SoylentNews

Phoenix666 writes:

China will launch a mission to land on the dark side of the moon in two years' time, state media reported, in what will be a first for humanity.

The moon's far hemisphere is never directly visible from Earth and while it has been photographed, with the first images appearing in 1959, it has never been explored.

China's Chang'e-4 probe—named for the goddess of the moon in Chinese mythology—will be sent to it in 2018, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Chang'e-4's lander and rover will make a soft landing on the back side of the moon, and will carry out in-place and patrolling surveys," it cited the country's lunar exploration chief Liu Jizhong as saying on Thursday.

Beijing sees its military-run, multi-billion-dollar space programme as a marker of its rising global stature and mounting technical expertise, as well as evidence of the ruling Communist Party's success in transforming the once poverty-stricken nation.

Pfft. The dark side of the moon was done, like, 42 years ago.

The state run news agency, Xinhua, has published a news release.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Telco pushed by Arjuna for more details on government requests

Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/14/investor_requests_att_nsa_details/

The Arujuna proposal calls on the company to provide shareholders with a one-time report detailing "to the fullest extent possible" its policies regarding NSA requests for user information.

"The report should address the media reports that AT&T provided NSA access to foreign-to-foreign email traffic and, according to a former employee, to Internet traffic that AT&T transmits for other telecom companies," the proposal reads.

"The report should also clarify whether information volunteered when 'a person's life is in danger and time is of the essence' includes ongoing data sharing arrangements."

The group hopes its proposal will be heard and voted on at the next shareholder meeting, traditionally held on the last Friday of April, the 29th this year.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

New Zealanders could print their own non-expiring 40c fuel discount vouchers thanks to a shoddy algorithm that a hacking duo has broken.

The algorithm developed by Countdown affects petrol stations operated by national energy provider Z and is designed as an incentive for consumers who shop at various supermarkets.

Countdown says it has developed a "technical solution" for barcode reuse, but it is unknown - and appears unlikely - if this shutters the flaw which allows new codes to be generated at will.

The petrol station had earlier disabled manual barcode entry at pumps to stop codes being shared online, but the researchers say fixing the flaw will require the algorithm to be re-written.

The two researchers, who requested anonymity, have generated the discount codes on a host of different platforms including an unpublished Android app, a barcode printer, and even on tee-shirts.

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Somini Sengupta writes in the NY Times that a new report from the World Bank concludes that the vast changes wrought by Internet technology have not expanded economic opportunities or improved access to basic public services but stand to widen inequalities and even hasten the hollowing out of middle-class employment. "Digital technologies are spreading rapidly, but digital dividends — growth, jobs and services — have lagged behind," says the bank in a news release announcing the report. "If people have the right skills, digital technology will help them become more efficient and productive, but if the right skills are lacking, you'll end up with a polarized labor market and more inequality," says Uwe Deichmann. Those who are already well-off and well-educated have been able to take advantage of the Internet economy, the report concludes pointedly, but despite the expansion of Internet access, 60 percent of humanity remains offline. According to the report, in developed countries and several large middle-income countries, technology is automating routine jobs, such as factory work, and some white-collar jobs. While some workers benefit, "a large share" of workers get pushed down to lower-paying jobs that cannot be automated. "What we're seeing is not so much a destruction of jobs but a reshuffling of jobs, what economists have been calling a hollowing out of the labor market. You see the share of mid-level jobs shrinking and lower-end jobs increasing."

The report adds that in the developing world digital technologies are not a shortcut to development, though they can accelerate it if used in the right way. "We see a lot of disappointment and wasted investments. It's actually quite shocking how many e-government projects fail," says Deichmann. "While technology can be extremely helpful in many ways, it's not going to help us circumvent the failures of development over the last couple of decades. You still have to get the basics right: education, business climate, and accountability in government."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Researchers at Ohio State University report on a [still active] supernova explosion that is brighter than any other seen before:

Right now, astronomers are viewing a ball of hot gas billions of light years away that is radiating the energy of hundreds of billions of suns. At its heart is an object a little larger than 10 miles across.

