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takyon writes:

If you can't keep your smartphones updated, perhaps the solution to rampant security vulnerabilities is "cognitive computing technology" to block them:

Qualcomm announced that the first main application for its Zeroth neural chip will be a malware behavior analysis feature called "Qualcomm Snapdragon Smart Protect." The feature will be free for OEMs to use, but it will be up to them to enable it on shipping devices. Qualcomm's Zeroth chip uses "cognitive computing technology," which can enable "brain-inspired," on-device intelligence. The chip is meant to bring more natural interaction with devices and anticipate users' needs. Zeroth was designed to think like a biological brain and learn from its experiences in order to improve itself.

For instance, one of the first demos Qualcomm showed back in 2013 was a robot using Zeroth to find only white squares on a floor, but avoid other colored squares. The robot did this not because it was programmed in a certain specific way to reach the white squares, but because it "learned" by itself where the white squares would be. This is the main principle behind a neural processing unit (NPU) such as Zeroth, which is supposed to sit side-by-side a "traditional" CPU in devices.

The most exciting features that such a chip can provide will likely arrive later on, after developers have started using Qualcomm's Zeroth SDK to create innovative new mobile solutions that can improve people's lives. However, Qualcomm has already come up with what could be a solid use-case for Zeroth: malware behavior analysis. Qualcomm can use the brain-like cognitive power of the Zeroth platform to detect "abnormal behavior" on mobile devices, which can include zero-day malware or "transformational malware," about which anti-virus solutions either don't know or the malware was modified to bypass them (in the latter's case).

Related: Mobile World Congress 2015 Roundup

Original Submission

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

If you're like me and couldn't be arsed to make it up to Seattle this year but still dig you some gaming in general and PAX in particular, gamespot has a couple articles up covering the best cosplay and game related crap to buy there this year. As usual, there were way too many Deadpools.

Mind you, if you're looking for aggressive navels, you won't find them at PAX this year as they were banned. This didn't sit well with some on Twitter, thus the hashtag #PAXNavelPolicy was spawned by the wacky folks of #GamerGate for all your navel needs. Sic Semper Umbilicus.

Original Submission

CoolHand writes:

In an interesting mobile development, Linux.com reports that four new phones are shipping with cyanogen as their base.

After many delays, all four major mobile Linux alternatives to Android have finally arrived on smartphones. Mozilla's Firefox OS was first out of the gate two years ago, followed by Jolla's Sailfish OS, and this year they were joined by the first Ubuntu and Tizen phones. Yet, a fifth open source mobile Linux platform may have already eclipsed them all. The CyanogenMod flavor of Android is rapidly expanding from its role as the most popular alternative mobile phone mod for flashing onto Android phones to being a much sought after pre-installed OS.

This week, a UK-based company called Wileyfox joined a growing number of third-party vendors to tap the commercial Cyanogen OS 12.1 version of the fully open source CyanogenMod with its new Swift and Storm phones. Meanwhile, a Lenovo-backed Chinese startup called ZUK announced plans to ship an international version of its ZUK Z1 phone equipped with the same 12.1 Cyanogen build starting in September. CyanogenMod 12.1 is based on the latest Android 5.1.1 Lollipop platform.

Original Submission

The Mighty Buzzard writes:

I know it's not exactly a tech-related story but we do have a goodly bunch of people who grew up in the 80s here, so, here it is: Wes Craven died over the weekend.

Master of the modern horror film Wes Craven died on Sunday, his family announced. He was 76 and had battled brain cancer.

Craven, the artist behind “Nightmare on Elm Street,” the “Scream” movie series and many other modern horror masterpieces, remade the genre in contemporary film.

Craven reinvented the youth horror genre in 1984 with the classic “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” a film he wrote and directed that starred a then-unknown Johnny Depp. He conceived and co-wrote “A Nightmare on Elm Street III: Dream Warriors” as well.

Then after an absence of three more sequels, he deconstructed the genre a decade after the original, writing and directing the audacious “Wes Craven‘s New Nightmare,” which was nominated as Best Feature at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards.

Gives me a sad. Wes Craven movies were some of the very few scary movies that were anything but "meh" to me.

