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Phoenix666 writes:

Doctor Who fans prepare to be bitterly disappointed: you won't be getting your timey-wimey fix this year, because season 10 won't hit our screens until 2017, the BBC has confirmed.

The reason? Long-running showrunner Steven Moffat has run out of puff. He will pass the baton (OK, Sonic Screwdriver) to Chris Chibnall—the creator of ITV's gripping whodunnit, Broadchurch—who will take over the iconic British sci-fi drama at the start of season 11.

The BBC, which fiendishly buried this news late on Friday night in the hope that no-one would notice, has promised a Christmas Day special, but that will be the first and only time a new episode of the much-loved show will appear on the TV this year.

Whovians may recall that the last time we saw the Doctor was on a date with his wife, River Song. The Time Lord explained that a night on Darillium lasted 24 years. Who knew that this translated as an entire year on planet Earth though, eh?

Moffat—who replaced Russel T. Davies in 2010—will leave Doctor Who after six years heading up the production, during which time he oversaw Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi as the eleventh and twelfth Doctors, as well as the sci-fi's 50th anniversary special in 2013, starring John Hurt.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

As with other pro sports leagues, the NFL has seized on tablet computers as a mobile communications device allowing coaches and players to review just-captured game video and archived footage involving similar plays and players, as well as to diagram plays. Microsoft paid $400 million to the NFL to make the Surface Pro its official tablet for this season, but some TV announcers were slow to get the memo.

Finally, in the Sunday's AFC championship game (one of two semifinal matches before the Super Bowl) between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos, the Surface Pro made it into the limelight... in the wrong way. All of the tablets for the visiting Patriots stopped working for a series of downs (when Denver's offense was on the field), depriving the Patriots coaches the video feeds from the game which they would have reviewed with their players. This time, the CBS announcers correctly identified the malfunctioning tablets (or wireless networks in Denver's Mile High Stadium, as spokesmen for Microsoft countered) as Surface Pros. (The Broncos did not report any problems with their tablets).

The Patriots lost, 20-18. Did the tablets make a difference? Fans of other teams would argue that what goes around comes around.

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AndyTheAbsurd writes:

https://medium.com/hacker-daily/amazon-s-customer-service-backdoor-be375b3428c4#.ek59df3e3

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AndyTheAbsurd writes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/business/marvin-minsky-pioneer-in-artificial-intelligence-dies-at-88.html

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"exec" writes:

In 2015, Google Play saw 100 percent more downloads than Apple's App Store. Double the number of downloads is a huge achievement. In 2014, the figure was 60 percent, meaning Google Play was not only bigger in 2015, it grew even faster than Apple's App Store.

These latest estimates come from App Annie's retrospective report for 2015. As always, the firm had a lot of fascinating numbers to share, but the big ones were all centered on comparing and contrasting the two biggest app stores on a global scale.

When it comes to app store downloads, Google Play is king. Furthermore, the gap is widening between first and second place:

http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/20/app-annie-2015-google-play-saw-100-more-downloads-than-the-ios-app-store-but-apple-generated-75-more-revenue/

-- submitted from IRC

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Not news by any stretch of the imagination, but still pretty damn cool. The Atlantic just ran a photo essay on a gargantuan vehicle that was supposed to explore Antarctica, but failed miserably at that task.

There is also a Youtube video of the Snow Cruiser being offloaded from the North Star.

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takyon writes:

Henry Worsley has died during an attempt to traverse the Antarctic landmass unassisted and alone. Worsley raised over £100,000 for The Endeavour Fund, a charity that supports the physical recovery of wounded veterans:

He traveled more than 900 miles across the Antarctic, attempting a solo trek that would also boost a British charity that aids wounded veterans. But explorer Henry Worsley was halted by exhaustion and dehydration that turned out to be fatal.

Worsley, 55, had been attempting to complete the first-ever solo and unassisted crossing of the Antarctic landmass, timing the venture to coincide with the centenary of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1915 attempt.

But [when] treacherous conditions and deteriorating health confined Worsley to his tent at more than 9,000 feet, he was forced to abandon the attempt, calling [for] an airlift. After spending 70 days alone in some of the harshest conditions our planet has to offer, he was taken to a hospital in Chile, where he was diagnosed with bacterial peritonitis[*]. Today, his family announced his death.

On a Twitter feed that had been updating his progress, Worsley had in recent days been facing whiteout conditions and soft snow — a "hellish surface" that made it hard to ski (and pull a small sleigh).

[*] Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis.

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Phoenix666 writes:

Since he arrived at the camp, Yoon Yong-won had experienced recurrent nightmares. He was playing a game on his phone, and the image of the phone in his hands was so vivid. But then he woke up with a fright and stared at his hands: empty.

Yoon was in day six of a 27-day camp aimed at teenagers like him: state-certified Internet addicts.