And astronomers are not entirely sure what it is.

If, as they suspect, the gas ball is the result of a supernova, then it's the most powerful supernova ever seen.

In this week's issue of the journal Science, they report that the object at the center could be a very rare type of star called a magnetar—but one so powerful that it pushes the energy limits allowed by physics.

[...] the explosion that powered ASASSN-15lh stands out for its sheer magnitude. It is 200 times more powerful than the average supernova, 570 billion times brighter than our sun, and 20 times brighter than all the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy combined.

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

El Reg reports

A chap named Ross, says he "Just switched off our longest running server".

Ross says the box was "Built and brought into service in early 1997" and has "been running 24/7 for 18 years and 10 months".

"In its day, it was a reasonable machine: 200MHz Pentium, 32MB RAM, 4GB SCSI-2 drive", Ross writes. "And up until recently, it was doing its job fine." Of late, however the "hard drive finally started throwing errors, it was time to retire it before it gave up the ghost!" The drive's a Seagate, for those of looking to avoid drives that can't deliver more than 19 years of error-free operations.

The FreeBSD 2.2.1 box "collected user session (connection) data summaries, held copies of invoices, generated warning messages about data and call usage (rates and actual data against limits), let them do real-time account [inquiries] etc".

[...] All the original code was so tightly bound to the operating system itself, that later versions of the OS would have (and ultimately, did) require substantial rework.

[...] Ross reckons the server lived so long due to "a combination of good quality hardware to start with, conservatively used (not flogging itself to death), a nice environment (temperature around 18C and very stable), nicely conditioned power, no vibration, hardly ever had anyone in the server room".

A fan dedicated to keeping the disk drive cool helped things along, as did regular checks of its filters.

[...] Who made the server? [...] The box was a custom job.

[...] Has one of your servers beaten Ross' long-lived machine?

I'm reminded of the the Novell server that worked flawlessly despite being sealed behind drywall for 4 years.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

UK Home Secretary Theresa May was grilled on Wednesday during the last evidence session held by the Parliamentary committee scrutinizing fresh powers proposed for GCHQ.

Crucially, she was unable to explain to the panel exactly why Blighty's intelligence services need the ability to intercept and retain millions of innocent Britons' data in bulk, as well carry out bulk hacking operations, which would be strongly authorised if draft law – the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB) – is passed.

While the joint committee was pleased that GCHQ's bulk surveillance and hacking operations are being brought completely within parliamentary reign for the first time, having previously been effected through royal prerogative, the panel noted that the agency's sweeping powers have not yet been justified in operational terms.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/13/theresa_may/

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

TechDirt reports:

As lawyer Cathy Gellis points out, at least in the US, it's likely against copyright law for many radio stations [to play nothing but Bowie's stuff for 24 hours straight as comedian Eddie Izzard suggested.]

[...] It's written directly into US Copyright law (at the bottom of the page)[1]. At some point, years ago, Congress (or, more likely, a recording industry lobbyist), wrote up rules that said online radio couldn't play too many songs in a row by a single [artist], because of the ridiculous fear that if they could, no one would buy music any more.

[...] Once again, it seems that copyright law is getting in the way of what sounds like a perfectly lovely idea: creating a day-long tribute to David Bowie. No wonder he was so keen on having copyright go away entirely.

In 2002, he gave an interview to the NY Times in which he predicted the end of copyright altogether, [paywall] as well as record labels, as they would no longer serve a useful purpose.

[1] Page does not degrade gracefully; content is invisible (without stylesheets, apparently).

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Came across this old tutorial, which may be of interest to Soylentils for recreational learning:

This fifteen-part series, written from 1988 to 1995, is a non-technical introduction to compiler construction. You can read the parts on-line or download them in a ZIP file.

