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fliptop writes:

Jo Best at ZDNet asks:

In a world where more and more objects are coming online and vendors are getting involved in the supply chain, how can you keep track of what's yours and what's not?

[...] Data gathered by IoT sensors and systems can pass through any number of hands -- those of the end-user that creates it, or of the company whose hardware collects it, even the software business the processes it, and the app maker that shares it, and all of them may want to claim rights over it. Whether you're part of a company wanting to improve their business with industrial internet systems or an individual planning to make their home a little smarter with IoT, whose data is it anyway?

According to law firm Taylor Wessing, end users don't really have ownership rights to the data gathered by off-the-shelf systems they've installed. If you've rolled out a smart home set-up, you can't legitimately claim that all the details about when you switched on your lights or opened your garage belong to you and you alone.

However, in Europe, companies that have spent time and money creating a fixed database that they can query could legitimately claim to have ownership of that data. If more than one company has had a hand in building that database, though, all may be able to claim ownership and then use it in their business contracts. "Where ownership has not been appropriately provided for, we can expect to see big disputes between those involved, given the potential value in data captured from the IoT," Taylor Wessing senior associate Adam Rendle noted in a blog.

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fliptop writes:

According a report from the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration inappropriately paid an Amtrak employee more than $850,000 over 20 years to provide information on passengers who may be smuggling drugs:

The OIG also released a separate report saying the DEA arranged to pay a government airport screener to act as a confidential source. The screener, however, never provided information of any value to the DEA.

But the OIG's problem with these arrangements wasn't that transportation officials were reporting people's actions to the DEA. Instead, OIG said it made no sense for the DEA to pay these people for information, as they are already required by law to offer it up for free.

"The OIG determined that over a period of 20 years, the DEA paid the Amtrak employee $854,460 as of January 2014 for information that was available at no cost to the government in violation of federal regulations relating to the use of government property, thereby wasting substantial government funds," the OIG wrote.

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Phoenix666 writes:

With its over the air updates, Tesla has created the potential to use its cars as a test bed for exciting and innovative technology. Tesla's latest over-the-air update has given owners the ability to "summon" their cars from the garage, as well as giving cars the ability to park themselves in the garage.

Tesla isn't the first brand to let owners remotely park their cars, that honor belongs to BMW, which uses a high-tech key to let well-off buyers get out of their 7 Series and force it to squeeze into tight spots on its own.

Where the 7 Series' system can only be used for tight car spots, Telsa's Summon system is an extension of Autopilot that can turn the car on, open the garage and drive up to the doorway for you.

The article also reports the Tesla engineers are aspiring to have your car sync with your travel calendar so it can drive itself to where you need to pick it up.

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martyb writes:

The BBC is running a story World's largest blue star sapphire 'found in Sri Lanka'. This single stone has been certified as weighing 1404.49 carats (about 280g; nearly 10 ounces) with an estimated value of approximately $100m. By comparison, Sri Lanka's entire gem industry "is worth at least £70m ($103m) annually." The previous record holder weighed 1395 carats.

What I found even more interesting was the story behind it; also from the BBC: How the world's biggest sapphire grew so large.

First off, what is a sapphire? According to the article:

"Sapphires are so hard because they are formed from corundum, an aluminium oxide. "Corundum is the hard gritty stuff used as an abrasive in emery paper," says [University of Cambridge mineral scientist Simon] Redfern.

"If you add just a trace of iron and titanium to the mixture of aluminum and oxygen from which the corundum is growing, it forms as sapphire. So sapphire is 'dirty' corundum - corundum with a trace of iron and titanium."

So now we know the ingredients to a blue sapphire, what is the recipe?

Making sapphires is a lengthy process. This particular sapphire would have formed within the rocks of Sri Lanka's highlands.

[...] The rocks are mostly granites, which form when molten magma cools and solidifies. But they have been subjected to intense heat and pressure.

"The granites have been dated as almost two billion years old, and were subsequently squeezed and re-worked in a massive metamorphic mountain-building episode that happened more than 500 million years ago," says Redfern. "Temperatures and pressures deep within the roots of these mountains would have reached more than 900C and over 9000 atmospheres pressure."

And now, you know!

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the_leander writes:

Whilst Twitter drama is usually pretty mundane stuff, some of the questions being raised by people given its new implementation of its rules, as well as its future does I feel warrant a serious look.

Twitter is experiencing serious growing pains as of late, with the twitter stock dropping below $20 today, for the first time ever.

New ideas announced, such as the future limit of 10,000 chars instead of 140, aren't helping either. 10,000 chars is more than most editorials, is twitter trying to be a tumblr? It became the webs commenting system to all news & stories, now it wants to be the publication system of all news and stories. I've said it before; "Content is no longer king, the platform on which it is delivered is", and Twitter wants to be a bigger platform to solve their stock pricing problem.

