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iWantToKeepAnon writes:

Destin Sandlin (of SmarterEveryDay) has posted another video interview with Station Cmdr Scott Kelly. This time it is an International Space Station Tour (from Earth in Houston's ISS mockup).

Previous article featuring interview with Kelly

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Phoenix666 writes:

But even though Google Fiber is expanding slowly, the service is having an effect in lots of other cities. That's because existing providers such as Comcast and AT&T are rolling out their own super-fast Internet services in cities where Google Fiber is being built, or where Google is rumored to be considering a build.

Last year AT&T began offering gigabit fiber service in Austin, at about the same time that Google Fiber began accepting signups. And earlier in the year AT&T announced that it was considering expanding gigabit fiber service to 100 cities in 21 metro areas, mostly in southern and western states.

Ahem...New York City?

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"gewg_" writes:

TechDirt reports

Back in July we noted how the city of Chicago was hoping to cash in on streaming services by imposing a new tax on Netflix [...] expanding [the city's] 9% "amusement tax" authority (traditionally covering book stores, music stores, ball games, and other brick and mortar entertainment) to cover any service that interacts with the cloud. While the new ruling was supposed to technically take effect September 1, Chicago recently announced it was postponing portions of the new tax until next year to field criticism and manage plan logistics.

While Chicagoans wait, the city's now on the receiving end of a new lawsuit (pdf) by the Liberty Justice Center, which claims that Chicago is violating the law in two ways:

One, the lawsuit claims that the city aldermen violated city rules by not holding a full vote on the changes.

Two, the lawsuit states that Chicago's tax grab also violates the Internet Freedom Tax Act, which prohibits local, state, and federal governments from enacting "internet taxes".

The plaintiffs are quick to note that actually putting the idea to a public vote likely wouldn't end well for the city:

"No aldermen voted on this tax. It never went before the Chicago City Council, which makes the so-called 'Netflix tax' an illegal tax", Jeffrey Schwab, an attorney with the Liberty Justice Center, said in a news release Thursday. "If the city wants to tax Internet-based streaming media services, then it should put the measure through the political process, and let Chicagoans have their voices heard through the democratic process."

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takyon writes:

Apple's September 16th release of watchOS 2 for the Apple Watch has been delayed:

"We have discovered a bug in development of watchOS 2 that is taking a bit longer to fix than we expected," an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch. "We will not release watchOS 2 today but will shortly."

Anandtech notes that Apple Watch "is managed from your iPhone and has no way to be connected to iTunes by a user for a restore [so] it's extremely important that Apple ensures the stability of updates before shipping them".

According to other sources, iOS9 will be released on schedule.

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basstard writes:

A cup of coffee in the evening may be keeping you awake for more reasons than you realise, scientists say.

Their study, in Science Translation Medicine, showed caffeine was more than just a stimulant and actually slowed down the body's internal clock. A double espresso three hours before bedtime delayed the production of the sleep hormone melatonin by about 40 minutes, making it harder to nod off. Experts said our own actions had a huge influence on sleep and the body clock.

One of the researchers, Dr John O'Neill, from the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, told the BBC News website: "If you're tired and having a coffee at night to stay awake, then that is a bad idea, you'll find it harder to go to sleep and get enough sleep." In his half of the study, cells grown in a dish were exposed to caffeine to work out how it changed their ability to keep time. It showed the drug was able to alter the chemical clocks ticking away in every cell of the human body.

Meanwhile, five people at the University of Colorado Boulder, in the US, were locked in a sleep laboratory for 50 days. And as light exposure is the main way we normally control our body clock, they spent most of their incarceration in very dim light. In a series of experiments over the month and a half, the scientists showed that an evening dose of caffeine slowed the body clock by 40 minutes. It had roughly half the impact of three hours of bright light at bedtime.

Dr O'Neill said it would be "complete speculation" to set a cut-off time for drinking caffeine in the evening but he personally never drank coffee after 17:00. He said the findings may help treat some sleep disorders and people who naturally woke up too early - known as larks - to help keep them in sync with the rest of the world.

