SoylentNews

takyon writes:

The Platform reports on forecasts by the analysts at Wikibon predicting that flash arrays will be cheaper than disk arrays within a decade and replace them in enterprise datacenters:

[Wikibon CTO David] Floyer's thinking is outlined in a new report, Enterprise Flash vs. HDD Projections 2012-2026, which just came out, and it is unabashedly aggressive in forecasting the demise of the disk drive in the datacenter for tier one (or primary) storage. Even as incumbent disk array makers peddle hybrid machines mixing disk and flash and trot out all-flash arrays to compete with the myriad – and often well-funded – upstarts, most of the vendors say again and again that they expect to see disk drives in the datacenter for the foreseeable future. To his credit, Floyer put a stake in the ground – and into the disk drive.

There is a lot going on underneath that seemingly simple chart above. The blue area shows the spending on flash storage among both enterprises and hyperscalers added together over the forecast period, and it shows it rising from a mere $490 million in 2012 to $2.54 billion last year, to $4.55 billion this year and $7.54 billion in 2016. The growth doesn't just stop there, though – it accelerates as the cost per TB of flash storage is predicted to come way down over the next decade. At the array level, flash cost something on the order of $20,000 per TB three years ago, according to Floyer's model, and will drop to $4,320 per TB this year. The cost of disk capacity in all-disk or hybrid arrays is still coming down, oddly enough, dropping from $2,268 per TB in 2012 to $1,070 per TB this year. So, flash is still around 4X the cost of disk, give or take. But that is only on traditional arrays. When you weave enterprise server SANs and hyperscale server SANs into the model – inexpensive and often clustered servers with beefed up storage capability – prices really come down. An all-flash server SAN costs about $672 per TB this year, says Floyer, and an all-disk server SAN will run a piddling $87 per TB.

By the end of the forecast period in 2026, the cost of flash in either hybrid or all-flash arrays will be about $16 per TB, compared to $26 per TB for disks in all-disk or hybrid arrays. You read that right, disks will be more expensive than flash, and the crossover will come in 2023 in Floyer's model within hybrid or all-media arrays. Server SANs, whether based on disk or flash, will continue to be much cheaper than arrays with their fancy controllers and architectures, although the gap gets pretty small by the time 2026 rolls around. Disks will be slightly cheaper in Server SANs than flash for a reason that we wish Floyer would explain.

Samsung recently unveiled a 15.36 TB 2.5" SSD, and through-silicon vias may be able to be combined with vertical NAND to boost capacity, capacity per dollar, and reduce operating expenses.

Original Submission

patella.whack writes:

TechCrunch reports:

Yesterday, Kim Dotcom tweeted an audio recording of a phone conversation between himself and Universal Music Group, about a potential deal between the music label and Megaupload.

While the call was just two days before the 2012 raid and shutdown of Megaupload (and Kim's home), it showed the label was trying to forge an ad sales deal directly with the company. These negotiations came at a contentious time, as both companies were already in a lawsuit over UMG trying to censor Megaupload's theme song.

During the call, UMG executives suggested that if this deal was to go through, the label would downgrade Megaupload's status within the anti-piracy lobbying world (organizations like the RIAA and MPAA) from "evil to neutral." UMG management also admitted on the call that "the business has been controlled by lawyers for a long time." Considering Megaupload was shutdown before any deal could be forged, UMG's lawyers may actually have had more power than the executives themselves.

Interestingly, the recording was released right after the launch of BABOOM, the music service that Kim originally founded,but has since been forced to disassociate with.

While it may be too late for this call to spur any change, it is nonetheless interesting to hear that Megaupload and UMG were at one point actively trying to work together, and Kim Dotcom seemed genuinely interested in making this happen.

Also at TorrentFreak.

Original Submission

patella.whack writes:

Tohoku University reports that a new study [paywalled] shows that meteorite impacts on ancient oceans may have created nucleobases and amino acids. Researchers discovered this after conducting impact experiments simulating a meteorite hitting an ancient ocean.

