SoylentNews

takyon writes:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-platinumpartners-lawsuit-idUSKBN1481BI

Top executives of New York-based hedge fund manager Platinum Partners were arrested on Monday and charged with running a $1 billion fraud that federal prosecutors said became "like a Ponzi scheme" as its largest investments lost much of their value.

Led by Mark Nordlicht, Platinum was known for years for producing exceptionally high returns -- about 17 percent annually in its largest fund -- by taking an unusually aggressive approach to investing and fund management, as detailed by a Reuters Special Report in April. (reut.rs/1TRovwx)

Nordlicht, Platinum's founding partner and chief investment officer, was arrested at his home in New Rochelle, New York. Federal prosecutors accused him and six others of participating in a pair of schemes to defraud investors.

[...] Capers added that the case was one of the largest and "most brazen" investment frauds ever and Platinum was ultimately exposed to have "no more value than a tarnished piece of cheap metal."

Also reported on by Bloomberg here.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Here's a bit of good news about climate change:

One climate doomsday scenario can be downgraded, new research suggests.

Decades of atmospheric measurements from a site in northern Alaska show that rapidly rising temperatures there have not significantly increased methane emissions from the neighboring permafrost-covered landscape, researchers reported December 15 at the American Geophysical Union's fall meeting.

Some scientists feared that Arctic warming would unleash large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, worsening global warming. "The ticking time bomb of methane has clearly not manifested itself yet," said study coauthor Colm Sweeney, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder. Emissions of carbon dioxide — a less potent greenhouse gas — did increase over that period, the researchers found.

Some have been concerned about a sudden, runaway spike in greenhouse gases owing to thawing methane clathrates in the ocean (the "Clathrate gun hypothesis") and in the permafrost.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A team of UCLA researchers has developed an automated diagnostic test reader for antimicrobial resistance using a smartphone. The technology could lead to routine testing for antimicrobial susceptibility in areas with limited resources.

Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are posing a severe threat to global public health. In particular, they are becoming more common in bacterial pathogens responsible for high-mortality diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea and sepsis.

Part of the challenge in combatting the spread of these organisms has been the limited ability to conduct antimicrobial susceptibility testing in regions that do not have access to labs, testing equipment and trained diagnostic technicians to read such tests. The UCLA researchers have developed a simple and inexpensive smartphone attachment that can conduct automated antimicrobial susceptibility testing. The research results were published in the journal Scientific Reports, part of the Nature Publishing Group.

"This work is extremely important and timely, given that drug-resistant bacteria are increasingly becoming a global threat rendering many of our first-line antibiotics ineffective," said Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellor's Professor of Electrical Engineering and Bioengineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Our new smartphone-based technology can help put laboratory-quality testing into much wider adoption, especially in resource-limited regions."

[Continues...]

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In our recent look at the state of OLED televisions, we focused on the present—but what about the future?

[...] LG isn't the only OLED player in the world, mind you, but it is currently the only OLED TV manufacturer in the United States, and it also makes the panels sold by Panasonic, the only other OLED TV player in the international market.

LG has said on the record that the white OLED technology purchased from Kodak gave it a giant lead over other companies' "RGB OLED" TV panels. LG says its panels cost far less to manufacture than the competition's—the panels' crystals are easier to line up in a cost-effective manner.

Others may well catch up in the larger-screen OLED space in the near future, of course. When that happens, it stands to reason that competitors, particularly the deluge of Chinese companies entering the TV manufacturing space, will combine aggressive discounts and other innovations to steal attention away from LG.

For now, many manufacturers do produce panels with OLED technology—though you may better know these as AMOLED displays. (You'll find them in smartphones from Samsung, Huawei, and Google.) Their main difference from larger-panel OLED displays comes from that "AM" prefix, which means "active matrix." This refers to the process of sending electrical current through the panel for the sake of pixel illumination, which used to be a less-efficient "passive matrix" process. The older way proved too power-hungry and slow for the kind of quick-performance screen refreshes needed in a smartphone. (LG doesn't advertise the kind of matrix employed in its latest OLED TVs, but based on what we know, it can probably be described as a combination of AMOLED and WOLED (white-emitting OLED).)

