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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Peterborough, New Hampshire Ledger-Transcript reports

The ConVal School District[1] will provide every middle school and high school student a Chromebook laptop by the 2017-18 school year, as textbooks, homework, and lessons all go digital.

[...] Administrators couldn't emphasize enough how essential it is for students to move out of the "print, paper world". [...] The U.S. Department of Education found students that had access to a computer anywhere, anytime "became more creative, more collaborative, and better writers", while University of Kentucky researchers wrote "improvements in writing, literacy, science, exam scores, and GPAs all have been noted in various research studies".

[...] The district will buy the Chromebooks over three years. [...] There are already 266 Chromebooks in use at the middle schools and high school. To implement the one-to-one model, the district first must upgrade the technology infrastructure of the three schools in 2016-17. [...] It would then buy 662 more Chromebooks in 2017-18.

[...] The dean of faculty at the high school, said money will be saved not having to buy newer versions of textbooks.[2]

[...] Administrators have considered either buying insurance for each device at $20 to $25 a year, or a student and their parents becoming responsible for paying to fix or replace the device if it is damaged. [...] The district also hopes to make arrangements with its member towns and libraries so if a student lacks Internet access at home, it can use the WiFi at municipal buildings.

[1] Does not degrade gracefully; black text on a black background in the HTML styling.
[2] It appears that the district is still using digital versions of traditional textbooks rather than using an Open Knowledge model.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

As soon as the year 2020, you may be seeing advertising or other imagery floating before you. That's when Mitsubishi Electric hopes to have its "aerial display" technology perfected and commercially available. Already, it's capable of displaying images measuring up to 56 inches (142 cm) diagonally, hovering in the ether.

Here's how the aerial display system works ...

The image, which can be a still or video, is displayed on a screen that sits perpendicular (and unseen) to the human viewer. Sitting diagonal to that screen is a beam splitter, which is a glass device that splits beams of light in two.

As a result, when the screen image is reflected off the back of the beam splitter, it becomes two duplicate images. These are in turn reflected off a retro-reflective sheet and through the beam splitter, converging in the air in front of the viewer. This causes the viewer to perceive a single image, dangling before them.

It will be used for advertising.

Original Submission

Demose submitted:

Already one of the top video editors on Linux, after 2 years of development and a kickstarter campaign, a public beta for open shot 2.0 is available. This release includes a U.I. update and Mac and Windows support. You can find out more at:
http://www.openshotvideo.com/2016/02/openshot-206-beta-3-released.html

Some of the many improvements include: smoother animation; audio improvements; autosave; automatic backup and recovery; project file improvements; improved preferences; and many bugfixes..

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Virginia Commonwealth University researchers have developed a new technique for analyzing DNA molecules. Their new research article, "Infrared laser heating applied to nanopore sensing for DNA duplex analysis," suggests the possibility for improving forensic DNA workflows for more rapid and accurate identification. The article was published in the journal Analytical Chemistry and appeared online on Feb. 19.

"We are interested in increasing the number of parameters that researchers can tune in order to study small DNA molecules," said Joseph Reiner, Ph.D., assistant professor of physics in the College of Humanities and Sciences. "Laser heating has been used in the past, so we applied this methodology to our nanopore technique and found it was effective at discriminating between different sized DNA fragments."

Nanopore sensing allows researchers to learn about the physical and chemical properties of molecules in solution. A nanopore is a little hole with an ionic current. When it's introduced in a solution sample, DNA molecules from the solution drift through it, causing the current to change. Based on the current change and also the length of time the molecule dwells in the nanopore, researchers get information about the molecule. In this case, the researchers were interested in analyzing the size of the molecules.

Heating the nanopores, where DNA is measured, with an infrared laser allows faster processing of DNA fragments, which can often lodge in them.

Original Submission

martyb writes:

Over the past year or two, I've noticed fewer details presented in Microsoft Windows' "Patch Tuesday" update descriptions. I immediately ask myself, "What does that update REALLY do? Do I really want to install it?"

I am intending to move off of Windows, but in the meantime, I want to maintain my PC's security. I am very privacy conscious and have many ad-blocking and privacy-protecting addons installed on my browser. I use a HOSTS file to block certain sites. I use DuckDuckGo for search.

I have read reports where some updates needed to be revoked as they caused issues on some users systems. More recently, there are reports of telemetry in Windows 10, and those updates being back-ported into earlier version of Windows.

I prefer to wait about a week before installing updates just to make sure that any potential issues are caught by others, so I don't have to. That said, I would like to know what resources my fellow Soylentils have found useful in assessing each update. Given Redmond's increasing reticence in providing patch details, where do you go to find details on each update? How do you decide if any give update is useful, benign, or problematic? How do you determine the privacy implications of installing an update? Do you have a favorite "go to" website that clues you in to problem updates?

Original Submission

hubie writes:

The surface of Charon exhibits "pull apart" tectonic faults that are created when the surface expands and fractures, which would happen if a subsurface water ocean froze and expanded.

