SoylentNews

Max Hyre writes:

The title pretty much says it all. According to the report:

the service will encrypt all messages, phone calls, photos, and videos moving among [the devices].

Moxie Marlinspike is involved, so they have a chance of getting it right, and no one, even WhatsApp, will be able to know what you”re saying, texting, viewing, &c. (Unless, of course, your widget is running malware, or the opposition can get their mitts on it.)-: They claim this is available on nearly a billion devices—this is a really big deal.

takyon: Alternate links with no Wired paywall: TechCrunch, Washington Post, CNET, Reuters.

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

Ryan O'Hare writes in the Daily Mail that a business in China is offering people the chance to be virtually cremated before being reborn through a latex womb. The Samadhi Death Simulator allows visitors to be "killed off" by their peers, before they are "cremated" in an oven, and then "resurrected" - experiencing birth through a giant latex "womb" chute. The virtual crematorium opening in Shanghai asks people to discuss a life and death scenario before deciding if they would put one of their fellow philosophers forward for death, or if they would sacrifice their own life. The person with the worst explanation is selected for death, climbs inside the giant simulator and is fed through the machine feet first, with screens all around projecting images of rolling flames. After the virtual cremation, the person moves from the slab and crawls through a latex womb on their hands and knees, simulating their rebirth.

"When we do not fully understand and take in [death], saying goodbye is really quite a complicated and difficult task," says the attraction's founder, Ding Rui. "So I thought of how to be able to come up with a premise on how to educate people on life, so as one approaches the moment just before they they face death, they don't have to think about these problems constantly." Ding and his partner Huang Wei-ping went to great lengths researching their game, investigating the cremation process that typically awaits 50% of Chinese people after death. The pair visited a real crematorium and asked to be sent through the furnace with the flames turned off. When it came to Huang's turn, he found it unbearable. "It was getting really hot. I couldn't breathe and I thought my life was over."

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/materials/potential-of-silicon-and-graphene-together-for-liion-electrodes-realized

researchers at Kansas State University (KSU) claim to have developed a technique that uses silicon oxycarbide that makes the combination of silicon and graphene achieve its expected greatness as an electrode material.

"Silicon combined with graphene is better than a bulk silicon electrode," explained Gurpreet Singh, an associate professor at KSU and one of the researchers, in an e-mail interview with IEEE Spectrum. "However, nano-silicon/graphene electrodes fail to satisfy key requirements for any practical applications." Among other things, they have poor volumetric capacity, high cost, and low cycling efficiency—too much lithium is lost irreversibly with each charge-discharge cycle. What's more, their mechanical and chemical instability that can lead to rapid capacity decay.

To overcome this, the KSU researchers turned to the high temperature glass ceramic, silicon oxycarbide. In research described in the journal Nature Communications, the KSU team created a self-standing anode material consisting of silicon oxycarbide glass particles embedded into a chemically modified graphene oxide matrix.

Silicon oxycarbide glass-graphene composite paper electrode for long-cycle lithium-ion batteries (open, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10998)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Samsung Electronics has announced the production of "10nm-class" 8 gigabit DRAM chips that will be used in DDR4 modules with capacities ranging from 4 GB to 128 GB. "10nm-class" is an industry term that refers to an unspecified process somewhere between 10 nanometers and 19 nanometers.

In November, Samsung announced the production of 128 GB DDR4 registered dual inline memory modules (RDIMMs) using through silicon via (TSV) stacked dies with four 8 gigabit chips per package. Those modules used 20nm process DRAM and achieved a 2,400 Mbps data rate. The new 10nm-class memory will support a 3,200 Mbps data rate.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is opposing draft legislation in Minnesota that would restrict the sharing of "revenge porn," or any explicit images published without someone's consent:

It cited images of Holocaust victims and prisoners at Abu Ghraib as examples of images depicting nudity which are shared without the subjects' consent. The MPAA called for the legislation to clarify that images shared without consent only broke the law if they were shared with an "intent to harass".

In a statement, the organisation said: "The MPAA opposes online harassment in all forms. While we agree with the aims... we are concerned that the current version of the bill is written so broadly that it could have a chilling effect on mainstream and constitutionally-protected speech."

