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takyon writes:

Wired and Gizmodo have named Craig Steven Wright (along with deceased American computer forensics expert Dave Kleiman) as the inventor of Bitcoin, known by the apparent pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto. Hours after their stories were published, the man's home was raided by the Australian Federal Police:

The latest attempt came this week from Wired magazine. Except this time, the story based its findings on numerous recorded links between the man and the identity of Nakamoto, through leaked emails, old blog posts and public documents. And then, just hours later, a twin story from tech website Gizmodo: more emails and documents, independent research, similar findings.

Their shared conclusion: It's probably a man named Craig Steven Wright, an Australian entrepreneur and academic, working with American computer forensics expert David Kleiman until his death in 2013.

And then, another few hours later: reports from Reuters and The Guardian that Australian police have raided Wright's home and office in Sydney. The authorities told The Guardian that the execution of search warrants was "to assist the Australian Taxation Office" but the "matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin."

The Register has some more details about Wright:

[More after the break.]

takyon writes:

Sales of Ethernet switches remain flat, but the market for 40 gigabit per second switches is increasing:

The total Q3 Ethernet switch market revenue was $6.1 billion, just two per cent higher than for the same quarter in 2014, and the enterprise share slipped from Q2 to Q3 by 7.2 per cent.

North America was the best place to be selling switches in 2015, with IDC saying is rose 8.2 per cent year-on-year. The Asia-Pac rose 3.9 per cent, China by 3.6 per cent, and Western Europe was nearly flat at 0.8 per cent.

[...] A bright spot for vendors is that customers seem to be drinking the 40 Gbps kool-aid. While 10 Gbps port shipments rose by 27.4 per cent, prices are falling, so the segment value dipped by 1.6 per cent. The 40 Gbps segment, on the other hand, rose 41.4 per cent year-on-year to a value of $644 million.

More info about 25 Gigabit Ethernet (and 50), and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (and 40).

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Qualcomm could face as much as a $2.7 billion fine (10% of its 2014 global revenues) if found guilty of new European Commission antitrust charges:

The European Commission (EC) [has] charged Qualcomm with violating antitrust rules in the European Union (EU). The EC said that Qualcomm abused its powers to thwart rivals by paying OEM customers to buy chips exclusively from the company.

Earlier this year, Qualcomm was found guilty with violating antitrust laws in China as well, and it was forced to pay a record $1 billion fine. China accused Qualcomm of maintaining royalty rates for 3G and 4G technologies that were too high. The Chinese government demanded that alongside the $1 billion fine, Qualcomm would also have to lower its license prices for its patents by a third.

Qualcomm is also being investigated for its licensing prices in Japan and South Korea. The EU also investigated Qualcomm for unreasonably high licensing prices in 2009, but it ended up dropping that investigation.

This time, the antitrust accusations in the EU are different and much more damning for the company. The EU's competition enforcer said that Qualcomm may have illegally paid a major customer for exclusively using its chips. It also said that Qualcomm sold chipsets below cost to drive competitors out of the market, which is a strategy that is called "predatory pricing."

The predatory pricing accusation came from Icera, a maker of software-defined radio technology. The company was later acquired by Nvidia but could never successfully break into the modem market, which is why Nvidia later decided to sell it.

Previously: EU Investigates Qualcomm For Antitrust Activities

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Mike McPhate reports in The New York Times that two home shopping industry veterans, Valerie Castle and Doug Bornstein, are set to premier GunTV, a new 24-Hour shopping channel for guns, that aims to take the QVC approach of peppy hosts pitching "a vast array of firearms," as well as related items like bullets, holsters and two-way radios. The new cable channel hopes to help satisfy Americans' insatiable appetite for firearms. The channel's forthcoming debut might seem remarkably ill-timed, given recent shootings at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs and at a social services center in San Bernardino, California but gun sales have been rising for years, with nearly 21 million background checks performed in 2014, and they appear on track to a new record this year. The boom has lately been helped by a drumbeat of mass shootings, whose attendant anxiety has only driven more people into the gun store.