The plain text download is here or the PDF here. Enjoy.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Dr. Kathy Niakan from the Francis Crick Institute is seeking approval from the UK's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in order to genetically modify human embryos:

A scientist has been making her case to be the first in the UK to be allowed to genetically modify human embryos. Dr Kathy Niakan said the experiments would provide a deeper understanding of the earliest moments of human life and could reduce miscarriages. The regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), will consider her application on Thursday. If Dr Niakan is given approval then the first such embryos could be created by the summer.

[...] Dr Niakan, from the Francis Crick Institute, said: "We would really like to understand the genes needed for a human embryo to develop successfully into a healthy baby. The reason why it is so important is because miscarriages and infertility are extremely common, but they're not very well understood."

Of 100 fertilised eggs, fewer than 50 reach the blastocyst stage, 25 implant into the womb and only 13 develop beyond three months. She says that understanding what is supposed to happen and what can go wrong could improve IVF. "We believe that this research could really lead to improvements in infertility treatment and ultimately provide us with a deeper understanding of the earliest stages of human life."

However, she says the only way to do this is to edit human embryos. Many of the genes which become active in the week after fertilisation are unique to humans, so they cannot be studied in animal experiments. "The only way we can understand human biology at this early stage is by further studying human embryos directly," Dr Niakan said. Her intention is to use one of the most exciting recent scientific breakthroughs - Crispr gene editing - to turn off genes at the single-cell stage and see what happens. [...] She aims to start with the gene Oct4 which appears to have a crucial role.

Related: UK Approves Three-Person IVF Babies
The Rapid Rise of CRISPR
Group of Scientists and Bioethicists Back Genetic Modification of Human Embryos

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

In "Star Trek," a transporter can teleport a person from one location to a remote location without actually making the journey along the way. Such a transporter has fascinated many people. Quantum teleportation shares several features of the transporter and is one of the most important protocols in quantum information. In a recent study, Prof. Tongcang Li at Purdue University and Dr. Zhang-qi Yin at Tsinghua University proposed the first scheme to use electromechanical oscillators and superconducting circuits to teleport the internal quantum state (memory) and center-of-mass motion state of a microorganism. They also proposed a scheme to create a Schrödinger's cat state in which a microorganism can be in two places at the same time. This is an important step toward potentially teleporting an organism in future.

In a recent study, Tongcang Li and Zhang-qi Yin propose to put a bacterium on top of an electromechanical membrane oscillator integrated with a superconducting circuit to prepare the quantum superposition state of a microorganism and teleport its quantum state. A microorganism with a mass much smaller than the mass of the electromechanical membrane will not significantly affect the quality factor of the membrane and can be cooled to the quantum ground state together with the membrane. Quantum superposition and teleportation of its center-of-mass motion state can be realized with the help of superconducting microwave circuits. With a strong magnetic field gradient, the internal states of a microorganism, such as the electron spin of a glycine radical, can be entangled with its center-of-mass motion and be teleported to a remote microorganism. Since internal states of an organism contain information, this proposal provides a scheme for teleporting information or memories between two remote organisms.

http://phys.org/news/2016-01-physicists-scheme-teleport-memory.html

[Abstract]: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11434-015-0990-x (DOI: 10.1007/s11434-015-0990-x)

Original Submission

frojack writes:

It is being reported that Al Jazeera America will go off the air. The Qatari backers knew that it would take ample distribution, lots of promotion, and audience goodwill to establish a foothold.

It wasn't a bad news network. It won journalism awards, and the slant was not dramatically obvious unlike some of its American competitors. Other international networks, Al Jazeera America, BBC America, and the Canadian CBC, were reasonably widely carried on US cable networks. All three were on my list of stations to check in on whenever international issues were breaking, just to get a non-US point of view. I was actually pleasantly surprised at the content and presentation.

Al Jazeera America reached some 61,513,000 homes, or about 52.8% of cable viewers. That put them at a disadvantage compared to Fox News 74.8% and CNN's 82.7%.