But the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, which has campaigned for revenge porn to be made illegal, said an "intent to harass" provision would render the law "incoherent". "It would allow people to distribute private, sexually explicit material of no public concern unless it could be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that their motive was to harass," the organisation said in its response to the MPAA.

HF 2741 at the Minnesota House of Representatives:

A bill for an act relating to public safety; creating a civil cause of action for the nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images and nonconsensual sexual solicitation; amending the crime of stalking to include nonconsensual sexual solicitation; expanding the definition of qualified domestic violence-related offense; establishing criminal penalties for nonconsensual dissemination of private sexual images and nonconsensual sexual solicitation; clarifying the law of criminal defamation; amending Minnesota Statutes 2014, sections 609.02, subdivision 16; 609.748, subdivision 1; 609.749, subdivision 2; 609.765; proposing coding for new law in Minnesota Statutes, chapters 604; 617.

Original Submission

Gordon Shure writes:

Actor and radio drama personality Erik Bauersfeld has died aged 93. Although a presence on the airwaves for many years, by far his most famous work was for a minor character in the Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi: rebel ship commander Admiral Ackbar. His line 'It's a Trap!' - spoken as the Rebellion attacks the Empire's Death Star - became an instant hit, remaining popularly quoted to this day. Together with Ackbar, Bauersfeld also voiced Jabba the Hutt's majordomo Bib Fortuna, and was considered for the role of Yoda which was eventually taken by Frank Oz.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will allow drone flights without a Certificate of Authorization at an altitude of up to 400 feet in areas without restricted airspace:

After a comprehensive risk analysis, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has raised the unmanned aircraft (UAS) "blanket" altitude authorization for Section 333 exemption holders and government aircraft operators to 400 feet. Previously, the agency had put in place a nationwide Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) for such flights up to 200 feet.

The new COA policy allows small unmanned aircraft—operated as other than model aircraft (i.e. commercial use)—to fly up to 400 feet anywhere in the country except restricted airspace and other areas, such as major cities, where the agency prohibits UAS operations.

[...] The FAA expects the move will reduce the workload for COA applications for industry UAS operators, government agencies and the FAA's Air Traffic Organization. The agency also estimates the move will lessen the need for individual COAs by 30 to 40 percent. Other provisions of an FAA authorization, such as registering the UAS and making sure pilots have the proper certification, still apply.

Also at The Register, Digital Trends.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Early data from a human clinical trial indicates that bariatric arterial embolization could be a safe and effective procedure to initiate weight loss:

Findings from the early phase of a clinical trial led by Johns Hopkins investigators indicates that a new, minimally invasive weight loss treatment known as bariatric arterial embolization is safe and effective in sustaining weight loss in severely obese people.

The data, although preliminary, show the procedure seems to initiate weight loss, dramatic hunger reduction and lower levels of ghrelin, one of the main hormones involved in controlling hunger. The results will be presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Sunday, April 3.

[...] [Seven participants underwent] a bariatric arterial embolization, an image-guided procedure that involves the injection of microscopic beads through a small catheter inserted in a tiny nick in the skin of the groin or wrist. The beads are targeted to a portion of the stomach known as the fundus, which produces the vast majority of the body's ghrelin. The beads decrease blood flow, limiting the secretion of ghrelin, thereby minimizing hunger and initiating weight loss, researchers hypothesize.

In these seven patients, bariatric embolization was safe, with no major adverse events reported. All patients demonstrated weight loss and dramatic hunger reduction levels after the procedure. Ghrelin levels also trended down. Following bariatric arterial embolization, participants had an average excess weight loss of 5.9 percent, 9.5 percent and 13.3 percent at one, three and six months, respectively. Excess weight loss is the percentage of pounds lost above the patient's ideal body weight.

Found at Futurity.

