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"exec" writes:

Nearly 300,000 recreational drone owners have registered their unmanned aircraft in a new federal database intended to help address a surge of rogue drone flights near airports and public venues, U.S. regulators said on Friday.

[...] The registration applies to drones that weigh between 0.55 pound (250 grams) and 55 pounds (25 kgs).

Experts have said 700,000 to 1 million unmanned aircraft were expected to be given as gifts in the United States last Christmas alone. People who operated their small unmanned aircraft before Dec. 21 must register by Feb. 19.

[...] The current system is available only to owners who intend to use drones exclusively for recreational or hobby purposes. The FAA is also working to make the system available for non-model aircraft users including commercial operators by March 21.

Officials say the agency is also working with the private sector to streamline registration including through the use of new smart phone apps that could allow a manufacturer or retailer to register a drone automatically by scanning an identification code on the aircraft.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-drones-registration-idUSKCN0V02FI

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

xpda writes:

Two major undersea communications cables were down Thursday, bringing down the internet for most African countries for 2 hours and 40 minutes. A Seacom cable was cut by civil construction workers at the same time that its backup route, a West Africa Cable System cable, was down.

Seacom had been in the news earlier in the week for its new partnership with network provider Ciena – a deal which promises to deliver improved reach and increased capacity for local providers.

Both companies will offer new solutions with a 100Gbps upgrade to African service providers, linking to main points of presence in Europe via undersea routes.

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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

El Reg reports:

Microsoft is initiating a global voluntary recall of Surface Pro power cords amid concerns of over-heating.

According to sources in Microsoft's Authorized Device Reseller (ADR) channel, Pro machines built before 15 July [2015] will qualify to be swapped out as part of an exchange program. A spokesman at Microsoft sent us a statement:

As a result of damage caused by AC power cords being wound too tightly, twisted, or pinched over an extended period of time, a very small proportion of Surface Pro customers have reported issues with their AC power cord.

Details of how customers can obtain a "free" replacement cable are in the offing, but Microsoft made no further statement at this point.

[...] ADRs we spoke to claimed there may be a risk of over-heating, but complaints from customers on this do not seem to be particularly widespread.

[...] Watching a software company--with the infrastructure of a software company--recall hardware products will be interesting. We'd love to hear how smooth that process proves to be.

So, in the meantime, be sure that you don't bend your MSFT-provided power cord.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Matthew Garrett reports

The Linux Foundation is an industry organisation dedicated to promoting, protecting and standardising Linux and open source software. The majority of its board is chosen by the member companies: 10 by platinum members (platinum membership costs $500,000 a year), 3 by gold members (gold membership costs $100,000 a year), and 1 by silver members (silver membership costs between $5,000 and $20,000 a year, depending on company size).

Up until recently, individual members ($99 a year) could also elect two board members, allowing for community perspectives to be represented at the board level. As of [January 18], this is no longer true.

The by-laws were amended to drop the clause that permitted individual members to elect any directors. Section 3.3(a) now says that no affiliate members may be involved in the election of directors, and section 5.3(d) still permits at-large directors but does not require them[2]. The old version of the bylaws are here--the only non-whitespace differences are in sections 3.3(a) and 5.3(d).

These changes all happened shortly after Karen Sandler announced that she planned to stand for the Linux Foundation board during a presentation last September [YouTube]. A short time later, the "Individual membership" program was quietly renamed to the "Individual supporter" program and the promised benefit of being allowed to stand for and participate in board elections was dropped (compare the old page to the new one). Karen is the executive director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, an organisation involved in the vitally important work of GPL enforcement.

Roy Schestowitz at TechRights entitled his coverage
The Linux Foundation Has Become Like a Corporate Think Tank; Microsoft Influence Included

[Our extensive coverage of malfeasance at the European Patent Office] has prevented us from covering as much about the Linux Foundation as we used to, including payments from Microsoft, services to Microsoft, and abandonment of GPL enforcement efforts because GPL enforcers went after a Microsoft executives-run VMware.