Read more at http://adland.tv/adnews/trouble-twitter-trolls-verifications-removed-stock-failing/1530267978

What are your thoughts, Soylentils, on Twitter and why it seems to lately be in a looming death spiral?

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requerdanos writes:

Move over, Y2K bug. Wait your turn, 2038 Epoch Fail.

Now we have... Large Jackpot Rollover.

CBS Dallas-Ft. Worth reports on what many have already noticed: That the Powerball lottery billboards and electric point-of-sale signs, with only three digits in their readouts, are not equipped to display the record 1.3 Billion dollar jackpot estimated for Wednesday, 13 January 2016.

The problem stems from the fact that while the jackpot is $1.3 Billion with a "B", the signs were designed only to display jackpots in the millions (with an "M"). And as reported various places back as far as last July, the Multi-state Lottery Association changed the Powerball matrix to decrease the odds of winning the jackpot in order to create jackpots in the billion-dollar range--just what has occurred. But instead of updating their network of advertising sign hardware in the meantime, they are just letting them show "999" to indicate amounts greater than those of which the signs can conceive.

[Ed note. We just ran a story, Powerball's Payouts but this is a different angle on the situation; and a very prominently displayed one, at that. Have you seen one of these signs? What similar mistakes have fellow Soylentils encountered?]

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takyon writes:

On Saturday, Rolling Stone published an interview with Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, a day after he was recaptured by Mexican authorities following his escape from Altiplano prison in July and a months long manhunt. The interview was conducted by actor and filmmaker Sean Penn in October, two weeks before El Chapo narrowly avoided authorities and sustained injuries in Sinaloa state. In Sean Penn's own words:

As an American citizen, I'm drawn to explore what may be inconsistent with the portrayals our government and media brand upon their declared enemies. Not since Osama bin Laden has the pursuit of a fugitive so occupied the public imagination. But unlike bin Laden, who had posed the ludicrous premise that a country's entire population is defined by – and therefore complicit in – its leadership's policies, with the world's most wanted drug lord, are we, the American public, not indeed complicit in what we demonize? We are the consumers, and as such, we are complicit in every murder, and in every corruption of an institution's ability to protect the quality of life for citizens of Mexico and the United States that comes as a result of our insatiable appetite for illicit narcotics.

Now, USA Today reports that El Chapo's desire for film fame may have led to his downfall:

The hard work of Mexican law enforcement, the lure of Hollywood glitz and the fame of iconic actor Sean Penn helped drive the triumphant end to a six-month manhunt for the notorious Mexican drug lord dubbed "El Chapo," Mexican officials said.

[...] The first break in the manhunt came when Guzmán sought out producers and actors for a biographical film about his life, Mexico Attorney General Arely Gomez said. It actually was Guzmán's contacts with Penn that led authorities to a Guzmán hiding place in October, Reuters and other media outlets reported. Guzmán fled, but ultimately was nabbed Friday in Los Mochis, a Mexican coastal city of 250,000 in Guzmán's home state of Sinaloa.

Journalists, the White House, and others have savaged Penn for the interview and his sympathetic portrayal of El Chapo:

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough told CNN: "One thing I will tell you is that this braggadocious action about how much heroin he sends around the world, including the United States, is maddening. We see a heroin epidemic, an opioid addiction epidemic, in this country... But El Chapo's behind bars - that's where he should stay."

The Mexican authorities would not say whether they would investigate Penn and a Mexican actress, Kate del Castillo, who apparently arranged the interview. Mr McDonough declined to answer a question about whether the US would hand Penn over to Mexico for questioning.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Enter Depsy, a free website launched in November 2015 that aims to "measure the value of software that powers science".

Schliep's [a post-doctoral researcher who has contributed to scientific software projects] profile on that site shows that he has contributed in part to seven software packages, and that he shares 34% of the credit for phangorn. Those packages have together received more than 2,600 downloads, have been cited in 89 open-access research papers and have been heavily recycled for use in other software — putting Schliep in the 99th percentile of all coders on the site by impact. "Depsy does a good job in finding all my software contributions," says Schliep.

Depsy's creators hope that their platform will provide a transparent and meaningful way to track the impact of software built by academics. The technology behind it was developed by Impactstory, a non-profit firm based in Vancouver, Canada, that was founded four years ago to help scientists to track the impact of their online output. That includes not just papers but also blog posts, data sets and software, and measuring impact by diverse metrics such as tweets, views, downloads and code reuse, as well as by conventional citations.

In effect, Depsy recognizes the "unsung heroes" of scientific software, says Jason Priem, co-founder of Impactstory, which is funded by the US National Science Foundation and various philanthropic foundations.

Is there something like Depsy for FOSS? If not, we could use one.

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GungnirSniper writes:

Legendary rock showman David Bowie has passed away from cancer at the age of 69.

This comes after the recent passings of Scott Weiland and Lemmy Kilmister. Keith Richards is still standing.

See also BBC coverage.

