SoylentNews

gznork26 writes:

In discussions here, across the Internet and IRL [In Real Life], one of the checks against the lure of conflating some minor offense with Naziism is the specter of Godwin's Law. In most situations, the conflation is unfounded, and the law's effect is beneficial. But what about a situation in which it is appropriate to draw such a comparison?

In an article at MediaPost ( http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/276936/silence-death.html ) Bob Garfield has asserted that such a comparison is apt in the case of Donald Trump. Opinions among Soylentils will vary about this, but I'm submitting this story, not to incite a conflagration about the results of Trump winning the US presidential election, but rather to explore how even the most well-intentioned and beneficial curb on behavior, embodied in law or in Law, can fail.

All of us who write code know that edge cases are the ones that deserve the most attention, even though they are also unlikely to occur, because that is where sloppy logic fails. In this way, a body of laws acts as the operating system of governance, and refusal to test an edge case opens the way for that OS to be subverted and destroyed.

I challenge you to keep this discussion meta. Once we have explored the problem space, we can apply our insights as we see fit.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

VICE got an 800 page FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) dump from the NSA (National Security Agency) Friday evening. It contains no smoking gun, but does indicate that NSA's denials that Edward Snowden had tried to follow so-called proper channels are pretty flimsy and, in part, depend on a very self-forgiving interpretation of events. It's a long read.

https://news.vice.com/article/edward-snowden-leaks-tried-to-tell-nsa-about-surveillance-concerns-exclusive

takyon: The PDF is reachable here. The download is around 43.3 megabytes.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36425879

A UK-developed system capable of jamming signals to small drones is to be trialled by the US aviation authority.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is expanding efforts to source technology that can detect small, unmanned aerial vehicles near airports.

Three British companies developed the Anti-UAV Defence System (Auds), due to be included in new trials.

It works by jamming signals to drones, making them unresponsive.

A thermal imaging camera allows the Auds operator to target the unwanted drone before signal jamming, via a high-powered radio signal, is activated.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story by Devin Coldewey, a Techcrunch author:

Facebook is removing the messaging capability from its mobile web application, according to a notice being served to users: “Your conversations are moving to Messenger,” it reads. Welcome news to the millions like me who switched to the web app in order to avoid Messenger in the first place!

At the moment, you can just dismiss the notice and go about your business. But this summer the warning will become an impenetrable wall, and your only option will be to download the official Messenger app.

And really, it strikes me as quite a hostile move, as it did before when they axed messaging from the main app. If, as everyone in the company is constantly repeating, mantra-like, that they want to connect the world, shouldn’t a diversity of access options be part of that?

I don’t think a single person has ever bought that particular load of horsefeathers. It’s pretty plain for anyone to see that it’s easy to embellish, enrich and, of course, monetize a powerful platform like Messenger, while it’s near-impossible to do so with basic text-based chat.

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

The American boxer Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., died on 3 June in Scottsdale, Arizona at age 74. The cause of death was listed as septic shock. He had suffered from parkinsonism, which is distinct from Parkinson's disease; the syndrome, with which he was diagnosed in 1984, may have resulted from injuries sustained while boxing.

As a boxer, he had been the world heavyweight champion on three occasions. After he first won the title, he announced that he had converted to Islam; his new name was bestowed upon him by Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. Citing his Muslim beliefs, Ali applied as a conscientious objector. After his application was denied, he nonetheless refused to fight in the Vietnam War, for which he was stripped of his boxing title and his licence to box. In the U.S. Supreme Court, he won conscientious objector status.

Ali was one of about 1600 people on a watch list of "domestic terrorist and foreign radical suspects," whose international communications were collected by the NSA's Project MINARET surveillance programme.

In 1990 he met with Saddam Hussein, securing the release of 15 U.S. hostages.

A Freedom of Information Act request for Ali's FBI file appears to have been filed on 4 June.

coverage:

• Reuters
• KJZZ-FM
• KJZZ-FM
• CNN
• USA Today
• Business Insider
• Los Angeles Times editorial
• Slate

further information:

• National Security Archive on MINARET
• biography at Wikipedia
• biography at history.com
• biography at CNN

Original Submission

q.kontinuum writes:

ownCloud company co-founder Frank Karlitschek left the company over some dispute how the interaction between ownCloud company and ownCloud community should interact. While Karlitschek, a long time KDE contributor and initiator of ownCloud project, wanted to keep more control within the community and recognize their work more, the company tried to lead the community more tightly.

