SoylentNews

Horse With Stripes writes:

The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Time and several other news sources are reporting that Ellen Pao is resigning as CEO of Reddit. Pao will be replaced by Steve Huffman, a Reddit co-founder and its first CEO.

Pao has had a stormy and controversial stint as interim chief executive officer of Reddit which culminated in a mass user protest in recent weeks, as previously reported on SN.

el_oscuro writes:

According to The Washington Post:

The massive hack last year of the Office of Personnel Management's system containing security clearance information affected 21.5 million people, including current and former employees, contractors and their families and friends, officials said Thursday.

That is in addition to a separate hack – also last year — of OPM's personnel database that affected 4.2 million people. That number was previously announced.

Together, the breaches arguably comprise the most consequential cyber intrusion in U.S. government history. Administration officials have privately said they were traced to the Chinese government and appear to be for purposes of traditional espionage.

Update: Office of Personnel Management Director Katherine Archuleta finally resigned mid-Friday.

SpaceMan writes:

Disney has won control of the star-wars.co.uk domain (and several others) from a costume retailer that was using it to sell "legitimate and licensed" Star Wars-themed costumes. Disney bought Lucasfilm and all of its intellectual property for $4.1 billion in 2012. The retailer's parent company, Abscissa, had used two of the domains for the last 10 years.

However, at the tail of the BBC story: "Abscissa itself has also benefited from the dispute-resolution process, by wresting control of jokers.co.uk from a fancy-dress rival in 2007".

AnonTechie writes:

With the 46th anniversary of humanity's first steps on the surface of the Moon 11 days away, NASA has announced the names of the astronauts that could be the first to fly into space aboard commercially-produced spacecraft. The quartet will now prepare to do something NASA has lacked the capability to do since the end of the Shuttle Program in 2011 – fly to low-Earth orbit (LEO).

Each of the four astronauts selected has already traveled to orbit at least once. They include Robert Behnken, Eric Boe, Douglas Hurley, and Sunita Williams. Each will work with Boeing and SpaceX, the two companies producing private spacecraft to travel to and from the International Space Station (ISS ).

SpaceX is currently working to prepare a crewed version of their Dragon spacecraft while Boeing is developing its Commercial Space Transportation (CST-100) capsule. It is hoped that these two vehicles will be ready to fly by 2017.

http://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/human-spaceflight/nasa-announces-first-commercial-crew-astronauts/

[Also Covered By]: Popular Science, Universe Today

Phoenix666 writes:

One of the few comforts we economy class fliers have left is our right to strap on noise-canceling headphones, stare at the back of the seat in front of us, and pretend we're on a beach, or at home, or in a modest-sized jail cell—anywhere, really.

Now that right is at risk. Zodiac Seats France, an industry supplier, has patented a new seating configuration that rips out the (horrid) middle seat in favor of one that faces the rear. With "Economy Class Cabin Hexagon," you get more neighbors than ever before—and they are right in your face.

The goal of the design is "to increase cabin density while also creating seat units that increase the space available at the shoulder and arm area." To be fair, it seems to do that—because you're no longer facing the same direction as your immediate neighbor, you have more shoulder room. And if you're traveling with your kid or spouse, being face-to-face can be nice (we guess).

Why not move to standing-room only, with roller-coaster style restraints?

AnonTechie writes:

When you spill a bit of water onto a tabletop, the puddle spreads—and then stops, leaving a well-defined area of water with a sharp boundary.
There's just one problem: The formulas scientists use to describe such a fluid flow say that the water should just keep spreading endlessly. Everyone knows that's not the case—but why?

This mystery has now been solved by researchers at MIT—and while this phenomenon might seem trivial, the finding's ramifications could be significant: Understanding such flowing fluids is essential for processes from the lubrication of gears and machinery to the potential sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions in porous underground formations.

The new findings are reported in the journal Physical Review Letters in a paper by Ruben Juanes, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, graduate student Amir Pahlavan, research associate Luis Cueto-Felgueroso, and mechanical engineering professor Gareth McKinley.

"What's striking here," Pahlavan adds, is that "what's actually stopping the puddle is forces that only act at the nanoscale." This illustrates very nicely how nanoscale physics affect our daily experiences, he says.

http://phys.org/news/2015-07-puddles-simple-everyday-phenomenon-unexplained.html

[Abstract]: http://journals.aps.org/prl/accepted/18079Y1aO511194cd818964075d4bced72a095c9f

[Also Covered By]: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/07/150708123326.htm

Phoenix666 writes:

One of the holy grails of robotic surgery is the ability to perform minimally invasive procedures guided by real-time scans from a magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, machine. The problem is the space inside MRI scanners is tight for a person, let alone a person and a robot. What's more, these machines use very strong magnetic fields, so metal is not a good thing to place inside of them, a restriction that is certainly a problem for robots.

Now researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) are developing a MRI-compatible robotic surgery tool that can overcome those limitations. Their system isn't made of metal, but instead has plastic parts and ceramic piezoelectric motors that allow it to work safely inside an MRI.

That area is uncomfortably near other important organs. Let's hope the scale on the monitor is 1:1...

