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Phoenix666 writes:

Brains over beauty? But we all know that guys are hardwired for pretty faces and shapely bodies when it comes to choosing a mate, right?

Not so fast. Despite today's ongoing challenges in achieving gender equality, a new review of research on mate preferences conducted by researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Innsbruck suggests that modern men indeed increasingly value brains over beauty in their long-term partners.

"Our review across several disciplines suggest that mating preferences of men as well as women have responded with unsuspected speed to progress toward gender equality," said Marcel Zentner, professor of psychology at University of Innsbruck in Austria.

The common view is that our mate choices are evolutionarily "hardwired" in our brains and therefore minimally responsive to changing conditions. But some evolutionary scientists now argue that humans are programmed to respond with great flexibility to changing environments.

"This flexibility allows people to do what sociocultural theorists have maintained for a long time: Select partners who minimize the costs and maximize the benefits that they will experience in their future lives," said Alice Eagly, professor of psychology and faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern.

Look at the lobes on that one...

Original Study [Abstract only. Article paywalled.]

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

From TechCrunch:

It hasn't made sense for Google to continue to invest in two separate photo storage and sharing applications, as it has been doing with the newer Google Photos and the dated software Picasa. And now the company is finally going to do something about that: Google announced this morning that it will no longer support the Picasa desktop application as of March 16, 2016. In addition, it will be archiving Picasa Web Albums data at a later date while encouraging those users to convert to Google Photos instead.

It's clear that Google is concerned about backlash from its devoted user base who still relies on Picasa, given the tone of today's announcement. The company emphasized how much time it has invested in making sure it makes the transition as painless as possible for end users.

###

Moving on from Picasa
Friday, February 12, 2016 10:00 AM

"As of March 15, 2016, we will no longer be supporting the Picasa desktop application. For those who have already downloaded this-or choose to do so before this date-it will continue to work as it does today, but we will not be developing it further, and there will be no future updates. If you choose to switch to Google Photos, you can continue to upload photos and videos using the desktop uploader at photos.google.com/apps"

http://googlephotos.blogspot.com/2016/02/moving-on-from-picasa.html

###

What is Picasa?

http://picasa.google.com/

Original Submission

oaklandwatch writes:

LinkedIn is open sourcing their testing frameworks, and sharing details of their revamped development process after their latest app required a year and over 250 engineers.

Their new paradigm? "Release three times per day, with no more than three hours between when code is committed and when that code is available to members," according to a senior engineer on LinkedIn's blog. This requires a three-hour pipeline where everything is automated, from committing code to releasing it into production, along with automated analyses and testing. "Holding ourselves to this constraint ensures we won't revert to using manual validation to certify our releases."

Original Submission

darkfeline writes:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/02/64-bit-iphones-and-ipads-get-stuck-in-a-loop-when-set-to-january-1-1970/

Take a 64-bit iOS device—iPhone 5S or newer, iPad Air or newer, iPad Mini 2 or newer, sixth generation iPod touch or newer—laboriously set its date to January 1, 1970, and reboot. Congratulations: you now have a shiny piece of high-tech hardware that's stuck at the boot screen, showing nothing more than the Apple logo... forever.

Posted on Reddit and subsequently demonstrated on YouTube, it appears that iOS has a rather embarrassing software flaw. Redditors testing the bug have found themselves with unusable phones, and there are reports that vandals have been resetting the clocks of display devices in Apple stores.

So far, taking advantage of this bug requires a few minutes of physical access, as it takes a while to wind the date back 46 years in the settings app. There is concern that Wi-Fi devices could be vulnerable to malicious data from NTP (network time protocol) servers. NTP is used by many operating systems to set the time and date of a device, and its data is both unencrypted and unauthenticated, making spoofing relatively straightforward. NTP clients should not generally change the time and date by such large amounts, so this may not be an issue, but iOS's behavior in this regard is currently unknown.

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

You don't have to be a scientist to get excited about breakthroughs in theoretical physics. Discoveries such as gravitational waves and the Higgs boson can inspire wonder at the complex beauty of the universe no matter how little you really understand them.

But some people will always question why they should care about scientific advances that have no apparent impact on their daily life – and why we spend millions funding them. Sure, it's amazing that we can study black holes thousands of light years away and that Einstein really was as much of a genius as we thought, but that won't change the way most people live or work.