Charon's outer layer is primarily water ice. When the moon was young this layer was warmed by the decay of radioactive elements, as well as Charon's own internal heat of formation. Scientists say Charon could have been warm enough to cause the water ice to melt deep down, creating a subsurface ocean. But as Charon cooled over time, this ocean would have frozen and expanded (as happens when water freezes), pushing the surface outward and producing the massive chasms we see today.

Another source of heat to support a former subsurface ocean could have come from tidal friction, provided that Charon initially had a highly eccentric orbit, as reported here a year before the Pluto encounter by New Horizons.

Original Submission

n1 writes:

As reported by The Guardian:

Many British politicians would doubtless rejoice at the news that Andrew Marr, Emily Maitlis, and Andrew Neil were to leave their jobs almost simultaneously.

That is the fate that has befallen what could loosely be described as their counterparts in Japan – Ichiro Furutachi, Hiroko Kuniya and Shigetada Kishii – three respected broadcasters with a reputation for asking tough questions.

Their imminent departure from evening news programmes is not just a loss to their profession; critics say they were forced out as part of a crackdown on media dissent by an increasingly intolerant prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his supporters.

Only last week, the internal affairs minister, Sanae Takaichi, sent a clear message to media organisations. Broadcasters that repeatedly failed to show "fairness" in their political coverage, despite official warnings, could be taken off the air, she told MPs.

Under broadcast laws, the internal affairs minister has the power to suspend broadcasting that does not maintain political neutrality.

Additional coverage at LibertyBlitzkrieg.com.

Original Submission

oaklandwatch writes:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab just released a new artwork series imagining a future where exotic locations in outer space have become travel destinations. "The breathtaking illustrations commemorate the auroras of Jupiter, the mysterious waters of Titan, and the double suns of the newly-discovered planet Kepler-16b, 'Where your shadow always has company'," writes one technology site, noting that that NASA is encouraging visitors to print out the 14 illustrations as free posters, and to keep dreaming about the world we want to live in. (And NASA is even selling postcards, making it possible to send greetings from outer space.) "It's hard not to see these posters as a NASA attempt to build strong popular support for all the new space programs yet to come. Or as NASA writes on their web page, "Imagination is our window into the future."

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

The Washington Times reports that Carole Adams, the mother of Robert Adams — a 40-year-old environmental health specialist who was shot dead in the San Bernardino, Calif., massacre by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife in December, is siding with Apple in its battle to protect consumer's privacy rights. Adams says she stands by Apple's decision to fight a federal court order to create software that would allow federal authorities to access the shooter's password-blocked iPhone. Adams says she understands the FBI's need to search Farook's phone, but it has to be done without putting others at risk.

"This is what separates us from communism, isn't it? The fact we have the right to privacy," says Adams. "I think Apple is definitely within their rights to protect the privacy of all Americans. This is what makes America great to begin with, that we abide by a Constitution that gives us the right of privacy, the right to bear arms, and the right to vote."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Uber is losing billions in an attempt to dominate the Chinese ridesharing market:

App-based car-hire service Uber is losing more than $1bn (£699m) a year in China, as it struggles against what it called a "fierce competitor". Uber CEO Travis Kalanick made the admission while speaking at a private event in Vancouver, according to Canadian tech news site Betakit. The $1bn figure was later confirmed with Uber China by Reuters news agency.

US-based Uber launched in China in 2014 and competes against the country's largest taxi app Didi Kuaidi. Uber is available in more than 40 cities in China. It announced last year that it would expand into 100 Chinese cities over the next 12 months.

"We're profitable in the USA, but we're losing over $1bn a year in China," Betakit quoted Mr Kalanick as saying. He described China as the firm's largest international marketplace. But Uber's market share is dwarfed by that of the larger Didi Kuaidi. "We have a fierce competitor that's unprofitable in every city they exist in, but they're buying up market share." Mr Kalanick has previously said the firm had gone from a tiny 1% share of China's market at the beginning of 2015 to about 30% to 35%.

Didi Kuaidi, which is backed by Chinese tech giants Tencent and Alibaba, has now also partnered with Uber's rival US ride-sharing service Lyft.

Also at Reuters.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

[Researchers] have developed an active variable stiffness vibration isolator capable of 100x stiffness changes and millisecond actuation times, independent of the static load. According to Principal Investigator Christopher Churchill, "This performance surpasses existing mechanisms by at least 20 times in either speed or useful stiffness change."

[...] Churchill says that the traditional approach - building a soft system and then adding damping and force - is expensive and low-bandwidth. "We developed a new paradigm, and instead built a stiff system and then softened it," he said. The result is a low-cost and high-bandwidth solution to long-standing challenges.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/hl-bid021916.php

Original Submission

Runaway1956 writes:

Radioactive material that went missing in Iraq has been found dumped near a petrol station in the southern town of Zubair, officials said on Sunday, ending speculation it could be acquired by Islamic State and used as a weapon.