Phoenix666 writes:

In the age of Big Data, it turns out that the largest, fastest growing data source lies within your cells.

Quantitative biologists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, in New York, found that genomics reigns as champion over three of the biggest data domains around: astronomy, Twitter, and YouTube.

The scientists determined which would expand the fastest by evaluating acquisition, storage, distribution, and analysis of each set of data. Genomes are quantified by their chemical constructs, or base pairs. Genomics trumps other data generators because the genome sequencing rate doubles every seven months. If it maintains this rate, by 2020 more than one billion billion bases will be sequenced and stored per year, or 1 exabase. By 2025, researchers estimate the rate will be almost one zettabase, one trillion billion bases, per sequence per year.

Cripes, wouldn't you hate to be the guy paying the electricity bill to process that much data?

HughPickens.com writes:

The Washington Post reports that lying may soon become a lost art as our digital, data-hoarding culture means that more and more evidence is piling up to undermine our lies. "The research shows the way lies are really uncovered is by comparing what someone is saying to the evidence," says Tim Levine,"and with all these news analytics that can be done, it's going to enable lie detection in a way that was previously impossible." For example in Pennsylvania, police are prosecuting a woman who claimed she was sexually assaulted earlier this year after data from her Fitbit didn't match up with her story, Just like you can Google a fact to end an argument, instant messaging programs that archive digital conversations make it easy to look back and see exactly who said what -- and if it matches up with what a person is saying now. "Lying online can be very dangerous," says Jeff Hancock. "Not only are you leaving a record for yourself on your machine, but you're leaving a record on the person that you were lying to."

Even more alarming for liars is the incorporation of lie detector technology into the facial recognition technology. Researchers claim video-analysis software can analyze eye movement successfully to identify whether or not a subject is fibbing 82.5 percent of the time. The new technology heightens surveillance capabilities—from monitoring actions to assessing emotions—in ways that make an individual ever more vulnerable to government authorities, marketers, employers, and to any and every person with whom we interact. "We must understand that—at the individual level and with regard to interpersonal relations—too much truth and transparency can be harmful," says Norberto Andrade. "The permanent confrontation with a verifiable truth will turn us into overly cautious, calculating, and suspicious people."

takyon writes:

Photography Is Not A Crime (PINAC) correspondent Michale Hoffman has been found guilty of trespassing on public property. He was arrested in August 2014 for holding up signs saying "Police State," "Liars Investigating Liars," "F??K THE TSA" and "IRS = Terrorist" on a public road leading to the Jacksonville International Airport (JAX). Hoffman was barred from invoking a First Amendment defense at his trial. "While we are disappointed in the jury's verdict we look forward to appealing the judge's rulings on the First Amendment issues that the jury was not allowed to hear or consider," said attorney Eric Friday. Furthermore:

Duval County Judge Brent Shore also refused to answer the jury's question about whether or not holding up signs on public property is illegal. It's not, of course, but prosecutors convinced the jury that all the cops had to do was order him to leave, even if he was not breaking any law, to give them the right to arrest him for trespassing. "The state convinced the jury that I didn't have to break any law to be trespassed," Hoffman said.

Judge Brent Shore created arbitrary "credentialed media" rules that prevented PINAC from filming the court case, but allowed photographers from The Florida Times-Union and News4Jax to cover the trial at the last moment.

In an order issued after Michale Hoffman recorded himself hurling insults at journalists and cops [length: 5:36] on the court steps, Chief Fourth Circuit Judge Mark Mahon threatened to arrest anyone who recorded the Duval County Courthouse, even from across the street, for contempt of court. Additionally, Judge Mahon's order banned calling into question the integrity of the court or its judges, or calling them "corrupt." In response, another PINAC correspondent demonstrated what would happen if you tried to film the courthouse [length: 4:18] (the same user also engaged in the same conduct as Hoffman [length: 10:22] in front of JAX, and was not arrested). PINAC also filed a lawsuit in federal court against Mahon on Tuesday.

Eugene Volokh of the Washington Post's Volokh Conspiracy legal blog called Mahon's order unconstitutional. The order is also discussed at the Popehat legal blog. From the order:

[T]he proper procedure for challenging a court's decision is to file an appeal with the appropriate appellate court. Shouting out on the Courthouse grounds that the Court and judges are "corrupt" during business hours while people are entering the Courthouse is entirely inappropriate and disruptive and is analogous to falsely shouting "fire" in a crowded theater...

3. Demonstrations or dissemination of materials that degrade or call into question the integrity of the Court or any of its judges (e.g., claiming the Courts, Court personnel or judges are "corrupt," biased, dishonest, partial, or prejudiced), thereby tending to influence individuals appearing before the Courts, including jurors, witnesses, and litigants, shall be prohibited on the Duval County Courthouse grounds....

SubiculumHammer writes:

In the news media (e.g. NPR, BBC, CNN, etc.) there is a dominate consensus that Greece must eventually give in to demands to reduce pensions and make further cuts in government spending in exchange for a new loan to help pay off defaulted loans, even if acknowledging that the Greek people have high unemployment and a failing economy.