"It could be useful with jet lag if you are flying east to west where taking caffeine at the right time of day might speed up the time it takes to overcome jet lag," he added. Prof Derk-Jan Dijk, from the University of Surrey, told the BBC: "Individuals differ in their sensitivity to caffeine, and if coffee drinkers experience problems with falling asleep, they may try to avoid drinking coffee in the afternoon and evening." He added that people "too often" thought they were a "slave" to their body clocks and programmed to wake up early or late.

"These and other data clearly indicate that we can to some extent modify these rhythms and that part of the reason why we sleep so late relates to factors such as caffeine intake and the exposure to artificial light in the evening," he said.

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Marine population halved since 1970 - report

basstard writes:

BBC writes, that populations of marine mammals, birds, fish and reptiles have declined by 49% since 1970:

The study says some species people rely on for food are faring even worse, noting a 74% drop in the populations of tuna and mackerel. In addition to human activity such as overfishing, the report also says climate change is having an impact. The document was prepared by the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London.

"Human activity has severely damaged the ocean by catching fish faster than they can reproduce while also destroying their nurseries," said Marco Lambertini, head of WWF International.

The report says that sea cucumbers - seen as a luxury food throughout Asia - have seen a significant fall in numbers, with a 98% in the Galapagos and 94% drop in the Red Sea over the past few years. The study notes the decline of habitats - such as seagrass areas and mangrove cover - which are important for food and act as a nursery for many species. Climate change has also played a role in the overall decline of marine populations. The report says carbon dioxide is being absorbed into the oceans, making them more acidic, damaging a number of species. The authors analysed more than 1,200 species of marine creatures in the past 45 years.

Worldwide Fish Populations Have Halved in the Last 40 Years

Phoenix666 writes:

The World Wildlife Foundation 2015 report states [PDF]:

The marine Living Planet Index (LPI) presented here is roughly in line with the global LPI, which shows a 52 per cent decline in vertebrate populations since 1970. That alone should set off alarm bells. But it's what's hidden in the overall marine LPI that foretells an impending social and economic crisis.

When we look at the fish species most directly tied to human well-being – the fish that constitute up to 60 per cent of protein intake in coastal countries, supporting millions of small-scale fishers as well as a global multibillion-dollar industry – we see populations in a nosedive. The habitats they depend on, such as coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses, are equally threatened.

The picture is now clearer than ever: humanity is collectively mismanaging the ocean to the brink of collapse. Considering the ocean's vital role in our economies and its essential contribution to food security – particularly for poor, coastal communities – that's simply unacceptable. Could the economic implications of the collapse of the ocean's ecosystems trigger the next global recession or undermine the progress we have made on eradicating poverty?

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mendax writes:

Wired has an article that exposes what many of us already know: Voting machines in the United States are out-of-date, horrid, and often don't work:

As the US presidential election season heats up, the public has focused on the candidates vying for the nation's top office. But whether Donald Trump will secure the Republican nomination is secondary to a more serious quandary: whether the nation's voting machines will hold up when Americans head to the polls in 2016.

Nearly every state is using electronic touchscreen and optical-scan voting systems that are at least a decade old, according to a report by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Beyond the fact the machines are technologically antiquated, after years of wear and tear, states are reporting increasing problems with degrading touchscreens, worn-out modems for transmitting election results, and failing motherboards and memory cards.

States using machines that are at least 15 years old include Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, which means they are far behind even a casual tech user in keeping pace with technological advancements.

Most of us here know how decrepit computers can be as they get older, as capacitors dry out, soldered connections start to come loose, and external connectors oxidize or wear out. (The fact that I'm writing this on an 8-year-old iMac amazes me.) One wonders if election authorities gave this any thought as they plowed thousands of dollars per machine into a system of voting that would fail after only a couple election cycles.

As for myself, I vote by mail, using a paper ballot. Kind of hard for that voting system to break down.

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CoolHand writes:

Researches have created a strain of yeast with THC, as well as other parts of marijuana.

In August, researchers announced they had genetically engineered yeast to produce the powerful painkiller hydrocodone. Now comes the perhaps inevitable sequel: Scientists have created yeasts that can make important constituents of marijuana, including the main psychoactive compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC.