With precise analysis of the products recovered after impacts, the team found the formation of nucleobases and amino acids from inorganic compounds. All the genetic information of modern life is stored in DNA as sequences of nucleobases. However, formation of nucleobases from inorganic compounds available on prebiotic Earth had been considered to be difficult.

In 2009, this team reported the formation of the simplest amino acid, glycine...This time, they replaced the carbon source with bicarbonate and conducted hypervelocity impact experiments...[and] found the formation of a far larger variety of life's building blocks, including two kinds of nucleobases and nine kinds of proteinogenic amino acids. The results suggest a new route for how genetic molecules may have first formed on Earth.

My knowledge of this area is very limited but I'm assuming by 'new route' that they are referring to the meteorite as vector, rather than the general formation of these building blocks via an impact from space. So the significance of these results is mainly experimental confirmation of the possibility?

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Carina Chocano writes in the NYT that once, a long time ago, a rock star was a free-spirited, convention-flouting artist/rebel/hero/Dionysian fertility god who fronted a world-famous band, sold millions of records and headlined stadium concerts where people were trampled in frenzies of cultlike fervor.

Now 'rock star'' has made a complete about-face and in its new incarnation, it is more likely to refer to a programmer, salesperson, social-media strategist, business-to-business telemarketer, recruiter, management consultant or celebrity pastry chef than to a person in a band. The term has become shorthand for a virtuosity so exalted it borders on genius — only for some repetitive, detail-oriented task.

According to Chocano, posting a listing for a job for which only ''rock stars'' need apply casts an H.R. manager as a kind of corporate Svengali; "That nobody is looking for a front-end developer who is addicted to heroin or who bites the heads off doves in conference rooms goes without saying. Pretty much anyone can be a ''rock star'' these days — except actual rock stars, who are encouraged to think of themselves as brands."

Original Submission

patella.whack writes:

Science Daily has an interesting article which focuses on a new understanding of how surfaces deflect water and the engineering of correct surface roughness to trap the vapor that provides dryness when submerged.

Understanding how the surfaces deflect water so well means the valuable feature could be reproduced in other materials on a mass scale, potentially saving billions of dollars in a variety of industries, from antifouling surfaces for shipping to pipe coatings resulting in lower drag.

The research team is the first to identify the ideal "roughness" needed in the texture of a surface to keep it dry for a long period of time when submerged in water. The valleys in the surface roughness typically need to be less than one micron in width.

Samples with the nanoscale roughness remained dry for up to four months, the duration of the experiment. Other samples were placed in harsh environments, where dissolved gas was removed from the ambient liquid, and they also remained dry.

Historically, scientists had not understood how to keep water vapor from succumbing to condensation within the pore, which can cause water to wet the surface. But the Northwestern team found the molecular key: They demonstrated that when the valleys are less than one micron in width, they can sustain the trapped air as well as vapor in their gasified states, strengthening the seal that thwarts wetness.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Flibanserin or Addyi, a female libido-enhancing drug created by Sprout Pharmaceuticals, has been approved by a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee:

It was rejected by the FDA twice for lack of effectiveness and side effects like nausea, dizziness and fainting. Women taking the drug reported between half and one more sexually satisfying event per month - results experts admitted were "modest". Originally the drug was produced by German company Boehringer Ingelheim. Sprout bought the drug from that company after it was turned down by the FDA.

Documents from the 4 June FDA advisory meeting describe the drug's purpose of "treatment of hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in premenopausal women". Women would take it each night. A doctor would have to determine whether a woman seeking the pill was suffering from a disorder characterised by a lack of sexual fantasies and desire, causing the woman distress. Currently, there is nothing on the US market approved for treatment of HSDD or another condition, female sexual interest/arousal disorder (FSIAD). "This condition is clearly an area of unmet medical need," the FDA documents said.

Reuters adds that the FDA will require a warning over "potentially dangerous low blood pressure and fainting when taken with alcohol."