Several of the places that covered this remarked about the extremely quiet nature of the process.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Facebook has supported Tor-enabled browsers for around two years, and it's now extending its Tor support to Android mobile connections. Tor software allows internet users to browse anonymously, and avoid being tracked when visited websites. Facebook says it "commonly receive requests for additional platform support beyond the browser," and a summer intern project has turned into experimental support for using Facebook over Tor on Android devices.

Facebook is releasing the feature in the next few days, and users of the social network will simply be able to download the Orbot Android proxy app and then enable a new switch in the Facebook Android app to connect anonymously.

Source: http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/20/10796872/facebook-android-app-tor-support

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takyon writes:

The BBC Micro Bit, a computer that was intended to be given to 1 million British schoolchildren back in October, has been delayed again:

The corporation said it now planned to start giving teachers their own units just after the half-term holidays, to help them plan classes. It added it was "pushing to deliver as many as possible" to pupils before the term's end but could not be more specific about how many or when. The idea behind the project has been widely praised, but some teachers are concerned they will no longer have enough time to do it justice this school year.

The Micro Bit is designed to run code written by children that will let them display text and patterns on its 25 LEDs and make use of its built-in sensors.

[...] [On] Wednesday, at the Bett education trade show in London, the BBC said its timetable had slipped again.

"The main issue has been some fine-tuning," BBC Learning executive Cerys Griffiths said. "We have created hardware, it's very complex, it's very sophisticated, it's very new. What we were really hoping for was that the teachers would get their devices before Christmas. But our commitment to teachers has always been that we would get them the devices first to give them time to play and get familiar with them."

Previously:
BBC Micro:Bit Delayed by Power Supply SNAFU
The Story of MicroPython on the BBC micro:bit

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Amazon is taking a big step in introducing drone delivery to the masses, but it doesn't come without its challenges. Company vice president of global public policy Paul Misener sat down with Yahoo to talk about some of those challenges, and he went into surprising detail about some of the issues they've faced, as well as the vision that they have for when drone delivery finally becomes a normal thing. One of the more interesting subjects touched on was drone safety, which is an obvious talking point with the FAA getting more serious about drone usage in the United States. Amazon says their flying robots of awesomeness were designed with nothing but safety in mind, noting that the drones can detect trees and other obstacles and be sure not to fly into them. He even used a pretty vivid example:

These drones are more like horses than cars — and let me explain why. If you have a small tree in your front yard, and you want to bang your car into it for some reason, you can do that. Your spouse might not be happy with you, but you can do it. But try riding a horse into the tree. It won't do it. The horse will see the tree and go around it. Same way our drones will not run into trees, because they will know not to run into it.

Source: http://phandroid.com/2016/01/19/amazon-drone-delivery-future/

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takyon writes:

The BBC reports on two genomic studies, one showing the extent of Anglo-Saxon ancestry in modern England, and another analyzing the genomes of Roman-era individuals who were possibly gladiators:

The present-day English owe about a third of their ancestry to the Anglo-Saxons, according to a new study. Scientists sequenced genomes from 10 skeletons unearthed in eastern England and dating from the Iron Age through to the Anglo-Saxon period. Many of the Anglo-Saxon samples appeared closer to modern Dutch and Danish people than the Iron Age Britons did.

[...] Dr Stephan Schiffels of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany sequenced genomes of human remains from Hinxton, Saffron Walden, Linton and Oakington - all of which are near Cambridge. The burials fall into three different age categories: Iron Age, early Anglo-Saxon and Middle Anglo-Saxon.

Contrary to narratives suggesting large-scale displacement of the Britons by Anglo-Saxon invaders, the researchers found evidence of intermarriage in the earliest phase of settlement.

In order to disentangle the Anglo-Saxon signal from the indigenous British genetic background, the researchers looked at many rare mutations across the whole genome. "We found that these rare mutations were the key to studying historical samples. We could compare our ancient samples with modern samples in an improved way," Dr Schiffels told BBC News.

