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AnonTechie writes:

The development of a completely novel type of telecommunications satellite has been approved. To be called Quantum and built in the UK, the 3.5-tonne spacecraft will break new ground by being totally reconfigurable in orbit.

Normally, the major mission parameters on satellites - such as their ground coverage pattern and their operating frequencies - are fixed before launch.

Quantum is a European Space Agency telecoms project. However, its development is actually a partnership with private industry, involving Paris-based satellite operator Eutelsat and the manufacturer Airbus Defence and Space. The parties signed a contract on Thursday at the Harwell Science Campus in Oxfordshire.

The ultra-flexible payload of Quantum will be prepared by Airbus at its Portsmouth factory, and then integrated into the spacecraft bus, or chassis, at Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) in Guildford. SSTL is an Airbus subsidiary. Quantum should be delivered ready for launch in 2018.

The satellite will have the flexibility to take on new roles at any time - in coverage, in frequency band, and power use. If it needs to be moved, perhaps to fill in behind another satellite that has failed in orbit, it will simply mimic the profile of the lost platform. Part of this capability comes from the use of advanced, flat, phased-array antennas that can electronically change their shape. This is different from the curved, pre-shaped mechanical antennas incorporated into traditional satellites.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33460441

aristarchus writes:

The Union of Concerned Scientists has released a report entitled The Climate Deception Dossiers.

So now we have some idea of "What fossil fuel companies knew and when they knew it". Full report available here [pdf].

takyon writes:

Hacking Team has issued a statement confirming that its code and zero-day software vulnerabilities were leaked:

It is now apparent that a major threat exists because of the posting by cyber criminals of HackingTeam proprietary software on the Internet the night of July 6. HackingTeam's investigation has determined that sufficient code was released to permit anyone to deploy the software against any target of their choice.

Before the attack, HackingTeam could control who had access to the technology which was sold exclusively to governments and government agencies. Now, because of the work of criminals, that ability to control who uses the technology has been lost. Terrorists, extortionists and others can deploy this technology at will if they have the technical ability to do so.

Adobe has patched a security bug in flash, and Microsoft is working on a vulnerable kernel driver. Discussed at The Register and Motherboard.

The Intercept has detailed Hacking Team's demonstration to a Bangladesh "death squad," the use of Hacking Team software by the DEA to spy on all Colombian ISPs from the U.S. embassy in Bogota, and more. In one email, CEO David Vincenzetti unwittingly predicts the current fallout while warning employees not to leak the company's secrets: "Imagine this: a leak on WikiLeaks showing YOU explaining the evilest technology on earth! :-)" he wrote. "You will be demonized by our dearest friends the activists, and normal people will point their fingers at you."

Privacy International's Deputy Director Eric King has called the leaks "the equivalents of the Edward Snowden leaks for the surveillance industry." Nevertheless, Hacking Team plans to continue its operations. PhineasFisher, a hacker who penetrated Hacking Team's competitor Gamma International last year and leaked 40 GB of internal data, has claimed responsibility for this hack.

Phoenix666 writes:

In 2005 Tulley founded the Tinkering School, which operates as an overnight summer camp in Montara, California, and a week-long day camp in San Francisco, as well as single-day workshops (some for all girls). There is also a branch of the Tinkering School in Chicago.

At the Tinkering School, children are allowed to pick up and use tools that are commonly viewed as dangerous by our overprotective society and be trusted not to hurt themselves or others. They use "wood and nails and rope and wheels, and lots of tools, real tools," according to one of Tulley's TED talks called "Life lessons through tinkering" (2009).

Most importantly, the kids are given time – something that's in short order these days with stressed-out, overworked parents and packed extracurricular schedules. Having the time to start these open-ended building projects, to fail at them, then to persevere and ultimately succeed (with the help of adults who are guiding the projects to completion) is a glorious thing.

When I was a kid this kind of summer camp was called, "Go Outside and Play!"

martyb writes:

Summary: I'm trying to back up a failing harddisk and bring programs over to a new system. I'd also like to transition off Windows. I'm hoping my fellow Soylentils can share their experiences and help ease the transition. I realize I'm probably not the only person who may be looking to do such things, so I'm hoping that the replies will be helpful to someone who later comes upon this story.

Background: I have a 10-year-old HP laptop with an AMD Athlon64 3200+ running Windows XP/SP3 with an 80 GB hard disk Over the past 10 years I've installed well over 100 programs and done countless tweaks and modifications to their defaults. Thanks to the generosity of a kind friend, I'm getting a Dell Latitude with a fresh install of Win 7 Pro which has an Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz and a 500 GB hard disk.

Goal: Full-disk backups of both systems and as-painless-as-possible installation of programs on the new system. Ultimately transition off Windows to a Linux/BSD distro.