Synthetic versions of THC are available in pill form under brand names like Marinol and Cesamet; they are generally used to treat nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite caused by H.I.V. infection or cancer chemotherapy. Genetically modified yeast could make THC in a cheaper and more streamlined way than traditional chemical synthesis.

Using yeast could also shed light on the clinical usefulness of cannabis-derived compounds. Marijuana is increasingly embraced as medicine, yet there is limited evidence that it is effective against many of the conditions for which it is prescribed. Researchers hoping to separate fact from wishful thinking will need much better access to marijuana's unique constituents. Modified yeast may provide them.

Why can't they just legalize cannabis, and none of this would be necessary?

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takyon writes:

The European Space Agency's (ESA's) Philae technical manager Koen Geurts and operations manager Cinzia Fantinati have written a blog post about ongoing efforts to restore contact with the Philae lander on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko:

Since Rosetta's lander Philae first woke up from hibernation and called 'home' on 13 June, the teams at the Lander Control Center (LCC – DLR), the Science Operations and Navigation Center (SONC – CNES), the Max-Planck Institute (MPS – Göttingen) and the Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics (Wigner Research Centre for Physics – Budapest) have been working with ESA's Rosetta Mission Operations Centre (RMOC – ESOC) and the Rosetta Science Ground Segment (RSGS – ESAC), and in close cooperation with the Philae and Rosetta scientists, to establish regular and predictable contacts with Philae, and to resume scientific measurements.

The ESA is attempting to patch Philae so that it only uses its primary transmitter unit, TX1, instead of switching to a likely short-circuiting TX2 after TX1 times out.

It has been previously suggested that Philae's less-than-ideal landing spot may have protected the craft from being destroyed by the Sun.

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Phoenix666 writes:

In ongoing research to record the interaction of environment and evolution, a team led by University of California, Riverside biologist David Reznick has found new information illustrating the evolution of a population of guppies.

Working in a river in Trinidad, the researchers determined which male guppies would contribute more offspring to the population as well as which would live longer and which would have a shorter lifespan.
...
The new work is part of research that Reznick has been doing since 1978. It involved transplanting guppies from a river with a diverse community of predators into a river with no predators -- except for one other fish species, an occasional predator -- to record how the guppies would evolve and how they might impact their environment.
...
To do this, the team, which includes Reznick's former graduate student Swanne P. Gordon and two undergraduates working in his lab, used scales from the guppies to archive their DNA. When they returned the guppies to the river and new unmarked guppies showed up, the latter were marked and samples of their scales were taken for study. In this way the team tracked the guppies' differential success in making babies and surviving.

"We could look at their appearance and see how male color pattern affected their ability to make babies or to survive," Reznick said. "We used the DNA from the scales to identify who their parents were. That means we could reconstruct their pedigree and eventually know over time their success for contributing offspring."

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mendax writes:

... or so some web pages are now saying according to an article published by El Reg:

The Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post has become the largest newspaper to refuse to serve readers who filter out advertisments.

The Post described it as "a short test" to gauge what users who use blocked blockers will do next. "Often, we run tests like this not in reaction to a problem, but to learn," said the paper in a statement.

Last week, Google also began to nuke the filters used to block preroll ads on its YouTube service. For extra punishment, YouTube viewers using AdBlock Plus had to sit through the full ad, by disabling the 'Skip Ad' button.

Around one in seven surfers use ad-blocking software, although the proportion rises when the demographic mix skews towards middle class and wealthy, and young and male, according to the latest annual PageFair report... into ad filters.

There is a reason why people use ad blockers. Sometimes it's for purposes of sanity, to avoid the very annoying auto-playing ads that more and more web sites now host. Others block them for security purposes, limiting one's exposure to the nastiness that can sometimes come from unscrupulous advertisers. Still others block them to reduce the draw on their precious bandwidth, especially those who get throttled if they use their monthly limit. Perhaps the Washington Post should be more careful with who they sell advertising to and more strictly limit the format of the adverts their sponsors pay them to publish instead of punishing those who block all of them.