[...] In another study, also published in Nature Communications, Prof Dan Bradley from Trinity College Dublin and colleagues analysed the genomes of nine individuals from Roman-era York. They found that six of the individuals - presumably indigenous Britons - were similar to the modern Welsh, but different from populations living in Yorkshire today. However, one of the individuals had genetic affinities with people from North Africa and the Middle East, providing evidence of long-scale migration in Roman times.

The burials at Driffield Terrace, from which the genetic data was drawn, fit the profile of Roman gladiators. The majority were male, under 45 years old and had been decapitated. They were also slightly taller than the average for Roman Britain, with most showing signs of trauma to their bones. However, Prof Bradley and his colleagues point out that the remains might also be compatible with Roman legionaries.

Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon genomes from East England reveal British migration history (open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10408)

Genomic signals of migration and continuity in Britain before the Anglo-Saxons (open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10326)

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The Mighty Buzzard writes:

In an absolute surprise to nobody, six Senators came out today saying something along the lines of 5Mbps should be enough for anybody:

Today's letter from Steve Daines (R-MT), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Ron Johnson (R-WI), and Cory Gardner (R-CO) is almost hilarious in its deep misunderstanding about how people actually use the internet and what they need. The senators say that the 25Mbps standard is unnecessary because, for example, Netflix only recommends a download speed of 5Mbps for HD video, and Amazon only 3.5Mbps. (The recommendation for 4K video from Netflix is actually 25Mbps, but we suppose lawmakers agree that nobody should enjoy Ultra HD content yet.)

The senators say they are "concerned that this arbitrary 25/3 Mbps benchmark fails to accurately capture what most Americans consider broadband," and that "the use of this benchmark discourages broadband providers from offering speeds at or above the benchmark." If these sound exactly like talking points from Verizon, Comcast, and other major ISPs, that's because they are: Comcast loves to tell Americans that they don't need faster internet, and ISPs join together every time they are about to be regulated to say that regulations will chill their future investments. Ars Technica reported that Republicans in Congress echoed ISP spin about network investments in hearings over net neutrality, but then just three months after the net neutrality rules took effect last year, Comcast posted earnings that showed its capital expenditures actually increased by 11 percent. So the idea that creating a standard will discourage ISPs from meeting that standard is total nonsense.

What about you lot? Does your connection meet the new broadband definition? Mine matches the download side but fails by two thirds on the upload side.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Learning a second language is easier for some adults than others, and innate differences in how the various parts of the brain "talk" to one another may help explain why, according to a study published January 20 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"These findings have implications for predicting language learning success and failure," said study author Xiaoqian Chai.

The various regions of our brains communicate with each other even when we are resting and aren't engaged in any specific tasks. The strength of these connections -- called resting-state connectivity -- varies from person to person, and differences have previously been linked to differences in behavior including language ability.

Led by Chai and Denise Klein, researchers at McGill University explored whether differences in resting-state connectivity relate to performance in a second language. To study this, the group at the Montreal Neurological Institute scanned the brains of 15 adult English speakers who were about to begin an intensive 12-week French course, and then tested their language abilities both before and after the course.

[...] Participants with stronger connections between the left AI/FO [anterior insula/frontal operculum] and an important region of the brain's language network called the left superior temporal gyrus showed greater improvement in the speaking test. Participants with greater connectivity between the VWFA [visual word form area] and a different area of the left superior temporal gyrus language area in the left temporal lobe showed greater improvement in reading speed by the end of the 12-week course.

The study does not establish why, when trying to speak words in another language, it always comes out as Spanish.

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legont writes:

DARPA has launched a program to develop a direct brain interface.

A million should be enough for anybody.