Challenges: When I run SMART on the HP's 80 GB disk, it reports "Prefailure" for: "Raw Read Error Rate", "Spin Up Time", "Reallocated Sector Count", "Seek Error Rate", and "Spin Retry Count." A couple years ago, I tried doing a full-disk backup. In preparation, I did a CHKDSK /R to relocate bad sectors and fix any other errors. Then I ran a Live CD version of Clonezilla (2.0.1-5-i486) to backup the disk to an external USB hard disk; it happily chewed along for several hours until it hit a disk error and then just stopped. I'd like to use something which is more determined to retry challenged sectors and not die on any errors — ideally it would report details on any non-recoverable sectors, etc.

As for installing my old programs on the new machine, I surely miss the pre-registry days when one could just zip up a directory on one machine, unzip it on another, and you were good to go! Example: I use Pale Moon as my browser. I've set customizations for fonts, character sets, etc. as well as having updated the internal spelling dictionary. What is the easiest way to bring the program over to the new system? Similarly, how would I bring over such programs as: Mozilla Thunderbird, PuTTY, HexChat, and VLC?

Lastly: I'd like to get off the Windows merry-go-round. I have considerable experience in using Unix userland commands (ls, find, gawk, sed, etc.) but negligible experience in installing Linux/BSD/etc. The new box has sufficient memory (6 GB) that I could conceivably run Windows in a VM. I've never done that on a PC before. (Many years ago I worked at IBM testing their VM operating system, so I'm familiar with the concepts.) So, I'm open to folks' experience on how to go about doing a P2V (physical to virtual) of the new system. Based on what I've read, I'd like to stay away from systemd, so that strikes out a few of the selections mentioned in: What Distro Do Soylentils Use? What has your experience been? What do you recommend?

I know there's probably something I don't know; what else should I be asking? What problems should I watch out for?

AnonTechie writes:

Technology rapidly is advancing the study of genetics and the search for causes of major diseases. Analysis of genomic sequences that once took days or months now can be performed in a matter of hours. Yet, for most genetic scientists, the lack of access to computer servers and programs capable of quickly handling vast amounts of data can hinder genetic advancements. Now, a group of scientists at the University of Missouri has introduced a game changer in the world of biological research. The online, free service, RNAMiner, has been developed to handle large datasets which could lead to faster results in the study of plant and animal genomics.

"This work actually started mainly because of the demand of MU scientists," said Jianlin Cheng, an associate professor of computer science in the MU College of Engineering. "RNA sequencing is the means by which researchers use modern sequencing techniques to study RNA, or ribonucleic acid. The process has increased the speed that researchers can note the differences in gene expression among genomes—but it comes at a cost. Often, scientists must sift through incredibly large amounts of data to get to usable results. RNAMiner has cut that time drastically."

http://phys.org/news/2015-07-scientists-free-online-genetic-tool.html

[Abstract]: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25902288

[Also Covered By]: http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150708/MU-scientists-develop-RNAMiner-tool-to-make-genetic-science-easier.aspx

Phoenix666 writes:

An Italian artist wants to make the architects of the global police state famous:

You've heard of Edward Snowden. And the name Keith Alexander probably rings a bell. But what about James Comey? As head of the FBI, he pressed for a law that would require American smartphone companies to decrypt citizens' phones on request. Ever heard of Avril Haines? She was deputy director of the CIA when that agency was engaged in many of the activities Snowden exposed.

Italian artist Paolo Cirio has been stenciling "unauthorized" portraits of these folks, and six other high-ranking officials at three-letter agencies, on walls throughout cities around the world. This rogue's gallery of spooks and spies grin unwittingly from posters and murals in places more typically reserved for television stars and lingerie models.
...
The resulting portraits look like pop silkscreens from the 1960s, an eye-candy aesthetic that belies their serious undertone. "These are portraits of high-ranking war generals, the Napoleons of today, somehow marking their historical role in attempting to build a dangerous cyber-empire," Cirio says. But beyond bringing these people out of the shadows, the artists wants them to know that, despite their job titles, they're as digitally vulnerable and overexposed as the rest of us.

The Japanese have a practice of shunning or ostracism called Mura-hachibu, whereby the whole village stops having anything to do with you. Could it work here?

AndyTheAbsurd writes:

Trading was resumed around 3:00 PM after having been down since 11:30 AM.

Phoenix666 writes:

From a recent issue of Wired:

Study after study shows we remember things better when we write them—our brain stores the letter-writing motion, which is much more memorable than just the mashing of a key that feels like every other key. We think in fragments, too, in shapes and colors and ideas that just don't come through on a keyboard. "Think about how many things that are built start as a drawing," Bathiche says. "Most things, right? Everything you're wearing probably started as a drawing."

You can't type out the folds of a dress, or the gentle curves of a skyscraper. Drawing with your stubby finger on a touchscreen isn't much better. Humans are tool-based creatures: Our fingers can do amazingly intricate things with a pen, a brush, or a scalpel, that we can't replicate with a mouse or the pads of our fingers. Our computers are giving back that kind of detailed control. In turn, the pen is opening up new ways of digital expression, new tools for communication, new ways to interact with our tech.