However, for those not yet exposed to an alternate perspective which is not generally aired in the news media, you might read this bit of a rant by Prof. William K. Black. William Kurt Black is an American lawyer, academic, author, and a former bank regulator. Black's expertise is in white-collar crime, public finance, regulation, and other topics in law and economics. He developed the concept of "control fraud", in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a "weapon" to commit fraud. In this piece, William Black make ssome some interesting points about the Greek crisis, of which I cut and paste a few excerpted points:

1. That economists overwhelmingly believe on the basis of theory and experience that austerity in response to a Great Recession constitutes economic malpractice akin to bleeding a patient until it restores him to health.

2. That austerity has caused, as predicted, a human catastrophe in Greece

3. That austerity and the oxymoronic "labor reforms," by reducing wages and the safety net throughout the eurozone, the bailout of German banks, and the sale of Greek infrastructure and islands to wealthy Germans at fire sale prices are very much in the interests of the elite German corporate and banking CEOs that dominate domestic German politics, the Germany economy, and the troika

4. That when a debtor has unsustainable debts, the normal and desirable response is to negotiate a troubled debt restructuring (TDR) to reduce the debt to a level that can be repaid. Even the IMF, the mother of monstrous austerity, admits that the Greek debt is unsustainable.

5. That a TDR was done for German[y], which was essential to its economic recovery. (after WWII)

6. That the Greek "bailout" was a bailout of foreign EU banks, primarily French and German – not the Greek government or people. That bailout of the eurozone's largest banks is funded by eurozone taxpayers. The muted reaction of the commercial markets to the Greek "No" vote is largely attributable to the fact that the bailout of French and German banks by eurozone taxpayers has been completed. The remaining loss exposure of the large eurozone banks on the loans they made seven or more years ago to Greek banks is tiny. The reason EU elected officials are so apoplectic to the Greek "No" vote is that the eurozone taxpayers are on the hook because they bailed out the (primarily) French and German banks. If the eurozone taxpayers suffer losses in the range of one hundred billion euros those taxpayers might turn on those EU elected officials who represent the interests of elite bankers at the expense of the peoples of the eurozone. The NYT article ignores all this and, without any analysis, treats the bailout as if it were a bailout of the Greek people.

To me it this final point which resonates after witnessing the the U.S. bailout of to-big-to fail banks after making a number of risky (sometimes fraudulent) loans to homeowners.

Phoenix666 writes:

Population density, when done right, is a great tool to make people happier, give them more opportunities (social, economic, cultural, etc) and reduce their environmental footprint. A big part of it is that you can reduce the amount of pollution caused by transportation and housing, the two biggest resource sinks, with walkable neighborhoods and mass transit, as well as smaller dwellings (but the city becomes your living room and playground, so the actual "living area" can be much larger than for those living in some exurb in a McMansion...).

Design makes all the difference. Central Park is designed such that tens of thousands of people can be in it at once, but you never see more than a score. Nanjing Road in Shanghai is, however, Blade Runner. Or are there only two kinds, Country Mouse and City Mouse?

McGruber writes:

Some unexpected news from the OpenBSD Journal: "The OpenBSD Foundation is happy to announce that Microsoft has made a significant financial donation to the Foundation. This donation is in recognition of the role of the Foundation in supporting the OpenSSH project. This donation makes Microsoft the first Gold level contributor in the OpenBSD Foundation's 2015 fundraising campaign."

[Editor Update] Techrights has a different take on the reasons behind the funding, speculating that:

Windows is known for gaping holes [...] i.e. the very opposite of OpenBSD. For these two entities to work together (NSA resistor and the NSA's number one partner) is to have an incompatible relationship. Nothing on top of Windows can be secured and as we pointed out in our past articles about this, SSH keys will be put at risk. Microsoft's 'help' to OpenBSD reminds us of Microsoft's 'help' to Novell, where the goal was to use Novell to promote Windows, even inside Linux (e.g. Hyper-V).

It's not a payment intended to help OpenSSH development. Microsoft looks to get its money's worth (shareholders' money). So it's about putting secure Free software on an insecure proprietary software platform (with back doors), in order to promote and increase its use.

takyon writes:

Numerous sources are reporting that IBM's recent $3 billion investment in new chipmaking technologies and collaboration with the State University of New York in Albany, GlobalFoundries, and Samsung Electronics Co. is beginning to bear fruit. IBM has developed chips with functional transistors using a 7 nanometer process technology.

In particular, silicon-germanium (SiGe) has been incorporated into FinFET transistors, the fins of which are stacked at a pitch of less than 30nm, compared to a 42nm pitch for Intel's 14nm Broadwell chips. Long delayed extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography from ASML was used to etch the features. Although ASML's EUV tools are still slower and more expensive than conventional lithography, Michael Liehr, the executive vice president for innovation and technology at the SUNY Poly research center, predicted that ASML would improve EUV over the next four to six years, before 7nm chips are set to reach the market. More aggressive estimates put the introduction of 7nm chips around 2017-2018.

Ars Technica has a story on this topic with more technical background.

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