Yet the reality is that purely theoretical studies in physics can sometimes lead to amazing changes in our society. In fact, several key pillars on which our modern society rests, from satellite communication to computers, were made possible by investigations that had no obvious application at the time.

[...]

This motivation may well have begun when humans first looked up at the night-sky in ancient times. They wanted to understand the world they lived and so spent time watching nature and creating theories about it, many of them involving gods or supernatural beings. Today we have made huge progress in our understanding of both stars and galaxies and, at the other end of the scale, of the tiny fundamental particles from which matter is built.

It somehow seems that every new level of understanding we achieve comes in tandem with new, more fundamental questions. It is never enough to know what we now know. We always want to continue looking behind newly arising curtains. In that respect, I consider fundamental physics a basic part of human culture.

Now we can wait curiously to find out what unforeseen spin-offs that discoveries such as the Higgs boson or gravitational waves might lead to in the long-term future. But we can also look forward to the new insights into the building-blocks of nature that they will bring us and the new questions they will raise.

http://theconversation.com/whats-the-point-of-theoretical-physics-54493

[Related]: Five ways particle accelerators have changed the world (without a Higgs boson in sight)

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

When Sir John Franklin and more than 100 sailors from the British Navy set sail in 1845 aboard the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to discover a Northwest Passage, they had no idea that not one of them would live to tell the story of the expedition. Now, Parks Canada archeologists, in partnership with Inuit communities in the Northwest Territories, have made a start at piecing together their tale, thanks to the 2014 discovery of the wreck of the Erebus.

Jonathan Moore, a Parks Canada senior underwater archeologist, shared some of the excitement and mystery of the search for remains of the Franklin Expedition with the U of T Mississauga community on Feb. 9 at the Chemical and Physical Sciences Colloquium, held in the UTM Instructional Centre.

A bit of the history of the doomed expedition was known before Parks Canada began its quest, thanks to Inuit stories told to the British explorer, Dr. John Rae, in 1854, and a search launched by Lady Jane Franklin, wife of Sir John, in 1859. The latter search located a cairn on Fort William Island with the message that the two ships had been trapped in the ice for about 18 months, during which time Franklin and 23 crew members died. The remaining crew members attempted to make their way south overland, but none survived. The message gave some idea of the location of the ships. The Inuit had attempted to salvage the ships, but they sunk before the salvage was finished.

Parks Canada began a serious search for the lost ships in 2008, using both the crew's information and Inuit testimony as guides. Crews worked in vain for almost six years, but in September 2014, Moore was one of the four people aboard a small exploration ship that picked up the sonar image of a large object sitting underwater off the coast of Ugjulik, NWT.

Original Submission

NotSanguine writes:

John Leyden over at El Reg is reporting on a survey of real-world events and "hacktivist" operations, by Recorded Future, a "threat intelligence" firm.

The Recorded Future piece states:

On March 2, 2014, Pakistan defeated India in a cricket match in the Asia Cup held in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The next day (March 3), in Meerut, India, 67 Kashmiri students at Swami Vivekanand Subharti University were suspended for having cheered for Pakistan and distributing sweets after their win.

Then on March 5, 2014, the website of Swami Vivekanand Subharti University was hacked by a group claiming to be the Pakistan Cyber Army (a.k.a. Bangladesh Cyber Army) in response to expelling pro-Pakistan students.

Finally, on March 7, 2014 the sedition charges against expelled students are dropped but they could still face prosecution over the incident.

Based on this past event, it's likely that cyber activity will take place between Indian and Pakistani actors before, during, and after the next cricket match between India and Pakistan on March 19 in Dharamsala, India.

The El Reg article goes on to say:

Hacktivists from the Pakistan Cyber Army (PCA) have targeted India since 2007. Government and private sites targeted by the PCA at various times have included the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Indian Railways, the Central Bureau of Investigation, Central Bank of India, and the State Government of Kerala. Recorded Future has republished Facebook posts seemingly by member of the PCA that provide tutorials on how to set up phishing attacks.

Individuals affiliated with the PCA may have skills including zero-day vulnerabilities, SQL injection, WEP cracking, and spear phishing, according to reports by Recorded Future and other threat intel experts, including ThreatConnect and FireEye.