Original Submission

HughPickens.com writes:

If you ask people to name the greatest scientist of all time, many answer Galileo and in the popular presentations of the history of science, Galileo is portrayed as a one-man revolution, an intellectual superhero who dragged science kicking and screaming into the modern era. But historian of science Thony Christie writes at Aeon that Galileo's vast reputation, and the hyperbolic accolades that go with it, are not justified by the real history. According to Christie Galileo achieved considerable fame in his lifetime, but in the 17th century his reputation rested firmly on his telescopic discoveries. But Galileo did not stand alone, as he is often presented. Rather, as with the telescopic discoveries, Galileo was part of a sizable community all working on the same problems. Galileo was not the only telescopic astronomical observer at the time, and all the discoveries he made were made independently and contemporaneously by others in Britain, Germany, even Italy.

It is often claimed that Galileo is one of the giants on whose shoulders Newton stood, but he plays a rather minor role in Newton's masterwork, Principia Mathematica (1687). By the 18th century, Galileo was slipping into obscurity outside of Italy. Then he experienced a remarkable resurrection largely because of his persecution by the Catholic Church. John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White wrote passionately about religion as an obstacle to the forces of progress, and advanced a self-congratulatory thesis in which Western civilization had steadily emerged from the ignorance of the Dark Ages to the modern age of Enlightenment. To fit into this narrative, Galileo was presented as a solitary hero defending Copernicanism against the ignorance and prejudice of the Church. "Galileo is regularly credited as the inventor of the scientific method, the first to apply mathematics to science, the discoverer of the first mathematical law of science, and on and on," says Christie. "Take off the superhero garb placed on him by his later biographers, and it is clear that Galileo wasn't the father of anything. He didn't invent the scientific method. He wasn't the first to apply mathematics to science, nor did he discover the first mathematical law of science."

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

About two years ago Google's Nest subsidiary acquired Revolv. It was an acqui-hire - they did not want the customers or the products, they wanted the engineers. Revolv's main product was a $300 home automation hub that relied on cloud hosted servers for all its functionality.

Today, Nest announced that they would be turning off those servers, leaving revolv customers with a $300 brick. To make things worse, Revolv had promised their customers lifetime service. Revolv is still alive and well, it's just changed its name to Nest. So whose lifetime were they talking about?

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

fossBytes reports

Just for a single day, Gmail users were able to choose 'drop the mic' during email conversations.

"Simply reply to any email using the new 'Send + Mic Drop' button. Everyone will get your message, but that's the last you'll ever hear about it. Yes, even if folks try to respond, you won't see it."

If you used this feature, you could find the [replies] in [the] 'all mail' tab, but they would remain absent from the typical notifications. As a result, many people easily missed their mails.

Google [thought up] this prank to give you some kind of relief. If you felt [you were] being unnecessarily [...] tagged in an email, [you could say] goodbye to that email thread forever.

But, according to the claims made by a writer called Allan Pashby, he ended up losing his job, as he sent an email with [the] mic drop GIF to his boss. Pushy wasn't so lucky and his boss took offence and fired him with an angry voice mail.

The placement of the button could be held responsible for this backlash, as it sat directly next to the default Send button.

"Accidentally hit this new 'mic drop' button halfway through composing a professional email. Dying to remove this thing", wrote one user on Google's product forum.

Another user wrote, "This is horrible--just sent an email to a client with this stupid icon on it. I can't afford these stupid pranks!"

Considering the fact that it was April Fool's Day, many of these claims could be fake. However, keeping in [...] mind the possibility of some outrage, Google has removed the feature from Gmail:

"Well, it looks like we pranked ourselves this year. ?? Due to a bug, the MicDrop feature inadvertently caused more headaches than laughs. We're truly sorry. The feature has been turned off. If you are still seeing it, please reload your Gmail page."

Previously: Google April Fool's Gmail Button Sparks Backlash.

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

Virtual assistants have been criticised as offering unhelpful responses to emergencies. According to ABC News, Apple Inc. announced on 17 March that its Siri software has now been upgraded to assist in the event of rape. In such a situation, the app will now offer to call a hotline operated by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network—the same response that Microsoft's Cortana already provided.

Previously: Voice Assistants Lack Adequate Responses to Health Crises

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Full Linux-on-PS4 hits Github: Last piece of the jigsaw, bootable from USB

Ever since fail0verflow first told Chaos Computer Club Sony PS4 machines could be persuaded to run Linux, a fair amount of work has gone into replicating his demonstration. The problem for other PS4 hackers: to avoid take-downs and other sueballs from Sony, fail0verflow published only a Linux-to-PS4 port, leaving the rest of the world to discover the specific exploit used.