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n1 writes:

Thousands in Hong Kong have rallied against the disappearance of five booksellers from a shop known for selling works critical of China.

All are suspected of being held in China, and the protesters fear the growing influence of Beijing.

Under the "one country, two systems" principle Hong Kong is supposed to enjoy high degrees of autonomy from China since it took over from Britain.

Hong Kong authorities said they were conducting a "thorough" investigation.

A government spokesman said they were awaiting a response from the mainland, but stressed the rule of law was the "cornerstone" of Hong Kong society.

Chanting "say no to political kidnapping", the protesters marched to the offices of Beijing's representative in Hong Kong.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35275309

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Phoenix666 writes:

During the 1990s I started to get worried about the effect that email might have on my ability to function as a novelist. I ended up writing a little essay entitled "Why I Am a Bad Correspondent" which has since been read by many people and reprinted in "Some Remarks." Its subject was plain old email. This was long before the ubiquitous mobile Internet came along to bring us worldwide, 24/7 social media platforms exquisitely tuned to make us want to check them every few minutes--and to intrude on our screens with notifications when we fail to do so.

Though I never became a heavy poster on social media, I did reach a point last year when I was checking Twitter and my personal Facebook every few minutes. When I found myself manually refreshing the Facebook window in the hopes of dredging up posts I hadn't seen yet, I decided it was time to think a little harder about the effect that this was having on my ability to get things done.

Who needs social media when you have IRC?

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

China’s country code domain ‘.cn’ has become the world’s most commonly used in the internet with 16.36 million users, surpassing Germany’s ‘.de’ domain.

According to the data released on Friday by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), which manages the domain, ‘.cn’ had 16.36 million users by the end of 2015.

link: http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/chinas-country-code-domain-cn-becomes-worlds-largest/article8085367.ece

Note: this report concerns country code top level domains. According to Verisign, there are over 124 million .com domain names in use.

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HughPickens.com writes:

Olga Khazan reports at The Atlantic that in response to a rapid uptick in the number of OkCupid users interested in non-monogamous relationships, the online-dating behemoth is adding a feature for polyamorous people allowing users who are listed as "seeing someone," "married," or "in an open relationship" on the platform to link their profiles and search for other people to join their relationship. "It's a very big deal and I'm delighted that OkCupid has gotten this far with it," says Anita Illig Wagner, founder of Practical Polyamory. "I hope other sites take it seriously and we find ourselves welcome in even more major websites."

According to the company's data, 24 percent of its users are "seriously interested" in group sex and forty-two percent would consider dating someone already involved in an open or polyamorous relationship. "It seems that now people are more open to polyamory as a concept," says Jimena Almendares, OkCupid's chief product officer. Though specialized dating sites for polyamorous people exist, this appears to be the first instance of a mainstream online-dating platform allowing two users to search for sexual partners together, as a unit. Almendares says OkCupid is agnostic about the kinds of relationships people pursue on its platform—it's simply following the numbers. "Finding your partner is very important. You should have the option to express specifically and exactly who you are and what you need."

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

AlterNet reports

In spite of being the smallest community in the county, the village of Arlington Heights, [Ohio] had the busiest court in the region--and even the state--thanks to the Arlington Heights police department and their disreputable speed trap.

According to a 2007 report from the [Cincinnati] Enquirer, the overwhelming majority of cases (93%) that pass through court in Arlington Heights are for traffic fines alone.

Despite issuing and collecting a record number of traffic fines, the money from those fines never found its way to the village bank account. The clerk of courts and the deputy clerk of courts, with the help of the ticket-writing cops, enriched themselves to the tune of $260,000 before they were finally caught in October.

[...]Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters [...] called for the dissolution of the village in 2012.

[...]On [January 1, 2016], the Arlington Heights police department was disbanded as a result of their years of revenue collection for criminals.

With the revenue collection arm now [dissolved], the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office will begin patrolling the tiny village.

Previous: 7-Officer Police Force Wrote 11,000 Traffic Tickets Last Year; State Finally Steps In

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Phoenix666 writes:

If one is going to get into the asteroid mining business, one needs to prove that you can do something with what's brought back. That seems to be the thinking behind Planetary Resources' presentation today at CES in Las Vegas, where the asteroid mining company unveiled the first object 3D printed using extraterrestrial materials.

Made in collaboration with 3D Systems, the nickel-iron sculpture represents a stylized, geometric spacecraft, such as might be used for asteroid mining or prospecting. Planetary Resources says it is representative of what could be printed in a weightless environment.

The sculpture was created using a fragment of a prehistoric meteorite that was pulverized and fed into a 3D Systems ProX DMP 320 3D metal printer. The powder consisting of nickel-iron with traces of cobalt similar to refinery-grade steel was spread out by the printer in thin layers and a laser beam guided by a 3D file fused the powder layer by layer into solid metal. When completed, the excess powder was removed to reveal the finished product.

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