FDA press release.

Previously: Female Libido Pill Considered by FDA Advisers

patella.whack writes:

An Ars update:

Update (Aug. 18): Microsoft has announced through Major Nelson's blog that the previously hidden "very high quality" 1080p streaming feature will officially launch through an Xbox app update rolling out today. Our own tests found the new setting greatly improves the streaming experience, provided you have an in-home Internet setup that can handle it. The app update also includes some interface improvements that make it easier to interact with friends and add outside games to the app.

Previously:

Reddit user OomaThurman has publicized the method for unlocking this hidden quality setting, which involves editing the "userconsoledata" file in your Xbox app folder.

patella.whack writes:

As reported in Science Daily, researchers at University of Leeds have created unusually intelligent mice [abstract only] by altering a single gene and as a result the mice were also less likely to feel anxiety or recall fear.

In behavioural tests, the...mice showed enhanced cognitive abilities. They tended to learn faster, remember events longer and solve complex exercises better than ordinary mice.

For example, the "brainy mice" showed a better ability than ordinary mice to recognise another mouse that they had been introduced to the day before. They were also quicker at learning the location of a hidden escape platform in a test called the Morris water maze.

They also showed less recall of a fearful event after several days than ordinary mice which could be of interest to researchers looking for treatments for pathological fear, typified by Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Ordinary mice are naturally fearful of cats, but these mice showed a decreased fear response to cat urine, suggesting that one effect could be an increase in risk-taking behaviour.

The researchers are now working on developing drugs that will be tested in animals to see whether any would be suitable for clinical trials in humans.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

"We aren't teaching students how to think critically!" So goes the exasperated lament you have probably heard and possibly uttered. The thing is, that's a crazy hard thing to do. It may seem like a logic class should teach you to think in a more disciplined way, for example, but the sad fact is that those mental habits are very unlikely to transfer [PDF] beyond the walls of the logic course. There are many different styles and contexts of critical thinking, and there is no magic subroutine that we could insert into our mental programming that covers them all.

But despair is not the only option. Effective coursework can build important and useful critical thinking skills. Doug Bonn at the University of British Columbia and Stanford's N.G. Holmes and Carl Wieman focused on good scientific, quantitative thinking when teaching a group of first-year physics students. And like good critically thinking educators, they put their strategy to the test and published the results so they can be evaluated by others.

Original article from Ars Technica .

[Related]: How to improve students' critical thinking about scientific evidence

Phoenix666 writes:

Scientific American has a piece on how the public and chemists perceive and mis-perceive attitudes about chemistry:

What my colleagues and I have found is that public perception of chemistry, chemists and chemicals is far more positive than we believed. Like other sciences, people think the benefits chemistry brings to society outweigh the risks. The problem, as described in a report published by the U.K.'s Royal Society of Chemistry, is that many people are confused about what chemists are and what they do. Additionally, people tend to be neutral about chemistry and don't see how it's personally relevant. They have limited "encounters" with chemistry and low awareness about its applications and the role it plays in various industries and sciences. But they are not "anti-chemistry".
...
When we looked into chemists' attitudes towards the public we found that our community tends to paint a very negative picture compared to the reality of public opinion. Many are particularly worried that chemicals have a bad reputation and we found that chemophobia is often mentioned as the cause and/or the effect of this reputation. This is now a well-established narrative in many discussions, but one that our community developed without real evidence.
...
Understanding this, I have to agree with University of Hull senior lecturer and science writer Mark Lorch who argues that "chemophobia is a chemist's construct" and that "it's time for us chemists to stop feeling so unloved." According to Lorch, "It is almost as if we are experiencing the fear of chemophobia: chemophobia-phobia."