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Phoenix666 writes:

About a year ago, Hewlett-Packard unveiled plans to split into two companies, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, encompassing software and services, and HP Inc., a PC and printer business. Research activities previously housed in HP Labs would go with the business units. That split will become official on 1 November.

Today, the company announced that this restructuring will involve reducing the workforce by 25,000 to 30,000 people, or 10 percent. Most of those jobs will be eliminated on the Enterprise side.

Perhaps these employees can fill the tech worker shortfall that is driving Facebook and others to call for expanding the H1B system.

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HughPickens.com writes:

Matthew Yglesias writes at Vox that Apple's recent announcement of an entry level iPhone 6S is a serious strategic mistake because it contains just 16GB of storage - an amount that was arguably too low even a couple of years back. According to Yglesias, the user experience of an under-equipped iPhone can be quite bad, and the iPhone 6S comes with features — like the ability to shoot ultra-HD video — that are going to fill up a 16GB phone in the blink of an eye. "It's not too hard to figure out what Apple is up to here," writes Yglesias. "Leaving the entry-level unit at 16GB of storage rather than 32GB drives higher profit margins in two ways. One, it reduces the cost of manufacturing the $649 phone, which increases profit margins on sales of the lowest-end model. Second, and arguably more important, it pushes a lot of people who might be happy with a 32GB phone to shell out $749 for the 64GB model."

But this raises the question of what purpose is served by Apple amassing more money anyhow. Apple pays out large (and growing) sums of cash to existing shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks, but its enormous cash stockpile keeps remorselessly marching up toward $200 billion. "Killing the 16GB phone and replacing it with a 32GB model at the low end would obtain things money can't buy — satisfied customers, positive press coverage, goodwill, a reputation for true commitment to excellence, and a demonstrated focus on the long term. A company in Apple's enviable position ought to be pushing the envelop forward on what's considered an acceptable baseline for outfitting a modern digital device, not squeezing extra pennies out of customers for no real reason."

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takyon writes:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging the Department of Justice to deny a grant to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). The grant would allow the department to pay for 700 body cameras:

Los Angeles could also become the largest city in the country to use body cameras on a wide scale. LAPD has already purchased 860 cameras using private donations and plans to purchase 7,000 cameras total. The city has a goal of outfitting every LAPD officer with a body camera.

But amid these ambitious plans, LAPD has enacted a body camera use policy that runs completely counter to every reason to employ body cameras in the first place. At its heart, the policy appears designed to protect law enforcement officers rather than members of the public who they have sworn to serve.

The policy fails for four main reasons:

• It does not provide for any public access to body camera video—even in cases of shootings or alleged misconduct. In fact, LAPD has made clear that it will not release video footage unless required to do so in court—or unless the chief, in his discretion, believes it would be "beneficial."
• It not only permits but requires officers to review body camera footage before they write up their reports—even before they provide an initial statement to investigators when they are involved in critical uses of force or accused of grave misconduct.
• It has no consequences for officers who fail to turn on their cameras during use-of-force incidents.
• It provides no clear rules to prevent LAPD from using body cameras as a tool to surveil the public at large. It doesn't address the use of back-end analysis tools such as facial recognition on footage; nor does it provide guidelines for use of the cameras during First Amendment-protected activity.

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Phoenix666 writes:

UK defense firm Selex ES on Tuesday unveiled an electromagnetic shield designed to defeat commercial drones.

After three years of development, Selex's Falcon Shield system made its public debut during the Defence and Security Equipment International exhibition in London.

The firm did not explain in great detail the proprietary technology, which was developed with military customers, but said drones can be detected, taken over and then flown to land safely away from the target being protected.

What if you lock the drone's controls upon launch?

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martyb writes:

Reports are coming in about a massive earthquake off the coast of Chile. A tsunami advisory has been issued for Hawaii:

BASED ON ALL AVAILABLE DATA A MAJOR TSUNAMI IS NOT EXPECTED TO STRIKE THE STATE OF HAWAII. HOWEVER...SEA LEVEL CHANGES AND STRONG CURRENTS MAY OCCUR ALONG ALL COASTS THAT COULD BE A HAZARD TO SWIMMERS AND BOATERS AS WELL AS TO PERSONS NEAR THE SHORE AT BEACHES AND IN HARBORS AND MARINAS.