My wife's cousin's husband is a cartoonist for the New Yorker. He uses a high-end Wacom digitizer. Hasn't the problem of the high tech pen been solved?

Phoenix666 writes:

For the first time, Harvard researchers have created wakes of light-like waves moving on a metallic surface, called surface plasmons, and demonstrated that they can be controlled and steered. The creation and control of surface plasmon wakes could lead to new types of plasmonic couplers and lenses that could create two-dimensional holograms or focus light at the nanoscale.

[...] Surface plasmons are confined to the surface of a metal. In order to create wakes through them, Capasso's team designed a faster-than-light running wave of charge along a one-dimensional metamaterial — like a powerboat speeding across a lake.

The metamaterial, a nanostructure of rotated slits etched into a gold film, changes the phase of the surface plasmons generated at each slit relative to each other, increasing the velocity of the running wave. The nanostructure also acts like the boat's rudder, allowing the wakes to be steered by controlling the speed of the running wave.

The team discovered that the angle of incidence of the light shining onto the metamaterial provides an additional measure of control and using polarized light can even reverse the direction of the wake relative to the running wave — like a wake traveling in the opposite direction of a boat.

Phoenix666 writes:

A study in an extended family of monkeys provides important insights into how the risk of developing anxiety and depression is passed from parents to children.The study shows how an over-active brain circuit involving three brain areas inherited from generation to generation may set the stage for developing anxiety and depressive disorders.

[...] "Over-activity of these three brain regions are inherited brain alterations that are directly linked to the later life risk to develop anxiety and depression,'' says senior author Dr. Ned Kalin, chair of psychiatry at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. "This is a big step in understanding the neural underpinnings of inherited anxiety and begins to give us more selective targets for treatment."

[...] Interestingly, the brain circuit that was genetically correlated with individual differences in early-life anxiety involved three survival-related brain regions. These regions were located in the brain stem, the most primitive part of the brain; the amygdala, the limbic brain fear center; and the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher-level reasoning and is fully developed only in humans and their primate cousins.

More evidence for epigenetics. If trauma can be encoded on the genetic level and passed down to offspring, can shared trauma affect a population's DNA and in turn express itself in its group behaviors/culture?

yarp writes:

The Guardian is reporting that the Swiss postal service has started testing delivery of parcels by autonomous drones.

"The drone has an extremely light construction and is capable of transporting loads of up to one kilo over more than 10 kilometres with a single battery charge," Swiss Post said in a statement.

Swiss Post see drones being in commercial use in about 5 years' time if the trials prove successful. Could this set a precedent for delivery-by-drone elsewhere in the world despite other proposed services (e.g. Amazon's) facing stiff regulation?

Have any Soylentils in Switzerland been on the receiving end of one of these deliveries or seen a drone going about its business?

Phoenix666 writes:

In case you can't get enough news about graphene:

As a species, humans have evolved to have certain strengths and weaknesses. While we don't have the sonar-like range finding capabilities of bats or dolphins, we do have the brains to engineer a device that can give that capability to us.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have done exactly that in their development of tiny ultrasonic microphones made from graphene.

[...] At only one atom in thickness, graphene possesses the key properties of strength, stiffness, and light weight; so it is extremely sensitive to a wide-range of frequencies. In this case, the microphone can pick up frequencies from across the human hearing range—from subsonic (below 20 hertz) to ultrasonic (above 20 kilohertz)—and as high as 500 kHz. (A bat hears in the 9 kHz to 200 kHz range.)

Daredevil, here we come!

AnonTechie writes:

AT&T is promising to offer cheaper Internet service to poor people if it's allowed to buy DirecTV. This is similar to a promise that helped Comcast gain government approval of its 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal.

Qualifying residents in areas where AT&T's top speeds are below 5 Mbps (that's not a typo) will be offered DSL service of "up to 1.5 Mbps, where available" for $10 a month, AT&T said in a filing with the Federal Communications Commission last week. It'll be $5 a month for the first year before rising to $10 for the next three years. AT&T is proposing a four-year commitment in total.

In areas where AT&T's top speeds are higher, the company said it "will offer a broadband wireline DSL service at speeds up to 5 Mbps to households in AT&T's wireline footprint for $10 per month for the first 12 months of service (rising to $20 per month for the remainder of the term of the commitment)."

http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/07/att-will-give-poor-people-1-5mbps-dsl-for-10-if-us-allows-directv-merger/

Subsentient writes:

I'm wondering what Linux distros my fellow soylentils use, and why.

I myself have loved Fedora since version 7, and never cared much for Debian systems. My desktops either run Fedora or a source-built XFCE system. What distros do you use, what architectures, and why do you use them? Are there any distros you wish were still around?