After the situation was no longer sustainable, Karlitschek left ownCloud together with a couple of other engineers, which are now also working on Nextcloud and for the newly founded German company Nextcloud. For the Nextcloud project, a foundation will be set up from the very beginning, to keep the project more independent from company influence.

For the US company owncloud, Inc. based in Lexington, MA, this announcement has some direct consequences:

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell is leaving the company, a move that may mark a shift in strategy for one of the early stars of the Internet of Things.

Fadell founded the startup, which makes connected thermostats and other smart-home gear, in 2011 with co-founder Matt Rogers. Google bought Nest in 2014. In a blog post on Friday, Fadell didn’t say much about why he was leaving but said he would become an advisor to Alphabet, the parent company of Nest and Google, and its CEO, Larry Page.

The resignation came after news reports that said Nest was suffering from internal turmoil. In his parting note, Fadell said the company was growing fast and had a bright future.

To take Fadell’s place, Alphabet has hired Marwan Fawaz, the former head of Motorola’s set-top box business. That choice suggests Nest may change the way it sells its technology.

The company has made its name selling Internet-connected thermostats, smoke detectors and cameras directly to consumers. Fawaz’s background is in devices distributed through cable companies. Sales and installation by service providers is a growing trend in home IoT.

Shifting its focus from retail device sales to IoT as a service might be a smart move for Nest, Jackdaws Research analyst Jan Dawson wrote in a blog post on Friday.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The Boston Globe reports on this year's New England Motor Press Association (NEMPA) conference on automotive design and technology held on May 26 at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge MA; topics included autonomous vehicles, advances in hybrid and electric cars, applications of the latest digital technology (including 3D printing) for design, and the increasing trove of software installed in each new vehicle. Reporter Bill Griffiths neatly summarizes the conference by cherry-picking the best lines from the keynoters and panelists, e.g., this one from Mary Gustanski, VP Engineering of Delphi Automotive:

Oh, and better get used to an onslaught of new acronyms and buzzwords like V2P (vehicle to pedestrian), V2V (obvious), V2I, etc.

Toyota was presented an award at the conference for "Toyota Safety Sense" (TSS-P), a package of driving safety features supported by in-vehicle cameras and front-grill mounted radar, scheduled to be rolled out to most new Toyota vehicles beginning in model year 2018.

Automotive journalist Steve Hanley presents his conference report here.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Scientists at the University of Sussex have discovered how just two neurons in the brain hold the key to explaining how complex behavioural decisions are made.

In the first-of-its-kind study, published in Nature Communications, scientists from the University studied the brain activity of freshwater snails and discovered how a circuit comprising of just two neurons can drive a sophisticated form of decision making.

Scientists, from Sussex Neuroscience, monitored the snails' behaviour whilst they made decisions in their search for food (in this case lettuce). The researchers then measured the activity in the snail's brain by using electrodes to record small electrical changes, called action potentials, in individual neurons.

They discovered a controller type neuron which lets the snail's brain know potential food is present and a second neuron which transmits signals telling the snail's brain what it's motivational state is, i.e., whether it's hungry or not. The scientists also reveal how the system, created by the neurons, enables the snails to save energy by reducing brain activity when food is not found.

The researchers reckon their work can help in the design of robot "brains" to make complex decisions.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

The team that has posted a project called KickSat on crowd sourcing site KickStarter, has arranged to have the tiny satellite system sent to the International Space Station on July 6. KickSat is a satellite system where one small satellite deploys multiple other small satellites called "sprites" and then establishes a communications system. The initiative is part of a much larger plan to deploy similar systems to the far reaches of space faster and cheaper than can be done with conventional probes.

The deployment and testing of KickSat is seen as one of the baby steps for a much more ambitious project called the Breakthrough Starshot mission—partially funded by Yurie Milner and championed by Steven Hawking. The goal is to send tiny satellites to places as far flung as Alpha Centauri at a fifth the speed of light.

This latest effort comes after the failure of the initial project, called KickSat-1, which was bombarded shortly after deployment with an unusually large amount of cosmic radiation, which caused it to malfunction—the sprites were never deployed and the whole project burned up in the atmosphere.

