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-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

Anti-DRM company O’Reilly Media announces a Cyber Monday Sale [JavaScript required].

Save 50% on All Ebooks & Videos
Save 60% on orders greater than $100!

Ebooks and video training from shop.oreilly.com are DRM-free. You get free lifetime access, multiple file formats, and free updates. Sync with Dropbox and Google Drive--your files, anywhere.

Use discount code CYBER16 -- Deal expires [Tuesday] November 29, 2016 at 5:00am PT, and cannot be combined with other offers. Offer does not apply to Print or "Print & Ebook" bundle pricing.

There is also a Humble Bundle of O'Reilly books on all aspects of UNIX available for nine more days. It is not in connected to the above deal, but you can name your own price for an impressive array of books.

[Ed note: I struggled with the decision on whether or not to run this story which could well be considered a "slashvertisement". O'Reilly publishes one of the largest selections of computer-related books. Books can be quite expensive, so if price has been holding you back, here is a chance to get that long-wished-for title at a discount.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Bloomberg reports:

The aloe vera gel many Americans buy to soothe damaged skin contains no evidence of aloe vera at all.

Samples of store-brand aloe gel purchased at national retailers Wal-Mart, Target and CVS showed no indication of the plant in various lab tests. The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice — another name for aloe vera — as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water.

[...] Aloe’s three chemical markers — acemannan, malic acid and glucose — were absent in the tests for Wal-Mart, Target and CVS products conducted by a lab hired by Bloomberg News. The three samples contained a cheaper element called maltodextrin, a sugar sometimes used to imitate aloe. The gel that’s sold at another retailer, Walgreens, contained one marker, malic acid, but not the other two.

A related article from FatPhil discusses herbal supplements which, upon analysis, did not contain the ingredients their labels claimed.

Caveat emptor.

Original Submission

driven writes:

According to this article, Vancouver, Canada officials have put out a report that lays out options for dealing with sea level rise. Three generic strategies evaluated are: Adapt, Protect, or Retreat, the last of which means that for some parts of the city, people might just need to "get out of the way". In that case, the city would buy up homes and remove infrastructure over a period of several decades. It's not an easy thing to ask for people to leave their homes decades before an area is flooded.

By the year 2100, 13 square kilometers of Vancouver (containing around 4,000 households worth $7 billion) will be on floodplains so action needs to be taken soon to protect them. Areas like Jericho Beach and the Fraser River are already experiencing more frequent flooding.

First, Vancouver will publicize its plans then gauge public reaction. The world will be watching.

Original Submission

dbe writes:

We have all seen videos of apes using sticks to dislodge ants or other treats, but these skills are not restricted to our closest relatives.

Some species of birds like crows uses tradition to transmit their skills to their offspring, other like the cockatoo can improvise with what they have to shape a stick out of different materials and get a delicious peanut. [YouTube video]

Tool manufacture was once regarded a defining feature of mankind, but it is now known that a variety of animal species use and make their own tools. In nature, some of the most striking cases of tool-related behaviour are seen not just among close relatives of Homo sapiens, such as chimps and other primates, but among birds including crows, vultures and Galapagos finches. Researchers from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna and the University of Oxford have shown that Goffin’s cockatoos can make and use elongated tools of appropriate shape and length out of different materials, suggesting that the birds can anticipate how the tools will be used. The study was published in the journal Biology Letters.

Source: University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The US Navy is investigating a data breach after personal information of more than 130,000 sailors was accessed.

The breach came after the laptop of an employee at Hewlett Packard Enterprise working on a naval contract was "compromised", the Navy said.

It added that "unknown individuals" accessed the sensitive information on current and former sailors.

The data included names and social security numbers, but the Navy does not currently believe it was misused.

[...] Sailors are being contacted in the coming weeks and the Navy said it was looking into credit monitoring services for those affected.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which separated from US computer firm HP last year, informed the Navy on 27 October about the laptop.

After a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigation, it was found that the data of 134,386 sailors had been accessed.

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

A recent article on Ars Technica talks about a plan to open a "cyber" college at Bletchley Park with the hope of attracting those with an interest in cybersecurity.