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Violence has always been part of human behavior, but the origins of war are hotly debated. Some experts see it as deeply rooted in evolution, pointing to violent confrontations among groups of chimpanzees as clues to an ancestral predilection while others emphasize the influence of complex and hierarchical human societies, and agricultural surpluses to be raided. Now James Gorman writes in the NY Times that scientists have discovered a site in Africa dated about 10,000 years ago where a group of hunter-gatherers attacked and slaughtered another, leaving the dead with crushed skulls, embedded arrow or spear points, and other devastating wound. It's not clear that anyone was spared at the Nataruk massacre. Of the 27 individuals found, eight were male and eight female, with five adults of unknown gender. The site also contained the partial remains of six children. Twelve of the skeletons were in a relatively complete state, and ten of those showed very clear evidence that they had met a violent end. In the paper, the researchers describe "extreme blunt-force trauma to crania and cheekbones, broken hands, knees and ribs, arrow lesions to the neck, and stone projectile tips lodged in the skull and thorax of two men." Four of them, including a late-term pregnant woman, appear to have had their hands bound. "These human remains record the intentional killing of a small band of foragers with no deliberate burial, and provide unique evidence that warfare was part of the repertoire of inter-group relations among some prehistoric hunter-gatherers," says Dr Marta Mirazon.

The killers carried weapons they wouldn't have used for hunting and fishing including clubs of various sizes and a combination of close-proximity weapons like knives and distance weapons, including the arrow projectiles she calls a hallmark of inter-group conflict. " This suggests premeditation and planning," says Mirazon Lahr. Other, isolated examples of period violence have previously been found in the area, and those featured projectiles crafted of obsidian, which is rare in the area but also seen in the Nataruk wounds. This suggests that the attackers may have been from another area, and that multiple attacks were likely a feature of life at the time. "This implies that the resources the people of Nataruk had at the time were valuable and worth fighting for, whether it was water, dried meat or fish, gathered nuts or indeed women and children. This shows that two of the conditions associated with warfare among settled societies—control of territory and resources—were probably the same for these hunter-gatherers, and that we have underestimated their role in prehistory."

Original Submission

AndyTheAbsurd writes:

http://www.cbronline.com/news/cybersecurity/data/from-ransomware-and-burglary-to-mass-scale-deaths-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-iot-black-market-4788076

[What are the chances that every one of those 'things' is well-designed and has no backdoors? Just today it was announced that a backdoor in a popular video conferencing product was 'fixed' by changing the name of the backdoor account. That is by no means an exception; multiple new vulnerabilities are announced daily. Adding to the problem, how long would security updates be provided for all of these devices? The future is looking dark, indeed. -Ed.]

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Daiv writes:

In an unexpected move, the CEO of AT&T, credited as being "highly collaborative" with the US government and has installed far more surveillance equipment than its fellow US wireless carriers, has spoken with The Wall Street Journal, saying "I don't think it is Silicon Valley's decision to make about whether encryption is the right thing to do. I understand Tim Cook's decision, but I don't think it's his decision to make."

This statement is made at a time when US cellular phone companies are being targeted on both coasts with legislation demanding on-demand government access to all handsets.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Paul Meehl is responsible for what is probably the most apt explanation for why some areas of science have made more progress than others over the last 70 years or so. Amazingly, he pointed this out in 1967 and it had seemingly no effect on standard practices:

Because physical theories typically predict numerical values, an improvement in ex-perimental precision reduces the tolerance range and hence increases corroborability. In most psychological research, improved power of a statistical design leads to a prior probability approaching ½ of finding a significant difference in the theoretically predicted direction. Hence the corroboration yielded by "success" is very weak, and becomes weaker with increased precision. "Statistical significance" plays a logical role in psychology precisely the reverse of its role in physics. This problem is worsened by certain unhealthy tendencies prevalent among psychologists, such as a premium placed on experimental "cuteness" and a free reliance upon ad hoc explanations to avoid refuation.

Meehl, Paul E. (1967). "Theory-Testing in Psychology and Physics: A Methodological Paradox" (PDF). Philosophy of Science 34 (2): 103–115.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1086%2F288135 . Free here: http://cerco.ups-tlse.fr/pdf0609/Meehl_1967.pdf

There are many science articles posted to this site that fall foul of his critique probably because researchers are not aware of it. In short, this (putatively fatally flawed) research attempts to disprove a null hypothesis rather than a research hypothesis. Videos of some of his lectures are available online:
http://www.psych.umn.edu/meehlvideos.php

Session 7 starting at ~1hr is especially good.

Original Submission