CoolHand writes:

The Linux Homefront Project reports on Lennart Poettering looking to do away with the good old "su" command. From the article, "With this pull request systemd now support a su command functional and can create privileged sessions, that are fully isolated from the original session. Su is a classic UNIX command and used more than 30 years. Why su is bad? Lennart Poettering says:"

Well, there have been long discussions about this, but the problem is that what su is supposed to do is very unclear. On one hand it’s supposed to open a new session and change a number of execution context parameters (uid, gid, env, …), and on the other it’s supposed to inherit a lot concepts from the originating session (tty, cgroup, audit, …). Since this is so weakly defined it’s a really weird mix&match of old and new paramters. To keep this somewhat managable we decided to only switch the absolute minimum over, and that excludes XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, specifically because XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is actually bound to the session/audit runtime and those we do not transition. Instead we simply unset it.

Long story short: su is really a broken concept. It will given you kind of a shell, and it’s fine to use it for that, but it’s not a full login, and shouldn’t be mistaken for one.

I'm guessing that Devuan won't be getting rid of "su."

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Most major cities now have their own versions of open streets events that temporarily transform streets into car-free freeways for the day. Some of these have gotten quite expansive: Each Sunday, Bogóta famously closes about 80 miles of streets. But Paris is hoping to best everyone next month by closing a large, contained portion of its urban core to all cars for a day.

La Journeé sans Voiture will be Sunday, September 27 from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm, limiting cars from a substantial area that includes much of the city’s center, around landmarks like the Eiffel Tower, and two major parks. (And, yes, of course, certain exceptions will be made for emergencies.)

Paris may be onto something here--NYC can be at its loveliest after a large snowfall stops all traffic. The concept could also be generalized to other frenetic activities in modern civilization, such as "No TV Day" or "Day Without Social Media."

takyon writes:

Money isn't everything, according to Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson's "increasingly despondent" tweets:

Shortly after the sale of Minecraft's parent company, Mojang's co-founder Markus Persson had reportedly left the studio in order to pursue other projects. Naturally, before immediately moving on to another enterprise, the man more affectionately known in the gaming community as "Notch" has taken several beats to reap the benefits of his success, outbidding Beyoncé and Jay-Z on a $70 million home, and hosting lavish parties in his newly acquired mansion. However, he's also been afforded plenty of time to reflect on how far he's come, and not surprisingly, it's quite lonely at the top.

Recently, Notch took to his Twitter account to air his grievances with the current situation in which he finds himself. Although Persson's net worth currently rests at $1.33 billion as of writing, the famous game designer has confessed that such prosperity has essentially cursed him in the grand scheme of things, as he's "never felt more isolated". Apparently what John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote all those years ago is true, and it's that money can't buy love. Taking that into consideration, Notch's Tweets grow increasingly despondent, as seen below.

[Extended Copy]

The problem with getting everything is you run out of reasons to keep trying, and human interaction becomes impossible due to imbalance.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015

Hanging out in ibiza with a bunch of friends and partying with famous people, able to do whatever I want, and I've never felt more isolated.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015

In sweden, I will sit around and wait for my friends with jobs and families to have time to do shit, watching my reflection in the monitor.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015

When we sold the company, the biggest effort went into making sure the employees got taken care of, and they all hate me now.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015

Found a great girl, but she's afraid of me and my life style and went with a normal person instead.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015

I would Musk and try to save the world, but that just exposes me to the same type of assholes that made me sell minecraft again.— Markus Persson (@notch) August 29, 2015

Original Submission

"gewg_" writes:

The Orange County Register reports:

The Orange County District Attorney Public Administrator's Office will auction off a unique horde of vehicles Tuesday [September 1] that belonged to a Buena Park plumber who died apparently without leaving any legal heirs.

The 69 vehicles, ranging from 1930s Ford Model A Roadsters to a 1965 Volkswagen van and an experimental aircraft, belonged to Gerald Willits who died in August 2014 at 76 of coronary artery disease.

