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mendax writes:

The New York Times published an article today that states, as indicated by the headline, the obvious, that encryption is nowhere near as much of a threat as the government says that it is:

For more than two years the F.B.I. and intelligence agencies have warned that encrypted communications are creating a "going dark" crisis that will keep them from tracking terrorists and kidnappers.

But more importantly, the article goes on to say:

Now, a study in which current and former intelligence officials participated concludes that the warning is wildly overblown, and that a raft of new technologies — like television sets with microphones and web-connected cars — are creating ample opportunities for the government to track suspects, many of them worrying.

"'Going dark' does not aptly describe the long-term landscape for government surveillance," concludes the study, to be published Monday by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.

The study argues that the phrase ignores the flood of new technologies "being packed with sensors and wireless connectivity" that are expected to become the subject of court orders and subpoenas, and are already the target of the National Security Agency as it places "implants" into networks around the world to monitor communications abroad.

This article does, however, raise a concern, one that has been addressed in other stories posted here:

The products, ranging from "toasters to bedsheets, light bulbs, cameras, toothbrushes, door locks, cars, watches and other wearables," will give the government increasing opportunities to track suspects and in many cases reconstruct communications and meetings.

Perhaps the tin foil hat wearers are getting closer to being right.

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Phoenix666 submitted:

Chinese authorities have busted a Ponzi scheme involving over 50 billion yuan (HK$59 billion[, US$7.6 billion]) and more than 900,000 investors across the country, state-run Xinhua reported late Sunday night.

The case surrounding Ezubao, China's largest online peer-to-peer (P2P) lender, is set to become the country's biggest illegal fund-raising case in terms of money and the number of investors.

At least 21 suspects, including the scheme's alleged high-flying mastermind, Ding Ning, were under arrest, Xinhua reported. The suspects are accused of luring in investors with false offers of double-digit annual returns.

Ding, 34, financed his lavish lifestyle with money fleeced from investors, according to previous reports by Caixin.

Ezubao was launched in July 2014 and embarked on a massive advertising campaign to raise funds.

On the surface, it was a P2P website with various projects, offering investors annual returns ranging between 9 per cent and 14.6 per cent.

In reality, the website's operators made up most of the projects listed on its website and used funds from new investors to pay old debts, Xinhua reported.

Are there any Soylentils who fell prey to such a scheme? The name Bernie Madoff comes to mind.

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MrPlow writes in with a BBC article about a YouTube trademark licensing scheme (Submitted via IRC for Bytram):

The creators of one of YouTube's biggest channels have sparked fury over plans to trademark and license a popular video format. The Fine Brothers produce a popular series of "reaction videos", in which people watch online clips and respond.

On Tuesday, they revealed a scheme to let other video-makers use assets from their version of the format. But they have faced a backlash from viewers for trademarking "react" - a term widely used by other creators.

[...] In 2015, the brothers applied to trademark terms, including "Kids React", "Adults React" and "Celebrities React", as well as the word "react" itself, which could be used to form new variations of the format. On Tuesday, the brothers announced a licensing scheme called React World, which they said would let other video-makers use the "react" title and assets such as their graphics and music. But the plan was negatively received by the YouTube community because so many people already make similar reaction-based videos online, using the word "react" in the title.

[...] Since their announcement on Tuesday, the Fine Brothers have lost more than 170,000 followers from their YouTube channel. "I can't remember a channel that lost so many subscribers this quickly. At one point they were losing 10,000 an hour," said Jon.

tonyPick writes:

Spotted at Hackaday is a link to the rather neat regular expressions crosswords site:

Regular expressions might seem arcane, but if you do any kind of software, they are a powerful hacker tool. Obviously, if you are writing software or using tools like grep, awk, sed, Perl, or just about any programming language, regular expressions can simplify many tasks. Even if you don't need them directly, regular expression searches can help you analyze source code, search through net lists, or even analyze data captured from sensors.

The main site offers a selection of puzzles grouped by levels of difficulty or a common theme. If you want the site to track your progress you have to log in using a social media account (i.e. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc) however it is perfectly usable without logging in.

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AndyTheAbsurd writes:

http://thehackernews.com/2016/01/google-drone-5g-internet.html

[Editor addition follows.]