The first day he arrived and had to turn over his devices was a day of despair. “I thought, ‘My future is pitch-black,’ ” he said over a lunch of spaghetti Bolognese and kimchi on a recent day. “I’m so frustrated. I feel like I’m being held captive.”

South Korea is the most wired country on the planet, a country where it’s entirely unremarkable for elementary school students to carry smartphones, where the cell network is so good that people livestream TV on the subway. The flip side: South Korea is grappling with a growing number of digital natives who don’t know how to live an analog life.

South Koreans should study the lessons of our wisemen, Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

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takyon writes:

Book your flights and hotels as deals become available:

Thailand has quarantined 32 people as it seeks to prevent the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) after a second case of the virus was detected on Friday, a health ministry official said on Monday.

The virus was found in a 71-year-old Omani man traveling to Bangkok. His son, taxi drivers, hotel staff and passengers on the same plane are among those quarantined for two weeks, Amnuay Gajeena, director-general of Thailand's Disease Control Department, told reporters. Another eight have been identified and will also be quarantined, he said.

[...] Thailand's tourism industry would not be affected by the latest MERS case, Tourism Minister Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul told Reuters. "We think we have the situation under control," she said. "We're confident this will not affect tourism in Thailand." Tourism accounts for 10 percent of GDP, and Thailand expects a record number of international visitors in 2016 - some 32 million, up from 29.88 million in 2015.

The World Health Organization said in its latest update on Jan. 7 it has been notified of 1,626 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS from 26 countries, and at least 586 related deaths. MERS is caused by a coronavirus from the same family as the one that triggered China's deadly 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

Don't forget to visit Rio de Janeiro.

Previously: MERS Outbreak and Quarantines in South Korea

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MrPlow writes with a story submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd:

Security researchers from Foxglove Security have discovered that almost all recent versions of Microsoft's Windows operating system are vulnerable to a privilege escalation exploit. By chaining together a series of known Windows security flaws, researchers from Foxglove Security have discovered a way to break into PCs/systems/laptops running on Windows 7/8/8.1/10 and Windows Server 2008/2010 [2012].

[...] Hot Potato relies on three different types of attacks, some of which were discovered back at the start of the new millennium, in 2000. By chaining these together, hackers can remotely gain complete access to the PCs/laptops running on above versions of Windows.

Surprisingly, some of the exploits were found way back in 2000 but have still not been patched by Microsoft, with the explanation that by patching them, the company would effectively break compatibility between the different versions of their operating system.

Source: http://www.digitalmunition.me/2016/01/ya9jvvyujexmyccqfjrcj/

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takyon writes:

Five executives have jumped ship from Twitter within days of each other:

Jack Dorsey waved goodbye to five senior Twitter execs over the weekend, and didn't disappoint avid company-watchers when he issued yet another memo worthy of Oscar Wilde.

Engineering boss Alex Roetter, HR chief Skip Schipper, media head Katie Stanton and product head Kevin Weil have "all chosen to leave the company", Dorsey announced. Hard on their heels, Twitter's video streaming head Jason Toff also announced he was flying off to Google. If losing one exec could be characterised as unfortunate, and two as carelessness, we're not quite sure how to describe losing four – hang on – five, over one weekend. The Wall Street Journal reported that Stanton had told Twitter weeks ago that she intended to walk, while Roetter had confided in Dorsey months ago that he planned to resign.

Last October, Dorsey exercised his irony muscles by reducing the BBC's Today team to hysterics with a "corporate speak" free memo on staff cuts that rivalled the beeb's own missives for management BS.

Today, Dorsey tweeted that he'd been "hoping to talk to Twitter employees about this later this week" but wanted to "set the record straight" after rumours of the departures broke on re/code.

In a tweeted statement, he said: "All four will be taking some well-deserved time off" adding that "I'm personally grateful to each of them for everything they've contributed to Twitter and our purpose in the world." He added that they were "phenomenal people" to whom he would be "forever grateful". That gratitude will clearly be even warmer amongst remaining execs who will be picking up extra work. A new marketing boss could be named today according to reports. But Dorsey also said COO Adam Bain will be picking up "additional responsibilities", including revenue related product teams, media and HR "on an interim basis".

Also see the BBC's coverage and a blog post by departed executive Katie Jacobs Stanton. BBC's Today reaction to a previous Dorsey memo is recounted here.

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Phoenix666 writes:

A new nanotech coating can melt ice on helicopter blades and might offer a new way to de-ice aircraft, wind turbines, and power lines.

In tests, the material melted centimeter-thick ice from a static helicopter rotor blade in a minus-4-degree Fahrenheit environment. When a small voltage was applied, the coating delivered electrothermal heat—called Joule heating—to the surface, which melted the ice.

The coating is a mixture of graphene nanoribbons in epoxy. The nanoribbons, produced commercially by unzipping nanotubes, are highly conductive.
graphene coating on helicopter blade

Rather than trying to produce large sheets of expensive graphene, scientists in the lab of chemist James Tour at Rice University determined years ago that nanoribbons in composites would interconnect and conduct electricity across the material with much lower loadings than traditionally needed.