In the mobile-screen space, AMOLED and in-plane switching (IPS) LCDs continue to battle for supremacy, with each offering different color, brightness, darkness, thinness, power, and performance advantages.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Welcome to the future:

The future is apparently here. And it's creepier than we ever imagined—even when we were playing around with tethering Teddy Ruxpin to the Internet. A Japanese company called Vinclu ("a company that makes crazy things and supports crazy people") is now taking pre-orders from Japan and the United States for a new interactive, artificial-intelligence driven home automation system. Called Gatebox, the new Internet-of-Things product takes Amazon's Alexa, Google Home, Spike Jonze's film Her , and the "holographic" anime characters of Vocaloid concerts to their unified natural conclusion.

Wait, what?

Gatebox, priced at ¥321,840 (about $2,700 US), is squarely targeted at young lonely salarymen and all brands of anime-obsessed otaku—promising the experience of "living with your favorite character." The size of a home coffee-maker, with a footprint no larger than a sheet of A4 printer paper, the device's main feature is a clear projection tube that displays a computer-animated avatar for the AI's "character." Vinclu apparently is planning multiple possible personalities for Gatebox—which, as part of the device's backstory, is a gateway to the dimension the character lives in.

A company like this could release the first strong AI product (kawaii slave?).

Beginner's definition of "waifu" for the uninitiated.

Update: Another article indicates that "[There's also] HDMI and PC inputs to allow the owner to make their own modifications and create their own characters."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Film student Anthony van der Meer had his iPhone stolen and the thought that a stranger had access to all of his personal data really concerned him. What kind of person would steal a phone? Where do these phones end up? These were his biggest questions. To get answers, Anthony had another phone stolen from him on purpose, but this time he followed the thief using a hidden app and made a captivating documentary film about the whole process.

"Find my Phone" was possible because of a spyware app called Cerberus. Using it, van der Meer was able to remotely track and control his phone whenever it was turned on and connected to the internet. Anthony listened to the thief's calls, read his messages, took photos, and even recorded both audio and video. The filmmaker then compressed everything into a thrilling 21 minute documentary movie which highlights how easy it is to spy on someone in the digital age. The video has already been viewed by more than 1.7 millions of people.

More info: anthonyvdmeer.nl (h/t: petapixel)

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

aristarchus writes:

The latest manifestation of the conservative targetting of academia is the Professor Watchlist, created by the "activist organization" Turning Point USA, founded by rising star Charlie Kirk. It's stated purpose is to "watch" professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom"

Of course, this is not new. David Horowitz has written a book called The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America . HeterodoxAcademy.org has rational articles discussing the liberal slant to modern college campuses. Nicholas Kristoff writes an interesting piece on the same topic. However, with the election of President Trump, the stakes may have been raised. A professor in California has gone incognitio after criticizing Trump in the classroom and receiving death threats.

But more important is how the attempt to blacklist liberal academics has actually backfired. George Yancy [not the George Yancey from the Kristoff piece above] published a response, "I Am a Dangerous Professor" in the New York Times, and since then it seems to have become de rigueur for all academics to get their name on the Professor Watchlist in order to cement their tenure. An entire hashtag on Twitter has taken form: #trollprofwatchlist! People have taken to mocking the list by suggesting candidates such as Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, and Jesus, not to mention Socrates, who obviously belongs.

Charlie Kirk may not be dangerous, but he did start this list. I am watching him now.

[Editor note - This story was substantially rewritten for balance. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Use of cell-phone spying technology has become widespread among U.S. law enforcement agencies and should be better regulated, according to a new congressional report.

Not only is the FBI deploying the technology, commonly called "Stingray" after one product made by Harris Corp., but so are state and local police. There are concerns that some law enforcement agencies have used Stingrays without securing search warrants, said the report from House Committee on Oversight and Reform, published on Monday.

"Absent proper oversight and safeguards, the domestic use of (Stingrays) may well infringe upon the constitutional rights of citizens to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," it said.

The report focuses on privacy concerns with the controversial surveillance device, which can intercept a phone's location, along with calls, SMS text messages, and websites visited on the device.