Original Submission

hubie writes:

Homeopathic medicines make up a multi-billion dollar industry in the United States. Despite being included in the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has never enforced the requirement that the homeopathic industry demonstrate safety or efficacy of its products prior to putting them on the market. Although drug regulation falls within the purview of the FDA, labeling the products is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

In 2015 both the FDA and FTC announced workshops to review how over the counter (OTC) homeopathic products are marketed. Both agencies have the authority to increase the regulation and labeling requirements for these products. The reviews generated thousands of public comments, and the FTC is the first to release their decision in a Staff Report and an Enforcement Policy Statement.

In summary, there is no basis under the FTC Act to treat OTC homeopathic drugs differently than other health products. Accordingly, unqualified disease claims made for homeopathic drugs must be substantiated by competent and reliable scientific evidence. Nevertheless, truthful, nonmisleading, effective disclosure of the basis for an efficacy claim may be possible. The approach outlined in this Policy Statement is therefore consistent with the First Amendment, and neither limits consumer access to OTC homeopathic products nor conflicts with the FDA's regulatory scheme. It would allow a marketer to include an indication for use that is not supported by scientific evidence so long as the marketer effectively communicates the limited basis for the claim in the manner discussed above.

Essentially, any homeopathic product that isn't backed up by competent and reliable scientific evidence must communicate on its label that:

1. there is no scientific evidence that the product works
2. the product's claims are based only on theories of homeopathy from the 1700s that are not accepted by most modern medical experts.

Though largely seen as a win for consumer awareness, Slate notes the potential for this to backfire by noting that those who seek out homeopathic medicine will only have their resolve strengthened by seeing a statement pointing out that the contents of the bottle they are holding are not endorsed by the scientific community.

Original Submission

Fnord666 writes:

Walmart has teamed up with IBM, who offers blockchain as a service, in order to create a distributed ledger to track food throughout their supply chain. Walmart hopes that with this ledger they can quickly track any issues such as contamination or spoilage and isolate the impacted product.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story about terracotta body parts which have been found in Italy by archaeologists for decades:

One site contained 1,654 votive feet, made of terracotta. Another had more than 400 terracotta wombs. At Ponte di Nona, there were 8,395 votives recovered in the 1970s—of the 6,171 that were identifiable body parts, 985 were heads, about as many were eyes, and 2,368 were feet. Overall, at about 150 sites, archaeologists have uncovered tens of thousands of feet, legs, arms, hands, heads, eyes, ears, breasts, uteri, vulvae, phalluses, and sometimes whole midriff sections, with indistinct organs exposed.

[...] It's clear that these anatomical votives were connected in some way with health and well-being, but for years scholars have debated exactly who used them and how. Once it was thought that the votives were primarily used by rural people, but Flemming argues that it was a "wide-spread, accessible, and inclusive," popular inside cities and far out into the countryside, and available both to elites and lower classes.

Some scholars believe that the votives reflects pleas for the healing of particular body parts or were thank-you gifts for prayers answered. Some shrines may have specialized in particular illnesses—at least that's one explanation for why one place might have a great concentration of hands, another a great concentration of eyes, and another a great concentration of uteri.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Lip-reading is notoriously difficult, depending as much on context and knowledge of language as it does on visual clues. But researchers are showing that machine learning can be used to discern speech from silent video clips more effectively than professional lip-readers can.

In one project, a team from the University of Oxford's Department of Computer Science has developed a new artificial-intelligence system called LipNet. As Quartz reported, its system was built on a data set known as GRID, which is made up of well-lit, face-forward clips of people reading three-second sentences. Each sentence is based on a string of words that follow the same pattern.

The team used that data set to train a neural network, similar to the kind often used to perform speech recognition. In this case, though, the neural network identifies variations in mouth shape over time, learning to link that information to an explanation of what's being said. The AI doesn't analyze the footage in snatches but considers the whole thing, enabling it to gain an understanding of context from the sentence being analyzed. That's important, because there are fewer mouth shapes than there are sounds produced by the human voice.

When tested, the system was able to identify 93.4 percent of words correctly. Human lip-reading volunteers asked to perform the same tasks identified just 52.3 percent of words correctly.

Original Submission

Another Scientific Incarnation of Selective Correlation

dlb writes:

When the 19th century was young, a Viennese physician Franz Joseph Gall got the ball rolling for the "science" of phrenology. (Not to be confused with phenology.) Phrenology believed that the shape and contour of a person's skull revealed their character, and thus could be used by employers and the criminal justice system to identify the lazy and the miscreants with simply a few quick measurements.

It also came in handy to justify slavery in the U.S., as depicted in Tarantino's Django Unchained.