It's far from all one-way traffic. Indian hackers took part in a revenge attack in response to the deadly 2 January attack on the Indian Air Force base in Pathankot. Indian hacker groups include the Indian Black Hats and the Mallu Cyber Soldiers. Methods used by these groups include SQL injection and PHP web application hacks.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

On the fourth floor of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, there is a hackathon. Just walk in the door and follow the signs depicting George W. Bush wearing a Photoshopped Oculus Rift during his famous "Mission Accomplished" speech. Past the VR Lab you'll find a half-dozen tables full of hackers, staring at their laptop screens elbow to elbow. They're young, disheveled. Hair has had been mussed, collars tugged at, sleeves rolled up. A deep, computerized voice mutters incoherent gibberish off in the distance. A quirky machine with a tangle of wires twitches and squirts out Easy Cheese. Someone in VR makes a kissy face and waggles her head at nothing in particular. No one bats an eye.

Welcome to the third annual Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas Hackathon.

Founded two years ago by Amelia Winger-Bearskin and Sam Lavigne, the Stupid Hackathon is an outgrowth of the duo's time as students in the school's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), a two-year grad program that melds technology and art. This year's event is the largest by far—there around 100 people here today, Lavigne tells me. (A later count puts it at roughly twice as many.) To either side of him projection screens display the day's topics, which include:

        VIRTUAL REALITY (FOR BABIES)
        ARTISANAL AD NETWORKS
        OPEN SOURCE DEBTORS PRISON

The Stupid Hackathon shares a portion of its DNA with the more common, often corporate-sponsored variety. Participants register ahead of time with an idea for a project and show up on event day to spend several hours in each other's company, working diligently to duct tape their ideas together—figuratively and literally—before the event closes with presentations and awards.

Sounds like more honest fun than the corporate variety, which are just pitch-a-thons.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

"Tor Browser 5.5.2 is now available from the Tor Browser Project page[1] and also from our distribution directory[2].

This release features important security updates[3] to Firefox.

Users on the security level "High" or "Medium-High" were not affected by the bugs in the Graphite font rendering library."

[1] https://www.torproject.org/download/download-easy.html
[2] https://www.torproject.org/dist/torbrowser/5.5.2/
[3] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox-esr/#firefoxesr38.6.1

###

The full changelog since 5.5.1 is:

Tor Browser 5.5.2 -- February 12 2016

        All Platforms
                Update Firefox to 38.6.1esr
                Update NoScript to 2.9.0.3

###

What is Tor Browser?

"The Tor software protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location, and it lets you access sites which are blocked.

The Tor Browser lets you use Tor on Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux without needing to install any software. It can run off a USB flash drive, comes with a pre-configured web browser to protect your anonymity, and is self-contained (portable)."

- https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Diary of Anne Frank has been removed from Wikipedia sister project Wikisource due to a reassessment of when the work ceases to be copyrighted:

The Diary of Anne Frank has been removed from book repository Wikisource after the site became aware it had fallen foul of copyright law. The site briefly hosted a digital copy of Het Achterhuis, the first version of the diary compiled by Anne's father Otto, which was published in 1947. It had been put online in the belief that the copyright expired in January 2016, 70 years after Anne's death. However under US law it is protected until 2042.

Wikisource removed the book voluntarily. The Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia as well as Wikisource, said its action was "an unfortunate example of the overreach of the US' current copyright law".

[...] Anne Frank died in 1945, which suggests that her elements of the original Dutch language version of the diary is now copyright free. It is in fact in the public domain in some countries, including the UK. But since it was compiled and edited by Anne's father Otto Frank, who omitted much of the content in her original manuscripts, some people argue that he created a new version of the text which should be protected by its own copyright.

Otto Frank died in 1980, which would mean the copyright of the 1947 edition does not expire in many countries until 2050. Anne Frank Fonds, a charitable foundation founded by Otto Frank, told the BBC that it believes Anne Frank's full, unedited manuscripts, which were published in 1986, do remain under copyright. However the group added that it did not believe Mr Frank should be considered a co-author of his daughter's work.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Twitter needs more people to tweet. In its desperation to make that happen, it's taking a page from old cookbooks on how to make pasta: Throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.

So far not much is sticking, and that's bad news for Twitter because it needs to win over people who have little interest in tweeting. In July, it reported 316 million users were actively tweeting, just a 3 percent rise from three months before, and it warned investors not to expect " sustained meaningful growth." In October, the San Francisco-based company said the number of active users grew by a meager 1 percent.