Coverage at The Guardian

Based out of the site near the town called Truth or Consequences, Project SkyBender is using drones to experiment with millimetre-wave radio transmissions, one of the technologies that could underpin next generation 5G wireless internet access. High frequency millimetre waves can theoretically transmit gigabits of data every second, up to 40 times more than today's 4G LTE systems. Google ultimately envisages thousands of high altitude "self-flying aircraft" delivering internet access around the world.

"The huge advantage of millimetre wave is access to new spectrum because the existing cellphone spectrum is overcrowded. It's packed and there's nowhere else to go," says Jacques Rudell, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington in Seattle and specialist in this technology.

However, millimetre wave transmissions have a much shorter range than mobile phone signals. A broadcast at 28GHz, the frequency Google is testing at Spaceport America, would fade out in around a tenth the distance of a 4G phone signal. To get millimetre wave working from a high-flying drone, Google needs to experiment with focused transmissions from a so-called phased array. "This is very difficult, very complex and burns a lot of power," Rudell says.

The article mentions it would be up to 40 times faster than current 4G speeds. The question is, what could you do with such a fast wireless connection?

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jrmcferren writes:

FTDI, not bound to stop at last year's anti-counterfeiting attempt of bricking fake chips has again pushed a driver update via Windows update that inserts the ASCII Text "NON GENUINE DEVICE FOUND!" in the serial transmission. More information can be found on this EEVBlog forum thread: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/microcontrollers/ftdi-gate-2-0/

Previous coverage:
FTDI Driver is Disabling Fake Chips
Update: FTDI Yanks Chip-Bricking Driver from Windows Update, Vows to Fight on

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An Anonymous Coward sent in some news about the restart of a Japanese nuclear reactor:

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japan-restarts-nuclear-reactor-plutonium-mixed-fuel-36593509

"Japan on Friday restarted a nuclear reactor that uses riskier plutonium-based MOX fuel[1], the first of that type to resume operations under stricter safety rules introduced after the 2011 Fukushima disaster.

[...] The No. 3 reactor at Takahama nuclear plant[2] in western Japan, operated by Kansai Electric Power Co., went back online Friday. Dozens of people protested outside the plant in Fukui prefecture, where preparations for a restart of another reactor, No. 4, are also underway.

[...] Nearly five years since a massive earthquake and tsunami caused meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, about 100,000 people still cannot return to nearby areas. Workers at the plant continue to struggle with its decommissioning, which will take decades."

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOX_fuel

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takahama_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Also covered at Japan Today: Japan restarts Takahama nuclear reactor

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

"You just plug in the HDMI feed, and you're in the cockpit of the drone..." the CEO of the new Drone Racing League tells Wired. "Everyone from Oculus on is expecting to have VR headsets in every home for entertainment consumption, and we're a natural use for it." In anticipation of a new mass entertainment, the Drone Racing League released new footage Thursday highlighting one of their complicated competition courses, "a concrete steampunk torture chamber with cast-iron columns and massive hulking turbines from another era" described as The Gates of Hell. "[T]hese young drone pilots are not just enjoying themselves, but also inventing a new sport," reports one technology site, asking whether we'll ultimately see "drone parks" or even drone demolition derbies and flying robot wars. In an article titled "When Video Games Get Real," they quote one pilot who says it feels like skateboarding in the 1990's, "with a small group of people pushing the envelope and inventing every day" -- this time wearing virtual reality goggles to experience the addictive thrill of flying.

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takyon writes:

Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Neuroscience in Shanghai have genetically modified macaque monkeys to include mutated human MECP2 genes. The monkeys have exhibited behaviors similar to autism:

The laboratory monkeys run obsessively in circles, largely ignore their peers and grunt anxiously when stared at. Engineered to have a gene that is related to autism spectrum disorder in people, the monkeys are the most realistic animal model of the condition yet, say their creators. Researchers hope that the animals will open up new ways to test treatments and investigate the biology of autism. But the jury is still out on how well the monkeys' condition matches human autism.

Autism has a vast array of symptoms and types, and researchers think that at least 100 genes play a part. The scientists who led the latest work, which is published on 25 January in Nature (Z. Liu et al. Nature doi.org/bb3k; 2016), turned to the autism-related gene MECP2: many of the symptoms of autism are found in people who have extra copies of the gene (MECP2-duplication syndrome) as well as in people who have certain mutations in this gene (Rett's syndrome). Researchers have engineered monkeys to have autism-related genes before (H. Liu et al. Cell Stem Cell 14, 323–328; 2014), but this is the first published demonstration of a link between those genes and the animals' behaviour.