That fact, and its Arabic scripted logo and its very name put it behind the other big names right from the start as far as American audiences were concerned. And that start wasn't that auspicious either:

takyon: Al Jazeera English will continue broadcasting. Geolocated American viewers of AJE's online feed were redirected to Al Jazeera America at one point. AJE has more live and breaking news coverage than AJAM, so the death of this offshoot may actually be welcome.

Original Submission

Codesmith writes:

Alan Rickman dead at 69 - (guardian.co.uk)

Alan Rickman, one of the great voices of British acting, has died of cancer at age 69. Probably best known for his work on the Harry Potter series of movies, had his career kick off with Die Hard in 1988.

The actor had been a big-screen staple since first shooting to global acclaim in 1988, when he starred as Hans Gruber, Bruce Willis's sardonic, dastardly adversary in Die Hard – a part he was offered two days after arriving in Los Angeles, aged 41.

[...] Yet it was Rickman's work on stage that established him as such a compelling talent, and to which he returned throughout his career. After graduating from Rada, the actor supported himself as a dresser for the likes of Nigel Hawthorne and Ralph Richardson before finding work with the Royal Shakespeare Company (as well as on TV as the slithery Reverend Slope in The Barchester Chronicles).

His sensational breakthrough came in 1986 as Valmont, the mordant seducer in Christopher Hampton's Les Liaisons Dangereuses. He was nominated for a Tony for the part; Lindsay Duncan memorably said of her co-star's sonorous performance that audiences would leave the theatre wanting to have sex "and preferably with Alan Rickman".

Original Submission

frojack writes:

Eweek Reports:

The Google cars drove 425,000 miles were on public roads in California.

Google's cars are still under development, and still apparently hand their human backup drivers a hot potato:

So if Soylentils were planning a nap on their first autonomous car ride, you will probably have to wait a little longer.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists from Germany and Spain have discovered a way to create a BioLED by packaging luminescent proteins in the form of rubber. This innovative device gives off a white light which is created by equal parts of blue, green and red rubber layers covering one LED, thus rendering the same effect as with traditional inorganic LEDs but at a lower cost.

Increasingly popular LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, are the light of choice for the European Union and the United States when it comes to creating lighting devices of the future. This preference can be attributed to the fact that LEDs are more efficient than traditional incandescent bulbs and more stable than energy-efficient light bulbs.

Despite their advantages, however, LEDs are manufactured using inorganic materials that are in short supply — such as cerium and yttrium — thus meaning that they are more expensive and difficult to sustain in the long run. Additionally, white LEDs produce a colour that is not optimal for eyesight since they lack a red component that can psychologically affect individuals exposed to them for long periods of time.

Now, however, a German-Spanish team of scientists has drawn inspiration from nature's biomolecules in search of a solution. Their technique consists in introducing luminescent proteins into a polymer matrix to produce luminescent rubber. This technique involves a new way of packaging proteins which could end up substituting the technique used to create LEDs today. Details are published in the journal Advanced Materials [DOI: 10.1002/adma.201502349].

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Gold nanoparticles have unusual optical, electronic, and chemical properties. But the tiny particles are much more interesting when they are closer to each other—either in small clusters or as crystals made up of millions of them.

Yet particles that are just millionths of an inch in size are too small to be manipulated by conventional lab tools, so a major challenge has been finding ways to assemble these bits of gold while controlling the three-dimensional shape of their arrangement.

One approach that researchers have developed has been to use tiny structures made from synthetic strands of DNA to help organize nanoparticles. Since DNA strands are programmed to pair with other strands in certain patterns, scientists have attached individual strands of DNA to gold particle surfaces to create a variety of assemblies.

But these hybrid gold-DNA nanostructures are intricate and expensive to generate, limiting their potential for use in practical materials. The process is similar, in a sense, to producing books by hand.

Enter the nanoparticle equivalent of the printing press.

It's efficient, re-usable, and carries more information than previously possible. In results reported in Nature Chemistry, researchers from McGill University outline a procedure for making a DNA structure with a specific pattern of strands coming out of it; at the end of each strand is a chemical "sticky patch."

Original study.

Original Submission