Here is the USGS (US Geological Survey) page for the initial 8.3 earthquake. Aftershocks have also been reported.

According to the BBC:

The earthquake struck just off the coast at 19:54 local times (22:54 GMT), about 55km west of the city of Illapel, the US Geological Survey said. Officials said it was at the depth of about 10km.

The US Geological Survey initially reported the tremor as magnitude 7.9, but then quickly revised the reading to 8.3. Several strong aftershocks were reported just minutes later.

Illapel Mayor Denis Cortes reported that one person was killed by a collapsing wall, and 15 other people were injured.

[...] "Tsunami waves reaching more than three metres above the tide level are possible along some coasts of Chile," the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center warned.

The earthquake struck as thousands of Chileans have been travelling to the coast ahead of a week of celebrations of the national holidays, or Fiestas Patrias. Tsunami alerts were also issued for Peru and Hawaii.

According to Wired:

The National Tsunami Warning Center has warned that Chile's shorelines could experience tsunamis exceeding nine feet. "That might not sound like much, but a tsunami wave has all the weight of the ocean behind it," says Scott Langley, an electronics technician with the National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska. "This isn't something you want to go out and ride with your surfboard."

Since the initial quake, the USGS has reported four aftershocks, ranging from 5.7 to 6.4 moment magnitude.

Separately, we reported back on April 26th that a Magnitude 7.8 Quake in Nepal Kills At Least 1800, Aftershocks Continue. I happened to speak with someone from Nepal yesterday who told me they are still receiving magnitude 6-plus aftershocks.

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Sex With Robots: Unethical?

Both takyon and Phoenix666 write in with the same story:

Anthropologist Dr. Kathleen Richardson has launched a campaign against sex with robots:

A campaign has been launched to ban sex robots – or, at least, robot prostitutes. And, actually, human prostitution as well. Maybe it's actually about prostitution and not about robots at all. Talking to The Register, Dr Kathleen Richardson informed us of her campaign to ban the development of robots designed to be used for sex. Dr Richardson contends that sex droids would strongly contribute to the continuing plight of prostituted women and children. Richardson is a senior research fellow, focusing on the ethics of robotics, at De Montfort University. She is not a robot herself, despite the BBC's description of her as "a robot ethicist".

Dr Richardson's background is not in robotics or engineering but anthropology, in which subject she holds an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge. She said that use of sex-bots is deeply connected to the use of prostituted women. She explained to El Reg that it was in investigating the manufacture of sex-robots that she initially became concerned about the philosophy going into the creation of robo-whores. "The relationship that is being imported," by the sex-bot developers is one that has come directly from that between "prostitutes and johns" according to Richardson, who finds it "very disturbing".

In a paper titled "The Asymmetrical 'Relationship': Parallels Between Prostitution and the Development of Sex Robots", Richardson proposes "that prostitution is no ordinary activity and relies on the ability to use a person as a thing and this is why parallels between sex robots and prostitution are so frequently found by their advocates."

Asked whether it it might be more appropriate to consider robo-whores as sex toys, which would most typically be considered a private and solitary part of human sexual activity, Richardson stressed the opposite. "To call them toys is to understate the issue," she said. "It's not as if it's a Barbie." Dr Richardson also surprisingly offered the idea that there may be some form of exploitation involved in the manufacture of My Little Pony dolls. "The better term is 'sex object'," said Dr Richardson, who emphasised that the objectification of prostitutes in the prostitute/john relationship is one that's mimicked in the relationship between sex-robots and their owners.

Questioned whether objectification was worthy of concern when actual objects were involved, rather than people who were treated like objects, Richardson turned away from the actual issue of banning robots - stating again that sex toys, and sex robots, exist because of prostitution. "We must abolish prostitution," she said.

Video: Robots are for pr0n.

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