Phrenology never went away, but went on to lurk in spin-offs such as eugenics. And if there were to be an updated incarnation of using a few quick body measurements to find the evil among us, it would have to employ sci/tech terms as "researchers", "algorithms" and "AI".

And so it does: Convict-spotting algorithm criticised

Researchers trained an algorithm using more than 1,500 photos of Chinese citizens, hundreds of them convicts.

They said the program was then able to correctly identify criminals in further photos 89% of the time. But the research, which has not been peer reviewed, has been criticised by criminology experts who say the AI may reflect bias in the justice system. "This article is not looking at people's behaviour, it is looking at criminal conviction..."

So, will AI ever get this god-like?

[Continues...]

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Microsoft has turned on a new set of Windows Tips that inform Chrome and Firefox users on Windows 10 that Edge is a "safer" browser. We reached out to Microsoft to find out how long this latest recommendation has been active. "This wave of Windows Tips for Windows 10 users began in early November," a Microsoft spokesperson told VentureBeat.

If this sounds familiar, that's because Microsoft turned on similar Windows 10 tips back in July, warning Chrome/Firefox users about battery drain and then recommending Edge instead. Those notifications were on the battery icon in the operating system, while this new one is on the Edge icon:

[...] The battery drain "tip" was timed with Microsoft's battery-savings campaign for Edge, and this security one is no different. NSS Labs compared the security of the three major Windows browsers and unsurprisingly — Microsoft has a long history of asking NSS Labs to do a study in which its browser comes out on top, though it claims this one wasn't commissioned — Edge won in a particular metric. That's where the "It blocks 21% more socially engineered malware" part from the notification comes from.

See a previous related article Here [soylentnews.org]

Would you change your software based on a recommendation like this?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

New bioplastic materials may enable gardeners to tend their plants more sustainably and could even help plants "self-fertilize" and grow healthier roots, according to research conducted by Iowa State University horticulturists.

Bioplastics present a range of environmental advantages, such as improved biodegradability, that conventional petroleum-based plastics can't claim, said William Graves, associate dean of the ISU Graduate College and professor of horticulture. Graves, along with James Schrader, an associate scientist in horticulture, and a team of researchers recently concluded a five-year study of bioplastics in an attempt to identify materials that show promise for horticultural uses, such as the plastic pots and flats that retailers use to sell immature plants.

Bioplastics come from renewable biological sources, such as plants, and large-scale adoption in the marketplace could ease dependence on fossil fuels, he said.

The study looked at numerous options for bioplastic derived from sources such as polylactic acid and the more biodegradable polyhydroxyalkanoates. They also included byproducts that result from the production of corn, soybeans and ethanol.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

D-Link and Redmond have put the paddles on 802.11af, charged the machine, and hit the button.

The 2013 amendment to Wi-Fi is an air interface for "white space" frequencies (from 54 MHz to 698 MHz in the USA; Europe and the UK use a more realistic 490 to 790 MHz), with a maximum per-channel 35.6 Mbps (16 channels can be bonded together to get nearly 600 Mbps).

It's primarily a point-to-point link service rather than a user-access technology, and so it doesn't interfere with TV transmissions, 802.11af uses a cognitive radio to sense other spectrum users, and a localisation database to keep track of broadcasters.

Data rate, however, isn't the main story: compared to 2.4 GHz, TV frequencies cover a lot of ground, and that's the angle D-Link and Microsoft are touting.

The standard is designed for links up to 1 km in range, the kind of reach that 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi can only manage with a cantenna.

The two want to use 802.11af for rural/regional services in underserved areas, with a phase-one pilot currently underway in the US.

Original Submission

francois.barbier writes:

According to /u/Spez, Reddit CEO, the reports of messages edited without any user consent or knowledge are correct as he admits to have done it so himself:

Hey Everyone,

Yep. I messed with the "fuck u/spez" comments, replacing "spez" with r/the_donald mods for about an hour. It's been a long week here trying to unwind the r/pizzagate stuff. As much as we try to maintain a good relationship with you all, it does get old getting called a pedophile constantly. As the CEO, I shouldn't play such games, and it's all fixed now. Our community team is pretty pissed at me, so I most assuredly won't do this again.

Fuck u/spez.

The edits were made in a thread linked from the Washington Post which described the recent ban of the /r/pizzagate subreddit which tried to uncover child-molesters and recently moved to voat.co.

Original Submission