Before we can hope to influence public attitudes we need to change our attitudes towards the public. We need to create new, positive associations instead of focusing on the old negative ones. We should avoid talking about chemophobia (Lorch suggests we hang up the #chemophobia hashtag) or framing our communications in negative terms such as "fighting ignorance" or "debunking errors". Instead we should try to be more positive, showing people how chemistry makes us feel and championing the cause of chemistry in society. Let's not forget that we are all acting as ambassadors for chemistry.

Breaking Bad has perhaps helped create public perceptions of chemistry as something powerful, important, and worth learning. Are there other even more positive portrayals of chemistry that chemists can refer non-chemist acquaintances to, and learn from themselves to speak about the practice of chemistry in a more positive way?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Botanists have suggested that the extinct Montsechia vidalii is the oldest known flowering plant (angiosperm):

Researchers studied more than 1,000 fossils of the Montsechia Vidalii species as part of the study. The plant resembled a pond-weed but bore fruit containing a single seed - the defining characteristic of a flowering plant. The scientists say it grew in Spanish lakes more than 125 million years ago. "A 'first flower' is technically a myth, like the 'first human'," botanist David Dilcher says in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "But based on this new analysis, we know now that Montsechia is contemporaneous, if not more ancient, than Archaefructus," a similar aquatic plant found in China.

From Los Angeles Times:

Montsechia vidalii, estimated to have lived between 130 million and 125 million years ago, grew during the late Cretaceous, when dinosaurs still walked the earth. It may not have looked much like the flowering plants of today -- in fact, it probably resembled its still-living descendants known as coontails or hornworts, which have coarse leaves ideal for koi ponds.

Unlike modern plants with flowers, M. vidalii woiuldn't have petals or nectar-producing parts, but it did have a single seed -- a telltale characteristic of angiosperms.

"Lower Cretaceous aquatic angiosperms, such as Archaefructus and Montsechia, open the possibility that aquatic plants were locally common at a very early stage of angiosperm evolution and that aquatic habitats may have played a major role in the diversification of some early angiosperm lineages," the study authors wrote.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Smart City Holdings, a Wi-Fi provider for convention centers across the country, just got slapped with a hefty $750,000 fine from the FCC. The issue at hand? Blocking personal Wi-Fi hotspots on convention premises.

To call convention center internet prices a ripoff is a bit of an understatement. Smart City Holdings charges around $80 per day for access to their networks. By blocking personal Wi-Fi hotspots, it forces attendees to pay into this exorbitant scheme. "All companies who seek to use technologies that block FCC-approved Wi-Fi connections are on notice that such practices are patently unlawful," FCC commissioner Travis LeBlanc said in a statement, firing a warning shot to other would-be blockers.

This is good news for road warriors.

Original Submission

patella.whack writes:

The Guardian reports on Twitter's recent troubles:

America's smartest schools have given Twitter an F. Harvard, Yale and Stanford universities have all sold big chunks of their Twitter stock as the nine-year-old social media company struggles to prove to investors it has a trajectory of growth.

Yale University...sold all of its 34,345 shares in Twitter – worth just under $1m at Monday's stock price – over the last quarter. Harvard University...sold 29,856 Twitter shares between April and June. Stanford...sold 18,000 shares.

The universities' sell-offs come as Twitter flounders without a permanent chief executive and analysts increasingly question the company's future as its once-stunning user growth slows to a trickle.

Twitter's shares have collapsed from $52 in April to $29 on Monday, a drop of 44%. Over that period, Yale's Twitter holdings dropped in value by $788,000.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Melanie Tannenbaum has written several interesting blog posts about ambiguity intolerance and its connection to the early popular support Donald Trump is currently enjoying. Roughly speaking, people who are not comfortable without a plan of action or a path forward are said to have more ambiguity intolerance.

What may be surprising, however, is the research showing that people high in ambiguity intolerance feel so profoundly uncomfortable with the idea of uncertainty, they will often prefer a slightly negative yet certain outcome to a potentially-more-positive, uncertain one. In other words, people may find Donald Trump to be disagreeable, abrasive, or downright unlikeable. But because of his reputation for "telling it like it is" and "being honest to a fault," they also feel certain that they can believe Trump when he says he's telling the truth.