The proposed schedule of programming allots an eight-minute segment each hour to safety public service announcements in between proposed segments on topics like women's concealed weapon's apparel, big-game hunting and camping. Buying a Glock on GunTV won't be quite like ordering a pizza. When a firearm is purchased, a distributor will send it to a retailer near the buyer, where it has to be picked up in person and a federal background check performed. "We saw an opportunity in filling a need, not creating one," says Castle. "The vast majority of people who own and use guns in this country, whether it's home protection, recreation or hunting, are responsible .... I don't really know that it's going to put more guns on the streets."

Critics suggest that Gun TV could make the decision to purchase a weapon seem trivial—on the same level as ordering a Snuggie or a vertical egg cooker. "Buying a gun is a serious decision," says Laura Cutilletta, senior staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "If you are going to buy a gun for your home, it's not a decision you should be making at three in the morning because you are watching TV."

Original Submission

tt0181984 writes:

According to multiple sources close to Overstock, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a S-3 filing for online retailer Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) to issue new publicly traded shares of the company on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Overstock's t0 (tee-zero) platform has been working on bringing equity trades and settlement to the blockchain since it was first announced in April 2015. In July, Overstock sold the first cryptobond on the blockchain. As a proof of concept, FNY Managed Accounts agreed to buy the $5 million bond, with assurances in place in case the technology failed.

The t0 platform is built utilizing colored coin technology, which allows for fractions of bitcoin to be used to track ownership of many assets besides bitcoin. For example, a colored coin could be used as a token to prove that an individual owns shares of Overstock. This technology is built on top of the Bitcoin blockchain and is secured by the distributed public ledger.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

David Miranda is appealing a court decision that upheld the legality of his detention while carrying Snowden documents in 2013:

David Miranda, the partner of the former Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, has launched a fresh appeal challenging the legality of his detention under counter-terrorism powers for nine hours at Heathrow airport in 2013. The hearing at the court of appeal in London is an attempt to overturn an earlier decision by a lower court that holding him under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 was lawful.

Around 60,000 people a year are held in such controversial port stops. The Home Office has argued that border controls exist to check on travellers where there is insufficient information to justify an arrest.

Miranda's first legal challenge was supported by The Guardian. This court of appeal challenge is funded by First Look Media, which publishes the online magazine the Intercept . The organisation said the appeal had been brought to defend freedom of expression and journalists' rights.

When Miranda was stopped in August 2013, he was carrying encrypted files containing journalistic material derived from the US National Security Agency contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, his lawyer told the appeal court.

[...] Last year three high court judges dismissed the challenge brought by Miranda, accepting that his detention and the seizure of computer material was "an indirect interference with press freedom" but said this was justified by legitimate and "very pressing" interests of national security.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft is being deployed to Singapore amid growing tensions over territorial claims in the South China Sea:

The United States has deployed a P-8 Poseidon spy plane to Singapore for the first time. It is the latest in a series of US military actions seen as a response to China's increasingly assertive claims over territory in the South China Sea.

The US says it will also base a military reconnaissance plane at Singapore's Paya Lebar air base. US P-8s already operate from Japan and the Philippines, and surveillance flights have taken off from Malaysia. The P-8 was deployed on Monday, and will remain in Singapore until 14 December.

In addition to the P-8 deployment, the US says it will operate a military plane, either a P-8 Poseidon or a P-3 Orion, from Singapore for the foreseeable future, rotating planes on a quarterly basis. The US-Singapore agreement, announced after a meeting in Washington on Monday between US Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Singapore Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen, also covers co-operation on counter-terrorism, fighting piracy, and disaster relief.

Previously: China's Island Factory
China Builds Artificial Islands in South China Sea
Chinese Weaponry Spotted on Artificial Islands

Original Submission

"gewg_" writes:

Public Citizen reports via Common Dreams

[The decision on December 7 by the] World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling against the U.S. country-of-origin meat labels (COOL) that consumers rely on to make informed choices about their food, provides a glaring example of how trade agreements can undermine U.S. public interest policies, [said Public Citizen]. How the Obama administration responds to the WTO ruling will have a significant impact on its efforts to build congressional and public support for the controversial Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

In his May 2015 speech at Nike headquarters, President Barack Obama said that critics' warnings that the TPP could "undermine American regulation--food safety, worker safety, even financial regulations" was "just not true". [Obama] said: "They're making this stuff up. No trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws."

