.9.4 or earlier users should wait an additional 30 confirmations more than you would normally wait or upgrade to Bitcoin Core 0.10.2.
• Web wallet users should wait an additional 30 confirmations more than you would normally wait, unless you know for sure that your wallet is secured by Bitcoin Core 0.9.5 or later.
• Bitcoin Core 0.9.5 or later users are unaffected. (Note: upgrade to 0.10.2 is recommended due to denial-of-service vulnerabilities unrelated to this alert.)

[More after the break.]

janrinok writes:

The FBI and other LEOs often complain about the risk to preventing and protecting against crime posed by the use of encryption on the internet. Recently, there have been several senior figures stating quite categorically that encryption will enable criminals to operate with impunity, completely defeating the efforts of those 'trying to protect us'.

In fact, next Wednesday, both the Senate Intelligence Commitee and the Senate Judiciary Committee are hosting "hearings" for [FBI Director James] Comey, about the issue of "going dark" due to encryption.

[...] So it's rather interesting that before all that, the US Courts had released their own data on all wiretaps from 2014, in which it appears that encryption was almost never an issue at all, and in the vast majority of cases when law enforcement encountered encryption, it was able to get around it. Oh, and the number of wiretaps where encryption was even encountered has been going down rather than up:

The number of state wiretaps in which encryption was encountered decreased from 41 in 2013 to 22 in 2014. In two of these wiretaps, officials were unable to decipher the plain text of the messages. Three federal wiretaps were reported as being encrypted in 2014, of which two could not be decrypted. Encryption was also reported for five federal wiretaps that were conducted during previous years, but reported to the AO for the first time in 2014. Officials were able to decipher the plain text of the communications in four of the five intercepts.

Obviously, if more communications are encrypted by default, it's true that the numbers here would likely rise. But the idea that there's some massive problem that requires destroying the safety of much of the internet, seems more than a bit far-fetched.

janrinok writes:

A machine that might change how small businesses and hobbyists manufacture circuit boards has just reached its Kickstarter goals in a matter of minutes:

The Voltera V-One circuit printer, one of our favorite finds at CES this year, just launched its crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter — and hit $100,000 in 35 minutes.

The Voltera system provides multiple capabilities: It will print the traces for your prototype circuit board (at 8mil space and trace), dispense solder paste to allow you to place SMD components on professionally manufactured boards, and provide heat for reflowing those electronics onto boards. And it prints multiple layers with a transparent ink.

The extruders on the system pop on and off with magnetic clasps, allowing for easy transitions between materials.

Initially priced at $1499, it is perhaps beyond the reach of many home constructors, but I expect that prices will fall in time and then we can say goodbye to the chemicals and UV lights.

An Anonymous Coward wrote in with the news of the first measles death in the U.S. since 2003. Measles kills tens of thousands of people worldwide annually. From the Washington Post:

Health officials on Thursday confirmed the country's first measles death since 2003, and they believe the victim was most likely exposed to the virus in a health facility in Washington state during an outbreak there. The woman died in the spring; a later autopsy confirmed that she had an undetected measles infection, the Washington State Department of Health said in a statement. The official cause of death was announced as "pneumonia due to measles."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 178 people from 24 states and the District were reported to have measles from Jan. 1 through June 26 of this year. Two-thirds of the cases, the CDC noted, were "part of a large multi-state outbreak linked to an amusement park in California."

Measles were effectively eliminated in the United States in 2000, according to the CDC. Health officials have said that the disease made a comeback recently, in part because of a growing number of adults deciding to delay or abstain from vaccinating their children. Last year brought the highest number of recorded measles cases since 2000, according to the CDC. Earlier this year, President Obama acknowledged the concerns some have about effects of vaccines but said: "The science is pretty indisputable." "You should get your kids vaccinated — it's good for them," Obama said. "We should be able to get back to the point where measles effectively is not existing in this country."

takyon: Celebrity critics recently denounced California's new mandatory vaccine law.

janrinok writes:

After taking a 26-year nap, a waking black hole released a burst of X-rays that lit up astronomical observatories on June 15 — and it's still making a ruckus today.

Astronomers identified the revived black hole as an "X-ray nova" — a sudden increase in star luminosity — coming from a binary system in the constellation Cygnus. The outburst may have been caused by material falling into a black hole.

The burst was first caught by NASA's Swift satellite, and then by a Japanese experiment on the International Space Station, called Monitor of All-sky X-ray Image (MAXI). [Black Hole Wakes Up With A Bang (Video)]

"Relative to the lifetime of space observatories, these black-hole eruptions are quite rare," Neil Gehrels, Swift's principal investigator at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement. "So, when we see one of them flare up, we try to throw everything we have at it, monitoring across the spectrum, from radio waves to gamma-rays."

AnonTechie writes:

Encrypting emails can be tedious, difficult and very confusing. And even for those who have mastered the process, it's useless unless the intended recipient has the correct software to decode the message. A Georgia Institute of Technology researcher has created an easier method – one that sounds familiar to parents who try to outsmart their 8-year-old child. The new technique gets rid of the complicated, mathematically generated messages that are typical of encryption software. Instead, the method transforms specific emails into ones that are vague by leaving out key words.

"It's kind of like when mom and dad are talking about potential vacation spots while the kids are nearby," said Eric Gilbert, the Georgia Tech assistant professor who developed the software. "They can't say or spell 'Disney,' or the children will get too excited. So they use other words and the meaning is implied. Instead of 'Disney,' they could say 'have you bought tickets to the place yet.'"

Gilbert's Open Book system, a prototype that uses a Google Mail plug-in called Read Me, works the same way by substituting specific words with ambiguous ones. If the above example was an email conversation, the sender would write, "Have you bought tickets to Disney yet?" Open Book would change the message when it was sent. The other person would see, "Have you bought tickets to (place) yet?"

The process reduces the information disclosed to eavesdroppers or computer systems that monitor online communications, while taking advantage of common ground between the participants.

The system was presented at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2015) in Seoul, South Korea, April 18-23 (Open Book: A Socially Inspired Cloaking Technique that Uses Lexical Abstraction to Transform Messages) [PDF].

AnonTechie writes:

Grant Willcox, a student studying ethical hacking at the University of Northumbria in the UK, is claiming that the Wassenaar Arrangement, an arms control treaty that was expanded last year to prohibit the export of various kinds of software exploit, is forcing him to censor his dissertation.

Willcox's research investigates ways in which Microsoft's EMET software can be bypassed. EMET is a security tool that includes a variety of mitigation techniques designed to make exploiting common memory corruption flaws harder. In the continuing game of software exploit cat and mouse, EMET raises the bar, making software bugs harder to take advantage of, but does not outright eliminate the problems. Willcox's paper explored the limitations of the EMET mitigations and looked at ways that malware could bypass them to enable successful exploitation. He also applied these bypass techniques to a number of real exploits.

Typically this kind of dissertation would be published in full. Security researchers routinely explore techniques for bypassing system protections, with this research being one of the things that guides the development of future mitigations. Similarly, publishing the working exploit code (with a safe payload, to prove the concept) is standard within the research community.

However, Willcox's paper doesn't do this. Writing on his blog, he explains that some pages have been removed due to a combination of the Wassenaar Arrangement's restrictions, and the university's ethics board forbidding the release of exploits. He says that he will release the exploits only to consultancies within the UK, thereby avoiding any exports.