[...] According to this piece at Wololo.net, Githubber kR105 has laid hands on the grail. [...] However, this, Wololo writes, is not a demonstration video, it's a "fully operational dlclose exploit" (referring to the Webkit exploit widely believed to lie behind fail0ver's original disclosure).

From the wololo.net article:

Update: As pointed out by CTurt, you can simply download the compiled Linux files, put them on a FAT32 USB stick that you'll connect to your 1.76 PS4, and test directly by going to the PS4 Playground live Demo here.

Previously: PlayStation 4 Hacked to Run Linux

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Two astronomers at Columbia University have suggested earthlings could use lasers to conceal the presence of Earth from intelligent life on other planets:

RAS [Royal Astronomical Socitety] notes that several prominent scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have cautioned against humanity broadcasting our presence to intelligent life on other planets. Other civilizations might try to find Earth-like planets using the same techniques we do, including looking for the dip in light when a planet moves directly in front of the star it orbits.

These events — transits — are the main way that the Kepler mission and similar projects search for planets around other stars. So far Kepler alone has confirmed more than 1,000 planets using this technique, with tens of these worlds similar in size to the Earth. [Professor David] Kipping and [graduate student Alex] Teachey speculate that alien scientists may use this approach to locate our planet, which will be clearly in the "habitable zone" of the Sun, where the temperature is right for liquid water, and so be a promising place for life.

Hawking and others are concerned that extraterrestrials might wish to take advantage of the Earth's resources, and that their visit, rather than being benign, could be as devastating as when Europeans first travelled to the Americas.

[...] According to the authors, emitting a continuous 30 MW laser for about ten hours, once a year, would be enough to eliminate the transit signal, at least in visible light. The energy needed is comparable to that collected by the International Space Station in a year. A chromatic cloak, effective at all wavelengths, is more challenging, and would need a large array of tuneable lasers with a total power of 250 MW.

Previously:
Narrow SETI Targets by Looking at Places Where Earth Transits can be Seen
Kepler Extended Mission Finds More Exoplanets
NASA's Kepler Mission Discovers Earth-Like Planet In Sun-Like Star's Habitable Zone

Original Submission

bradley13 writes:

As a gamer, I regularly read reviews of new games coming out. One of the best sources for a quick overview is metacritic, because you see an average score for the reviews in the media, as well as an average score (and usually good comments) from individual users. Usually, these are fairly close, although media reviews tend to be better - they are rarely overtly critical, even of poor games.

In any case, too many years ago I enjoyed the Baldur's Gate series, and an expansion has just been released: Siege of Dragonspear. On Metacritic, the only professional review so far gives a good score, while the majority of the user reviews give a score of 0 out of 10. WTF?

On investigation, it turns out that the producers have taken the opportunity to explicitly make some political points. For example, you encounter a cleric who insists on explaining her name to you, as in "my parents thought I was a boy, but...". Many gamers find this to be completely extraneous to the story - it's not the sort of thing a stranger normally tells you, nor something you want to hear from a stranger when you first meet. The players are offended and irritated at the crude way that a much-loved game franchise has been abused to make LGBT political points.

Amber Scott presents the side of the producers: "If there was something for the original Baldur's Gate that just doesn't mesh for modern day gamers like the sexism, [we tried to address that]," said writer Amber Scott. Elsewhere, she posts "I'm the writer and creator. I get to make decisions about who I write about and why. I don't like writing about straight/white/cis people all the time. ... I consciously add as much diversity as I can to my writing and I don't care if people think that's 'forced" or fake'" (emphasis mine).

Personal take: I haven't yet played the game myself, at least not yet. However, I sympathize with the reviewers, as I am also exhausted with in-your-face LGBT politics. I don't care what your sexuality is, unless we have some sort of very personal relationship. In Baldur's Gate, I'd rather hear more about "Boo the miniature giant space hamster" than about some NPC's struggle with their sexual identity.

Thoughts from the Soylentils?

Original Submission