Previous experiments showed how the nanoribbons in films could be used to de-ice radar domes and even glass, since the films can be transparent to the eye.

"Applying this composite to wings could save time and money at airports where the glycol-based chemicals now used to de-ice aircraft are also an environmental concern," says Tour.

Original study here (DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b11131).

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"exec" writes:

Security researchers at Dr.Web on Tuesday revealed details of the Trojan Linux.Ekoms.1, which takes screen shots and records audio to acquire sensitive and personal information, mostly from Linux servers.

Malware for Linux is becoming more diverse and includes spyware programs, ransomware and Trojans designed to carry out distributed denial-of-service attacks, according to Dr.Web. Researchers did not assess the severity of the threat once the malware infects computers.

The disclosure also did not provide details on the source of the malware or the extent of its threat to servers or desktop computers running the open source OS.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/83020.html

-- submitted from IRC

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takyon writes:

JEDEC has finalized the GDDR5X SGRAM specification:

The new technology is designed to improve bandwidth available to high-performance graphics processing units without fundamentally changing the memory architecture of graphics cards or memory technology itself, similar to other generations of GDDR, although these new specifications are arguably pushing the phyiscal[sic] limits of the technology and hardware in its current form. The GDDR5X SGRAM (synchronous graphics random access memory) standard is based on the GDDR5 technology introduced in 2007 and first used in 2008. The GDDR5X standard brings three key improvements to the well-established GDDR5: it increases data-rates by up to a factor of two, it improves energy efficiency of high-end memory, and it defines new capacities of memory chips to enable denser memory configurations of add-in graphics boards or other devices. What is very important for developers of chips and makers of graphics cards is that the GDDR5X should not require drastic changes to designs of graphics cards, and the general feature-set of GDDR5 remains unchanged (and hence why it is not being called GDDR6).

[...] The key improvement of the GDDR5X standard compared to the predecessor is its all-new 16n prefetch architecture, which enables up to 512 bit (64 Bytes) per array read or write access. By contrast, the GDDR5 technology features 8n prefetch architecture and can read or write up to 256 bit (32 Bytes) of data per cycle. Doubled prefetch and increased data transfer rates are expected to double effective memory bandwidth of GDDR5X sub-systems. However, actual performance of graphics cards will depend not just on DRAM architecture and frequencies, but also on memory controllers and applications. Therefore, we will need to test actual hardware to find out actual real-world benefits of the new memory.

What purpose does GDDR5X serve if superior 1st and 2nd generation High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) are around? GDDR5X memory will be cheaper than HBM and its use is more of an evolutionary than revolutionary change from existing GDDR5-based hardware.

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"exec" (submitted from IRC) writes:

Linux Foundation chief spins to justify keeping community out

Linux Foundation chief executive Jim Zemlin has made a disappointing response to the reports about changes in the by-laws of the Foundation designed to prevent community representation. Confronted by facts that show clearly that the Foundation has made changes to block out the community, Zemlin [has] tried to spin and talked about irrelevant aspects of the debate around the issue. iTWire could not have made it more plain when pointing out the changes in the by-laws; they were marked in bold. Zemlin ignored everything and instead created a few straw men and then addressed them.

His statement began with a straw man: "The same individuals remain as directors, and the same ratio of corporate to community directors continues as well." Nobody has said anything about a change of directors, but the latter part of Zemlin's statement is just plain wrong. How can the ratio be the same when the community was earlier allowed to have two directors and now cannot have any? Zemlin then went on to claim that the Linux Foundation's move is in keeping with other FOSS organisations that are also cutting down on community representation. This again is incorrect, another straw man. Would he care to name the organisations he claims to be trying to emulate?

The major part of his statement talks about the abuse directed at Karen Sandler, the head of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Zemlin's changing of the by-laws was widely seen as a move to keep Sandler off the board as she is a passionate supporter of the GPL. The Conservancy is funding a GPL enforcement action against VMWare, a silver member of the Linux Foundation, and this is seen as a major reason why Zemlin has concluded that the fewer community members on the board the better.

In discussions around the web, there has been mention of the way the GNOME Foundation ran low on funds when Sandler was its head. Some claim that this was because more money was diverted to the outreach programme for women. Sandler has earned some flak for this. And so Zemlin became a knight in shining armour to defend what he characterised as a damsel in distress. Wow, he really went heavy on this.

The fact that most of the code for the kernel comes from developers employed by this company or that appears to have turned Zemlin's head and made him determined to ensure that only non-controversial people occupy the decision-making spots on the Foundation.

This is the relevant blog post by Linux Foundation chief Jim Zemlin responding to the controversy.

Previously: Linux Foundation No Longer Allows Little Guys in on the Election of Directors

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