KickSat-2, the official name of this next project, will be sent to the ISS, where it will be deployed shortly after arrival, followed thereafter by the release of 100 sprites (they will be spring-loaded)—post-it note sized circuit boards with solar cells, gyroscope, magnometer [sic - magnetometer?], radio and antenna affixed. Each will move independently in space and will communicate directly with the shoe-boxed sized CubeSat using a modified form of standard cell phone communications systems, which will also allow for listening in from ground stations back on Earth. Some of the sprites will also have a wire attached that will generate a tiny magnetic field which will work like a tiny compass, aligning the sprite with Earth's magnetic field—a primitive means for steering. After testing, the CubeSat and all of the sprites will be allowed to burn up as they fall through the atmosphere.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Curved lenses, like those in cameras or telescopes, are stacked in order to reduce distortions and resolve a clear image. That's why high-power microscopes are so big and telephoto lenses so long.

While lens technology has come a long way, it is still difficult to make a compact and thin lens (rub a finger over the back of a cellphone and you'll get a sense of how difficult). But what if you could replace those stacks with a single flat -- or planar -- lens?

Researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have demonstrated the first planar lens that works with high efficiency within the visible spectrum of light -- covering the whole range of colors from red to blue. The lens can resolve nanoscale features separated by distances smaller than the wavelength of light. It uses an ultrathin array of tiny waveguides, known as a metasurface, which bends light as it passes through, similar to a curved lens.

The article's description of the lens sounds reminiscent of a Fresnel lens. Perhaps Soylentils more familiar with the field can comment?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Benzyl butyl phthalate, a chemical commonly used in the food-manufacturing process, may increase fat stores in the body even before we're born, according to a new study.

The researchers used animal stem cells to identify changes to the epigenome of the stem cell line when exposed to the chemical BBP when compared to a control. The cell lines exposed to increasingly higher levels of BBP also showed higher levels of adipogenesis—the process by which fat cells develop—as much as five times higher, depending on the dose.

"We were quite surprised by the results," Mahua Choudhury, assistant professor at the Texas A&M Health Science Center Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy. "We had thought we would see some increase, but nothing this dramatic."

There is no information on whether BBP-containing fixtures are only common in American food production lines, or are more universally used.

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

On the morning of 2 June, a bright light and trails of smoke were seen in the sky over the southwestern U.S. state of Arizona. Loud noises were heard around the same time. According to a source at the Meteoroid Environment Office [Javascript required] at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

If Doppler radar is any indication, there are almost certainly meteorites scattered on the ground north of Tucson.

The event is under investigation by the American Meteor Society.

coverage:

• KNXV-TV
• KOLD-TV
• Your West Valley News
• KJZZ-FM

related story:
Bolide Seen Over Eastern North America

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/06/03/capitalize_internet_or_not/

   Internet internet Internet internet Internet internet Internet internet
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   Internet internet Internet internet Internet internet Internet internet

What say you?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Sometimes it is NOT the right time for your machine to update. To emphasize, nobody was hurt due to this instance of Windows 10 upgrading. That is just a hypothetical scenario:

When you're stuck in the middle of the Central African Republic (CAR) trying to protect the wildlife from armed poachers and the Lord's Resistance Army, then life's pretty tough. And now Microsoft has made it tougher with Windows 10 upgrades.

The Chinko Project manages roughly 17,600 square kilometres (6,795 square miles) of rain forest and savannah in the east of the CAR, near the border with South Sudan. Money is tight, and so is internet bandwidth, so the staff was more than a little displeased when one of the donated laptops the team uses began upgrading to Windows 10 automatically.

"If a forced upgrade happened and crashed our PCs while in the middle of coordinating rangers under fire from armed militarized poachers, blood could literally be on Microsoft's hands," said one member of the team.

"I just came here recently to act as their pilot but have IT skills as well. The guy who set these PCs up didn't know how to prevent it, or set a metered connection. I am completely livid."

[...] The Reg has been reporting a lot on the Windows 10 upgrade fiasco, and so decided to investigate, and the story checks out. A team member told us the Chinko Project team uses satellite communications for internet access and gets charged quite a lot for data, so the multi-gigabyte automatic upgrade was even more frustrating than for the rest of us. "We don't need to upgrade our internet, as the limited bandwidth we have is sufficient. But we just can't abide these forced upgrades & secret downloads," one member, who asked to remain anonymous, told El Reg. "We have donated laptops with Windows 7 & 8 all over the place that I'm trying to track down and fix."

Original Submission