The officials told Reuters the material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, was undamaged and there were no concerns about radiation.

Reuters reported last week that Iraq had been searching for the material since it was stolen in November from a storage facility belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford near the southern city of Basra.

It was not immediately clear how the device, owned by Swiss inspections group SGS, ended up in Zubair, around 15 km (9 miles) southwest of Basra.

"A passer-by found the radioactive device dumped in Zubair and immediately informed security forces which went with a special radiation prevention team and retrieved the device," the chief of the security panel within Basra provincial council, Jabbar al-Saidi, told Reuters.

Reuters article

[Continues.]

HughPickens.com writes:

Katie Benner and Paul Mozur write in the New York Times that it took six years for Apple to persuade China's largest wireless carrier to sell the iPhone but Apple's persistence paid off when China relented in 2013, a moment Tim Cook describes as "a watershed day" for Apple. Today China is Apple's second-largest market after the United States and Chinese consumers spent $59 billion on Apple products - a market Apple is loath to put at risk.

"If Apple accedes to American law enforcement demands for opening the iPhone in the San Bernardino case and Beijing asks for a similar tool, it is unlikely Apple would be able to control China's use of it," write Benner and Mozur. "Yet if Apple were to refuse Beijing, it would potentially face a battery of penalties." "People tend to forget the global impact of this," says Raman Jit Singh Chima, policy director at Access Now, a nonprofit that works for Internet freedoms. "The reality is the damage done when a democratic government does something like this is massive. It's even more negative in places where there are fewer freedoms."

Apple is playing the long game with its business. Privacy and security have become part of its brand, especially internationally, where Apple reaps almost two-thirds of its almost $234 billion a year in sales. And if it cooperates with one government, the thinking goes, it will have to cooperate with all of them. "Tim Cook is leveraging his personal brand and Apple's to stand on the side of consumer privacy in this environment," says Mark Bartholomew. "He is taking the long view."

The business advantage Apple may get from privacy has given critics an opening to attack the company. In a court filing, the Justice Department said Apple's opposition to helping law enforcement appeared "to be based on its concern for its business model and public brand marketing strategy." Apple's shareholders have so far been quiet. But data privacy may eventually motivate investors — and ultimately more customers — to vote with their wallets because "it's an issue that speaks directly to the business," says Michael Cusumano. "Right now people buy phones regardless of encryption issues, but we have to wait and see how bloody this fight gets."

Original Submission

Arthur T. Knackerbracket writes:

Original URL: http://www.itworld.com/article/3035145/it-careers/doj-ends-probe-of-utility-over-it-replacements-no-charges-filed.html

"I wanted to pass along some good news," said Pedro Pizarro, SCE (Southern California Edison) president, in the email. "The Department of Justice's investigation into whether SCE discriminated against American workers in its IT outsourcing practices has closed with no adverse findings against the company," wrote Pizarro.

About 500 IT workers at SCE were cut, mostly through a layoff. Some of the IT workers complained of having to train foreign replacements on an H-1B visa to remain eligible for a severance package.

The cuts followed a decision by the utility to hire Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services to take over some its IT work. Both firms are major users of visa workers.

The layoff of the Edison workers struck a nerve in Washington. After learning that SCE had brought in the two India-based contractors, 10 U.S. senators signed a letter last April asking several federal agencies to investigate.

[...] "It's just another betrayal by our government," said [a] former SCE IT worker, who asked that his name not be used. "The government seems to be taking an active position in allowing companies to outsource" IT jobs, this worker said.

Previous Coverage:
Southern California Edison Replacing IT Workers with H-1B Workers
New Data Shows How Companies Abuse the H-1B Program
Senators will Listen to Tech Union Members about H-1B

Original Submission

[In the mid 1980's, I recall having to train three people to replace me. That was not the only time that H1-B's were hired instead of local help at places I have worked. What will it take for things to change? What, if anything can/should be done? -Ed.]

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Back in November Russia was suspended from international athletics after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) exposed widespread state-sponsored cheating and corruption. The executive director of Russia's Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), Nikita Kamayev, resigned as Russia scrambled to have the competition ban lifted in time for the 2016 Olympics. Ten weeks ago Kamayev announced that he wanted to write a book revealing the history of doping in Russian athletics.

"I want to write a book about the true story of sport pharmacology and doping in Russia since 1987 while being a young scientist working in a secret lab in the USSR Institute of Sports Medicine," he told the newspaper in an email. "I have the information and facts that have never been published."

Just as inspectors from the athletics’ world governing body IAAF were due to start a two-day visit to Russia to assess any progress made with regard to anti-doping processes, Kamayev suddenly died of a massive heart attack. In a remarkable coincidence, the former founding chairman of RUSADA, Vyacheslav Sinev, who left the agency in 2010, also unexpectedly died on 3 February.

Original Submission