Tannenbaum points out that despite a record of Trump making contradictory comments in the past, people tend to believe his convictions on what he says because nobody would say those "non-normative" things if they really didn't believe it.

Original Submission

CoolHand writes:

Wired has an article on Google's new Project Sunroof, a utility to tell a homeowner how much they will save with solar power.

If you're considering solar power but aren't quite sure it's worth the expense, Google wants to point you in the right direction. Tapping its trove of satellite imagery and the latest in artificial intelligence, the company is offering a new online service that will instantly estimate how much you'll save with a roof full of solar panels.

On Monday, the company unveiled Project Sunroof, a tool that calculates your home's solar power potential using the same high-resolution aerial photos Google Earth uses to map the planet. After creating a 3-D model of your roof, the service estimates how much sun will hit those solar panels during the year and how much money the panels could save you over the next two decades. "People search Google all the time to learn about solar," says Google's Joel Conkling. "But it would be much more helpful if they could learn whether their particular roof is a good fit."

The service is now available for homes in the San Francisco Bay Area, central California, and the greater Boston area. Google is headquartered in California, you see, and project creator Carl Elkin lives in Boston. Based in the company's Cambridge offices, Elkin typically works on Google's search engine, but he developed Project Sunroof during his "20 percent time"—that slice of the work week Googlers can use for independent projects.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Multiple reports suggest that Impact Team has leaked around 9.6 to 10 gigabytes of data from the "cheating/affair website" Ashley Madison onto Tor sites (now available via BitTorrent). According to Ars Technica:

A 10-gigabyte file purportedly containing e-mails, member profiles, credit-card transactions and other sensitive Ashley Madison information became available as a BitTorrent download in the past few hours. Ars downloaded the massive file and it appeared to contain a trove of details taken from a clandestine dating site, but so far there is nothing definitively linking it to Ashley Madison. User data included e-mail addresses, profile descriptions, addresses provided by users, weight, and height. A separate file containing credit card transaction data didn't include full payment card numbers or billing addresses.

Rob Graham, CEO of Errata Security, said the dump also included user passwords that were cryptographically protected using the bcrypt hashing algorithm. That's among the most secure ways to store passwords, because bcrypt is extremely slow, a trait that requires crackers to devote vast amounts of time and computing resources. Still, it's highly likely a large percentage of the hashes will be cracked, given rampant use of weak passwords.

Ashley Madison officials have stopped short of confirming the published information was extracted from the breach.

"We have now learned that the individual or individuals responsible for this attack claim to have released more of the stolen data," they wrote in an e-mail to Ars. "We are actively monitoring and investigating this situation to determine the validity of any information posted online and will continue to devote significant resources to this effort. Furthermore, we will continue to put forth substantial efforts into removing any information unlawfully released to the public, as well as continuing to operate our business."

Previously: Adult 'Extracurricular Activity' Website AshleyMadison.com Hacked

Original Submission

takyon writes:

El Reg details developments surrounding the increasing worrisome state of Android security:

According to security company Rapid7, Google needs to rethink how it patches Android in the wake of initial botched attempts to resolve the Stagefright vulnerability.

The criticism comes as Google itself confirmed users of its Nexus devices – who are the first to get security fixes – won't be fully protected until September.

The Stagefright vulnerability for Android phones creates a means to infect devices simply by sending a booby-trapped MMS message. An estimated 950 million devices that run Android versions 2.2 through 5.1 are at risk. Version 4.1 and later have defences that mitigate, without eliminating, the possibility of a successful attack.

The Stagefright vuln, discovered by Zimperium, ultimately stems from flaws in code handling multimedia files.

Google released a six-pack update to resolve the Stagefright vulnerability last week, but it quickly emerged that one of the components was incomplete, so that even patched devices were still at risk.

These shortcomings have put back the whole security remediation process by weeks.

Original Submission