"Today's ruling makes clear that trade agreements can--and do--threaten even the most favored U.S. consumer protections", said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch. "We hope that President Obama stands by his claim that 'no trade agreement is going to force us to change our laws', but in fact rolling back U.S. consumer and environmental safeguards has been exactly what past presidents have done after previous retrograde trade pact rulings."

In response to previous WTO rulings, the United States has rolled back U.S. Clean Air Act regulations on gasoline cleanliness rules successfully challenged by Venezuela and Mexico and Endangered Species Act rules relating to shrimping techniques that kill sea turtles after a successful challenge by Malaysia and other nations. The U.S. also altered auto fuel efficiency (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards that were successfully challenged by the European Union. After the final WTO ruling against the policy in May, Obama's Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also contradicted Obama's claim, announcing: "Congress has got to fix this problem. They either have to repeal or modify and amend it."

Original Submission

frojack writes:

The LA Times and just about every news outlet has a story about a Supreme Court case which could change how election districts are drawn up.

The case centers around districts with heavy concentrations of people not eligible to vote (generally illegal aliens). These are counted by the census, and that district gets legislative representation based on their presence, even when there are fewer actual voters in those districts. The plaintiffs claim this give more weight to voters in such district, over an equal number of voters in other districts.

Do Soylentils see the allocation of election districts as a process to distribute legislative seats equally over the number of voters, or equally over the number of people (regardless of whether those people can vote or not)? (Or is this where we launch off on the usual discussions of a total redesign of the US Voting system to some totally different mathematical model?)

Original Submission

joekiser writes:

Mozilla announced earlier today that they will be cancelling the Firefox OS effort, and will cease creation of new smartphones.

From Techcrunch:

To differentiate from Android and iOS, Mozilla and its carrier partners focused on a web-first platform, with no native and only web apps. Sales, however, were always poor and the devices themselves failed to ignite a lot of consumer interest, and a number of OEMs cornered the market with a flood of cheap handsets. In a business that depends on economies of scale, it was a failure.

This comes a week after gauging interest in spinning off Thunderbird. Is Mozilla's new focus on becoming privacy-oritented enough to save the struggling company? What experience did SoylentNews users have with FirefoxOS? I'll admit, I was optimistic and even owned a ZTE Open for a few months back in 2013, but it was a step down from my feature phone at the time (Nokia Asha 311) and ZTE never delivered on the promise to provide updates to the OS.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google Fiber Internet service may be expanding to the Los Angeles and Chicago areas in the future:

Google Fiber, Alphabet's fast Internet service, said Tuesday it is planning to come to Los Angeles and Chicago, the second and third-largest U.S. cities by population, if they pass a long review.

"While we can't guarantee that we'll be able to bring Fiber to Chicago and L.A., this is a big step for these cities and their leaders," Jill Szuchmacher, director of Google Fiber's expansion efforts, wrote in a blog. "Expansion planning for a project of this size is a huge undertaking."

There are now 20 cities where Google Fiber is providing service already, building its network or considering building, including Atlanta and Austin. The 20 metro areas contain about 5% of the total U.S. population and include six of the 10 largest U.S. cities by population. Its expansion plans have become a lot more aggressive since Google re-organized itself into the Alphabet holding company earlier this year. The goal is to give newer businesses more freedom to invest while making them more accountable for their financial performance.

The Los Angeles Times reckons that Google will be looking for concessions:

[More after the break.]

Snow writes:

Hey Soylentils,

One of my least favorite parts of my job is on call work. I'm wondering if there are any standard practices when it comes to afterhour on call work. At the moment, I am on call 50% of the time. (I share it with one other person). When I am on call, I am expected to answer the ticket within 15 minutes, which means:

- I can't leave the city
- Going to a restaurant/movie/etc is a gamble.
- Sometimes I have to drop whatever I'm doing and answer a call.

Thankfully, I don't get many calls -- Maybe one per week that I can resolve in 30 minutes. In exchange for carrying the pager, I am paid a flat rate of $250CAD/week. After taxes, it works out to more like $150. I am sick to death of carrying the pager. I hate being restricted in my movements on my time off. I like to get out to the mountains, and because of pager, I can't.