[Continues.]

Absolutely.Geek writes:

The Daily Dot reports:

Despite widespread media reports to the contrary, an app created for Islamic State militants to send private encrypted messages does not exist, a Daily Dot investigation found.

On Jan. 12, Defense One reported that the Islamic State allegedly built a new Android app called Alrawi for exchanging encrypted messages, based on claims from self-proclaimed online counterterrorism outfit Ghost Security Group (GSG). The claim was quickly reprinted by Newsweek , Fortune , TechCrunch, and the Times of India —the largest English-language newspaper in the world—among many others.

However, it seems as though hype and fear, rather than concrete evidence of a genuine tool for orchestrating terrorists attacks, played the primary role in propagating word of its existence.

So FUD seems to be the order of the day as usual:

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takyon writes:

President Obama has announced the Computer Science for All Initiative, which would include $4 billion in funding for computer science in schools:

President Obama [on Jan. 30] pledged $4 billion in funding for computer science education in the nation's schools. The Computer Science for All Initiative slated for the president's forthcoming budget plan would include an additional $100 million that would go directly to school districts to fund computer science programs.

Under the president's plan, the Department of Education will divide the $4 billion over three years to states that propose well-designed five-year plans to increase computer science access in classrooms. Along with billions in federal funding, the initiative also includes commitments from philanthropists and some of the country's largest tech companies to help increase opportunities for computer science training, especially for underrepresented groups.

"Our economy is rapidly shifting, and educators and business leaders are increasingly recognizing that CS is a 'new basic' skill necessary for economic opportunity and social mobility," the White House said.

[...] The $100 million for districts will come in the form of competitive grants that reward ambitious efforts to expand computer science education in ways that reach as many students as possible, with the ultimate hope of finding a template that could work nationwide.

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tonyPick writes:

The Conversation has an article on how galaxies stop turning gas into new stars and effectively die. It also describes a scenario where a galaxy is running though hydrogen gas reserves; still managing to produce stars but at a reduced rate and it is effectively already dead - a so called "Zombie galaxy".

It raises the possibility that Andromeda, and possibly even our own galaxy, are in this state:

Like a zombie, the Milky Way galaxy may already be dead but it still keeps going. Our galactic neighbor Andromeda almost certainly expired a few billion years ago, but only recently started showing outward signs of its demise.
...
How and why galaxies "quench" their star formation and change their morphology, or shape, is one of the big questions in extragalactic astrophysics. We may now be on the brink of being able to piece together how it happens. And part of the thanks goes to citizen scientists who combed through millions of galactic images to classify what's out there.

The article author is Kevin Schawinski (Assistant Professor of Galaxy & Black Hole Astrophysics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology) - one of the founders of Galaxy Zoo, and the article also covers the ways in which the crowdsourcing of galaxy classification helped the research project goals.

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tonyPick writes:

According to Velonews one of the bikes at the Cyclo-cross World Championships in Heusden-Zolder, Belgium, has been seized due to a "technical fraud", specifically the alleged discovery of a concealed electrical motor.

In what appears to be a first in cycling, the International Cycling Union confirmed that it had impounded the bike of Belgian rider Femke van den Driessche following the women's under-23 championship race Saturday.

The article quotes further details from a report on the Belgian TV network Sporza:

"After one lap of the world championships, UCI took Femke's bike in the pit area and tested it with some sort of tablet," said Sporza journalist Maarten Vangramberen. "The bike was immediately sealed and taken. The UCI then called in the Belgian federation. When the saddle was removed, there were electrical cables in the seat tube. When they wanted to remove the bottom bracket, which is normally not difficult, they could not because the crank was stuck. Inside there was a motor."

Also covered at Cycling Weekly and The Telegraph .

An earlier article in The Telegraph details the growing concerns and rumours about the possibility of hidden electrical motors in competitive cycling.

"UCI" is the "Union Cycliste Internationale" the world governing body for competitive cycling, and as usual Wikipedia has everything you ever wanted to know about Cyclo-cross.

How Bike Motors Work

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Hidden motors on bikes have been around for a few years. This link gives a decent understanding of how they work.

One giveaway is to weigh the bike. Most carbon fiber road bikes are right down on the minimum weight limit, and even this lightweight motor/battery adds about 1.8kg or ~4 pounds. No serious roadie would be caught on a 20 pound bike these days...