[...] The vehicles can be viewed Monday [August 31] from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Public Administrator's Office parking lot at 1300 South Grand Ave. in Santa Ana [California]. The auction will be held in the parking lot Tuesday [September 1] at 10 a.m. Gates will open at 8 a.m. [...] If you can't wait, and want a sneak preview [...], check out our slideshow.

Previously: Vintage Vehicle Stockpile Found at Deceased Man's SoCal Home to be Sold

Original Submission

Appalbarry writes:

PC World reports on the story of an American teenager who has been sentenced to eleven years in jail and who will have his Internet use monitored by the government for the rest of his life.

His crime was to assume that his Constitutionally-protected Freedom of Speech included posting pro-ISIS messages on Twitter and other social media.

"Today's sentencing demonstrates that those who use social media as a tool to provide support and resources to ISIL will be identified and prosecuted with no less vigilance than those who travel to take up arms with ISIL," said U.S. Attorney Dana Boente...

[Ali Shukri Amin] created the Twitter account @AmreekiWitness in 2014, and used it to provide advice and encouragement to ISIS and its supporters, according to court documents. At one point the account had over 4,000 followers. He also helped other ISIS supporters who sought to travel to Syria to join the group, according to the Justice Department.

The question that Soylentils should ask is, "What groups do I belong to that someone in government might decide are 'terrorist', and am I at risk for speaking out?"

The Canadian government for instance has come within a hair of declaring prominent environmental groups to be terrorists.

Original Submission

"gewg_" sent us news that Phone Arena reports:

A pretty nice addition to [the third developer preview of the OS formerly known as Android M] is granular control over the permissions [which] each and every app requires upon installing it, giving Android users "meaningful choice of control". Just like in iOS, apps in Android 6.0 Marshmallow will only [allow] you to grant them a certain permission immediately before the app needs it and not in bulk during the installation, [as was the case] in previous Android installments.

[...] Android 6.0 Marshmallow officially introduces API Level 23, which is one of the requirements to have app permissions that can be granted on demand. All Android apps need to be updated [by their developers] so that they support the brand new API0 Level 23 libraries in order to introduce the individual granular app permissions.

SiliconANGLE notes that 6.0 is also getting native fingerprint support, a new power-saving mode, and Android Pay.
They also note

Hardly anyone with an existing Android phone will ever get to use [6.0].

[...] Android-powered devices rely on the manufacturer to update the operating system and the reality is that it rarely happens.

To put it more crudely, the Android update process is f**ked.

[...] [As Android remains open source and free to use,] Google can't force manufacturers to come to the party in terms of upgrades [any] more than it can force manufacturers to stop skinning their Android installs with their own custom user interfaces and software.

Release of Android 6.0 is expected in 2015Q4.

Phoenix666 writes:

Eating foods rich in amino acids could be as good for your heart as stopping smoking or getting more exercise -- according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

A new study published today reveals that people who eat high levels of certain amino acids found in meat and plant-based protein have lower blood pressure and arterial stiffness.

And the magnitude of the association is similar to those previously reported for lifestyle risk factors including salt intake, physical activity, alcohol consumption and smoking.

Researchers investigated the effect of seven amino acids on cardiovascular health among almost 2,000 women with a healthy BMI. Data came from TwinsUK -- the biggest UK adult twin registry of 12,000 twins which is used to study the genetic and environmental causes of age related disease.

They studied their diet and compared it to clinical measures of blood pressure and blood vessel thickness and stiffness.

Amino Acid Intake Is Inversely Associated with Arterial Stiffness and Central Blood Pressure in Women

HughPickens.com writes:

Alex Rubalcava writes that autonomous vehicles are the greatest force multiplier to emerge in decades for criminals and terrorists and open the door for new types of crime not possible today. According to Rubalcava, the biggest barrier to carrying out terrorist plans until now has been the risk of getting caught or killed by law enforcement so that only depraved hatred, or religious fervor has been able to motivate someone to take on those risks as part of a plan to harm other people. "A future Timothy McVeigh will not need to drive a truck full of fertilizer to the place he intends to detonate it," writes Rubalcava. "A burner email account, a prepaid debit card purchased with cash, and an account, tied to that burner email, with an AV car service will get him a long way to being able to place explosives near crowds, without ever being there himself." A recent example is instructive. Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev were identified by an examination of footage from numerous private security cameras that were recording the crowd in downtown Boston during the Marathon. Imagine if they could have dispatched their bombs in the trunk of a car that they were never in themselves? Catching them might have been an order of magnitude more difficult than it was.