Twitter's executives, including CEO Jack Dorsey, admit they've got a problem. The service is confusing, which makes it hard for tweeters to find other people and topics to follow. It's also viewed as a hotbed of abusive behavior, which intimidates both new and existing users.

Twitter also knows it needs a face-lift that will make it more visually appealing in a way that encourages regular people, and not just an in crowd of entertainers, politicos and hipsters, to use the service.

Twitter is for twits?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A mentally disabled man will be reunited with his family after having been missing for 30 years and forgetting his own identity:

A Canadian man who disappeared 30 years ago is set to be reunited with his family after remembering his identity, Canadian media reported. Edgar Latulip was 21 when he went missing from a home for disabled people in Ontario province. He boarded a bus, but soon after suffered a head injury that police believe robbed him of his memory.

Mr Latulip lived in the Niagara region under a different identity for decades before experiencing flashbacks. He told a social worker who checked the name Latulip and discovered it was the subject of a missing person investigation. A DNA test confirmed his true identity.

[...] His mother, Ottawa resident Sylvia Wilson told the Record she was "blown away" by the news. Mr Latulip has the mental age of a 12-year-old, according to the North American Missing Person Network. Ms Wilson said she had a difficult relationship with her eldest child, but told the Record: "I want to talk to him and help him out any way I can. I just want to see him."

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

With the rise of speed-driven journalism, reporters face an industrywide expectation to use social media to engage readers. But new research from UT Dallas finds actual practices are falling short of that goal.

In her most recent study, Dr. Angela Lee, assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communication, examined how journalists use social media in their pursuit for speedy news, and how they perceive their audiences are affected by tweets and posts.

Using in-depth interviews with 11 journalists from different national, metropolitan and local newspapers, Lee's findings offer several reasons why social media may be unable to save news organizations from financial woes.

Published by The International Journal on Media Management, the study finds that despite an organizational expectation to use social media to engage audiences, journalists primarily use Twitter to communicate with other journalists.

"This study contributes to a larger body of work looking at the disconnect between journalists and news consumers," Lee said. "Despite prevalent organizational expectations that journalists engage with audiences on social media, most interviewees have very little experience with, or knowledge of, their audiences."

Original Study [Abstract only. Full article paywalled]

Original Submission

linkdude64 writes:

"No service provider shall enter into any arrangement, agreement or contract, by whatever name called, with any person, natural or legal, that has the effect of discriminatory tariffs for data services being offered or charged by the service provider for the purpose of evading the prohibition in this regulation," TRAI said in a statement.

This would effectively eliminate Facebook's strategy for "Free Basics" which was to serve users certain websites for free, while charging for others.

Facebook had to say:

"Our goal with Free Basics is to bring more people online with an open, non-exclusive and free [as in beer] platform. While disappointed with the outcome, we will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the internet and the opportunities it brings."

I am pleased that any agents within the government who wanted this surveillance and propaganda engine put into place for the purposes of crowd control have been denied their plans.

Full article:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/tech/trai-s-says-no-to-content-based-differential-tariff-offers-supports-net-neutrality/story-1pOAI14aHvXYRu3AQNzMjP.html

Additional source:
http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/facebook-shuts-down-free-basics-in-india/article8223068.ece

TRAI ruling:
http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Regulation_Data_Service.pdf

Original Submission

AnonTechie writes:

A study by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University has uncovered the key role played by a single gene in how groups of animals diverge to form new species. The study, published today in the journal Nature, restored fertility to the normally-infertile offspring of two subspecies of mice, by replacing part of the Prdm9 gene with the equivalent human version. Despite the nearly 150 million years of evolution separating mice and humans, these 'humanized' mice were completely fertile.

New animal species form when groups of animals become isolated and as a result, begin to separate through evolution (a process known as speciation). When these isolated populations meet later, they might be able to breed with each other, but the male offspring are often infertile. Horses and donkeys are an example of such speciation: they can interbreed, but their offspring, mules, are infertile.

http://phys.org/news/2016-02-species.html

[Abstract]: Re-engineering the zinc fingers of PRDM9 reverses hybrid sterility in mice

[Source]: http://www.ndm.ox.ac.uk/principal-investigators/project/re-engineering-the-dna-binding-characteristics-of-a-speciation-gene

Original Submission