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Phoenix666 writes:

Electrek has learned that Tesla this month quietly hired high-profile microprocessor engineer Jim Keller as Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering. Tesla today confirmed the news and sent us the following statement:

Jim Keller is joining Tesla as Vice President of Autopilot Hardware Engineering. Jim will bring together the best internal and external hardware technologies to develop the safest, most advanced autopilot systems in the world.

Keller left chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) late last year after leading the team developing the upcoming Zen processor architecture for the past three years. Before that he had a very high-profile role at Apple…

Keller first worked at AMD in the late 90’s when it was in fierce competition with Intel in the CPU market. He was a key player in the creation of the Athlon K7 architecture, as well as the lead architect of the company’s K8 architecture.

He left AMD in 1999, but came back in 2012 as ‘Chief Architect of Microprocessor Cores’ after a big role at Apple where he played a major role in developing the Cupertino company’s A4 and A5 processors, which powered most of Apple’s mobile devices from 2010 to 2012.

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AndyTheAbsurd writes:

New drug is like morphine without the addiction

Scientists are testing a new painkiller that is as strong as morphine but isn't likely to be addictive and with fewer side effects.

Using rats, scientists compared several engineered variants of the neurochemical endomorphin, which is found naturally in the body, to morphine to measure their effectiveness and side effects. The peptide-based drugs target the same pain-relieving opioid receptor as morphine.

Opium-based drugs are the leading treatments for severe and chronic pain, but they can be highly addictive. Their abuse results in thousands of overdose deaths in the United States annually. They can cause motor impairment and potentially fatal respiratory depression. Patients also build up tolerance over time, increasing the risk for abuse and overdose.

"These side effects were absent or reduced with the new drug," says lead investigator James Zadina, a professor of medicine, pharmacology, and neuroscience at Tulane University School of Medicine. "It's unprecedented for a peptide to deliver such powerful pain relief with so few side effects."

Also available at Tulane University.

Endomorphin analog analgesics with reduced abuse liability, respiratory depression, motor impairment, tolerance, and glial activation relative to morphine (DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2015.12.024).

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takyon writes:

An experiment aboard the International Space Station has shown that an Antarctic fungus can survive cold and dry conditions similar to those found on Mars:

An experiment 18 months in the making has proved successful: European scientists announced today that a fungi that grows under rocks in Antarctica can survive aboard the International Space Station, under conditions similar to Mars. The species of fungi, Cryomyces antarcticus and Cryomyces minteri, are endemic to the McMurdo Dry Valleys located in the Antarctica Victoria Land — a region that resembles the extremely dry, cold climate of the Martian surface. Both species are cyptoendothlitic, meaning they are able to colonize empty spaces and pores inside rock structures. They survive the hostile environment by literally slipping through the cracks.

Scientists with the Lichens and Fungi Experiment (LIFE), associated with the European Space Agency, collected samples of the fungi and placed them in specially-designed ISS platform called EXPOSE-E — basically a miniature habitat able to withstand extreme environments. The fungi were exposed to Mars-like conditions: atmosphere with 95 percent carbon dioxide, 1.6 percent argon, 0.15 percent oxygen, 2.7 percent nitrogen, 370 parts per million of water, 1,000 pascals of pressure, and high levels of ultraviolet radiation. More than 60 percent of the fungal cells for both species survived after 18 months.

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takyon writes:

A team from the German Aerospace Center has created an animated flyover of Ceres:

A colorful new animation shows a simulated flight over the surface of dwarf planet Ceres, based on images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The movie shows Ceres in enhanced color, which helps to highlight subtle differences in the appearance of surface materials. Scientists believe areas with shades of blue contain younger, fresher material, including flows, pits and cracks. The animated flight over Ceres emphasizes the most prominent craters, such as Occator, and the tall, conical mountain Ahuna Mons. Features on Ceres are named for earthly agricultural spirits, deities and festivals.

[...] The movie was produced by members of Dawn's framing camera team at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, using images from Dawn's high-altitude mapping orbit. During that phase of the mission, which lasted from August to October 2015, the spacecraft circled Ceres at an altitude of about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers).

"The simulated overflight shows the wide range of crater shapes that we have encountered on Ceres. The viewer can observe the sheer walls of the crater Occator, and also Dantu and Yalode, where the craters are a lot flatter," said Ralf Jaumann, a Dawn mission scientist at DLR.

YouTube video.

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