According to Rubalcava "the reaction to the first car bombing using an AV is going to be massive, and it's going to be stupid. There will be calls for the government to issue a stop to all AV operations, much in the same way that the FAA made the unprecedented order to ground 4,000-plus planes across the nation after 9/11." He goes on to say that "unlike 9/11, which involved a decades-old transportation infrastructure, the first AV bombing will use an infrastructure in its infancy, one that will be much easier to shut down. That shutdown could stretch from temporary to quasi-permanent with ease, as security professionals grapple with the technical challenge of distinguishing between safe, legitimate payloads and payloads that are intended to harm."

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists are considering a captive breeding program to ensure the survival of an enigmatic little sea floor walking fish found only in Hobart's Derwent estuary.

Once widespread globally, the finger-sized spotted handfish is now confined to the Tasmanian waterway and may need an insurance population after recent surveys found its numbers were at dangerously low levels.

CSIRO senior research scientist Tim Lynch says the first complete survey of handfish colonies, an exhaustive run of 100 transects this winter in bone-chilling Derwent waters, found a total of just 79 fish.

The creature looks like something straight out of Dr. Seuss. On a different note, what is it about Tasmania and extinctions?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

From EurekAlert (Australian National University):

Physicists have found a radical new way [to] confine electromagnetic energy without it leaking away, akin to throwing a pebble into a pond with no splash. The theory could have broad ranging applications from explaining dark matter to combating energy losses in future technologies. However, it appears to contradict a fundamental tenet of electrodynamics, that accelerated charges create electromagnetic radiation, said lead researcher Dr Andrey Miroshnichenko from The Australian National University (ANU).

"This problem has puzzled many people. It took us a year to get this concept clear in our heads," said Dr Miroshnichenko, from the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering. The fundamental new theory could be used in quantum computers, lead to new laser technology and may even hold the key to understanding how matter itself hangs together.

"Ever since the beginning of quantum mechanics people have been looking for a configuration which could explain the stability of atoms and why orbiting electrons do not radiate," Dr Miroshnichenko said. The absence of radiation is the result of the current being divided between two different components, a conventional electric dipole and a toroidal dipole (associated with poloidal current configuration), which produce identical fields at a distance. If these two configurations are out of phase then the radiation will be cancelled out, even though the electromagnetic fields are non-zero in the area close to the currents.

Dr Miroshnichenko, in collaboration with colleagues from Germany and Singapore, successfully tested his new theory with a single silicon nanodiscs between 160 and 310 nanometres in diameter and 50 nanometres high, which he was able to make effectively invisible by cancelling the disc's scattering of visible light.

Nonradiating anapole modes in dielectric nanoparticles and arXiv PDF.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

In the not-too-distant future, patients with damaged hearts or livers might receive tissue patches grown in a lab. This week, researchers announced an important development toward that goal: A biodegradable scaffold that allows strips of beating heart tissue to snap together like Velcro.

We've gotten pretty good at growing human cells in vitro, but scaling up to tissues and organs presents a few major challenges. One, coaxing a cluster of cells to take on their proper, functional arrangement in a petri dish. Heart-forming cardiomycetes, for instance, all need to line up in the same direction in order to beat together. Two, building lab-grown tissues out in three dimensions. Biomedical researchers use scaffolds to grow thin sheets of tissue, but to be useful for human transplants, these sheets need to stack together.

The new scaffold, developed by researchers at the University of Toronto and published this week in Science Advances, could solve both of these challenges. The scaffold's honeycomb shape provides a template that causes groups of cells to line up in the same direction. Affixed to the top of each scaffold are a series of T-shaped posts, which serve to hook layers of cells together. The design was inspired by Velcro, which in turn takes inspiration from the burrs some plants use to hitch their seeds onto animals.

Also at University of Toronto Engineering News.

Platform technology for scalable assembly of instantaneously functional mosaic tissues [full paper]

Original Submission