Now, there are rumors that the company might remove that $250/week because of "the economic times". That basically would mean that I am giving up my freedom 50% of the time for nothing, and that I should be happy to have a job. Needless to say, I'm a little upset at that prospect...

So, Soylentils, what are your pager practices? Do you get paid for on call work? What happens if you miss a call? Do you have a backup on-call person? Do you get time off in lieu?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Following the recent reorganization of AMD's (Advanced Micro Devices) GPU assets under the Radeon Technologies Group (RTG), AMD is talking about its 2016 GPU plans.

2016 Radeon GPUs will support DisplayPort 1.3 & HDMI 2.0a. DisplayPort 1.3 will allow for 5K and even 8K resolution over a single cable, as well as 4K at the higher refresh rates (75+ Hz) needed for AMD's FreeSync Low Framerate Compensation to work. FreeSync will also work over HDMI (which is cheaper and more commonly used than DisplayPort):

Implemented over a customized version of HDMI 1.4a and utilizing a prototype Realtek timing controller, AMD was able to demonstrate variable refresh rate technology running over HDMI. At the time of the presentation AMD was very clear that the purpose of the presentation was to shop around the concept and to influence the various members of the HDMI consortium, but they were also clear that bringing variable refresh rate tech to HDMI was something the company wanted to bring to retail sooner than later. Sooner, as it turns out, was the operative word there. As part of their presentation last week, RTG has announced that FreeSync over HDMI will be heading to retail, and that it will be doing so very soon: Q1'16. This is just a year after the first DisplayPort adaptive sync monitors hit retail, which for a display technology is a rather speedy turnaround from proof of concept to retail product.

The first FreeSync-capable laptop, the Lenovo Y700, was announced by the RTG, however it only supports a small range from 40 Hz to 60 Hz.

[More after the break.]

HughPickens.com writes:

David Sharp reports at the Boston Globe that the the futuristic 600-foot, 15,000-ton USS Zumwalt, the largest destroyer ever built for the US Navy is heading out to sea for the first time for sea trials. The ship has electric propulsion, new radar and sonar, powerful missiles and guns, and a stealthy design to reduce its radar signature. Advanced automation will allow the warship to operate with a much smaller crew size than current destroyers. ''We are absolutely fired up to see Zumwalt get underway. For the crew and all those involved in designing, building, and readying this fantastic ship, this is a huge milestone,'' says the ship's skipper, Navy Capt. James Kirk. With an inverse bow jutting forward to slice through the waves. and sharp angles to deflect enemy radar signals, the Zumwalt-class destroyer looks like nothing ever built before. The Zumwalt — which will receive its "USS" designation when it is christened — also is to be a test-bed for one of the Navy's most futuristic weapons, an electromagnetic rail gun under development by the Office of Naval Research. It uses electromagnetic pulses to launch projectiles at Mach 7, or seven times the speed of sound, at targets up to 110 miles away.

However critics say the ''tumblehome'' hull's sloping shape makes it less stable than conventional hulls, although it contributes to the ship's stealth and the Navy is confident in the design. Doubts about the radical hull form emerged as soon as the shape was revealed in the competitive stage for what was first called DD-21, then DD(X). Ken Brower, a civilian naval architect with decades of naval experience says the ship will capsize in a following sea at the wrong speed if a wave at an appropriate wavelength hits it at an appropriate angle. "The trouble is that as a ship pitches and heaves at sea, if you have tumblehome instead of flare, you have no righting energy to make the ship come back up. On the DDG 1000, with the waves coming at you from behind, when a ship pitches down, it can lose transverse stability as the stern comes out of the water — and basically roll over."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

At one of his campaign rallies, Republican Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump advocated shutting down parts of the Internet as a response to radicalism:

As the video below shows, Trump told a rally that "We are losing a lot of people to the Internet. We have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening."

"We have to talk to them [about], maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some way."

"Some people will say, 'Freedom of speech, Freedom of speech'," Trump added, before saying "These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people."

[More after the Break]