[...] In 2015, both the Justice Department and the DHS issued new policies on the technology, requiring that a search warrant be obtained before a Stingray can be used. Prior to that, the two departments relied on varying policies that didn't always demand probable cause, the committee's report said.

State and local police are also using the technology without a uniform policy. In addition, the Justice Department has learned of "isolated incidents" where private entities may have used Stingrays, a possible violation of U.S. law, the report said.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The Cuban government has announced a two-month trial scheme to allow internet access in private homes.

State-run telecommunications company Etecsa will install internet in some 2,000 homes in the capital's colonial district, Old Havana.

The company has also reduced by 25% the fee charged to connect to the web, which most Cubans can only access from public wi-fi hotspots.

Cuba has one of the lowest online connectivity rates in the world.

Many Cubans hope the country's communist government will eventually expand the scheme, says the BBC's Will Grant in Havana.

Details are scarce, but the authorities say the experiment will be extended if it is approved after the two-month trial period.

Last week, Etecsa signed an agreement with Google to provide faster access to content including Gmail and YouTube.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Our office recently updated to a new version of the Office Suite, and it still has an icon in the upper-left corner to perform the 'Save' function. Floppy drives have not been in use for years, and many children would not recognize a 3.5 inch floppy disk on sight. Programs have used this icon for years, because we have yet to find a suitable replacement. The CD/DVD can no longer represent saving, because they have come and gone. Even moving to the more abstract Piggy Bank icon would not work, because they are seldom used in the modern age. A USB Key icon may represent saving in some form, but the may not be around much longer if another medium gains favor. Does this mean that the venerable 3.5 inch Floppy will represent saving information to future generations, or should it be replaced by a different symbol?

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10918/qualcomm-demos-48core-centriq-2400-server-soc-in-action-begins-sampling

Qualcomm this month demonstrated its 48-core Centriq 2400 SoC in action and announced that it had started to sample its first server processor with select customers. The live showcase is an important milestone for the SoC because it proves that the part is functional and is on track for commercialization in the second half of next year.

Qualcomm announced plans to enter the server market more than two years ago, in November 2014, but the first rumors about the company's intentions to develop server CPUs emerged long before that. In fact, being one of the largest designers of ARM-based SoCs for mobile devices, Qualcomm was well prepared to move beyond smartphones and tablets. However, while it is not easy to develop a custom ARMv8 processor core and build a server-grade SoC, building an ecosystem around such chip is even more complicated in a world where ARM-based servers are typically used in isolated cases. From the very start, Qualcomm has been rather serious not only about the processors themselves but also about the ecosystem and support by third parties (Facebook was one of the first companies to support Qualcomm's server efforts). In 2015, Qualcomm teamed up with Xilinx and Mellanox to ensure that its server SoCs are compatible with FPGA-based accelerators and data-center connectivity solutions (the fruits of this partnership will likely emerge in 2018 at best). Then it released a development platform featuring its custom 24-core ARMv8 SoC that it made available to customers and various partners among ISVs, IHVs and so on. Earlier this year the company co-founded the CCIX consortium to standardize various special-purpose accelerators for data-centers and make certain that its processors can support them. Taking into account all the evangelization and preparation work that Qualcomm has disclosed so far, it is evident that the company is very serious about its server business.

From the hardware standpoint, Qualcomm's initial server platform will rely on the company's Centriq 2400-series family of microprocessors that will be made using a 10 nm FinFET fabrication process in the second half of next year. Qualcomm does not name the exact manufacturing technology, but the timeframe points to either performance-optimized Samsung's 10LPP or TSMC's CLN10FF (keep in mind that TSMC has a lot of experience fabbing large chips and a 48-core SoC is not going to be small). The key element of the Centriq 2400 will be Qualcomm's custom ARMv8-compliant 64-bit core code-named Falkor. Qualcomm has yet has to disclose more information about Falkor, but the important thing here is that this core was purpose-built for data-center applications, which means that it will likely be faster than the company's cores used inside mobile SoCs when running appropriate workloads.

Here's an older article about Qualcomm's ARM server efforts.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/south-carolina-will-debate-bill-to-block-porn-on-new-computers/

A South Carolina politician is hoping to stop computer owners in his state from viewing pornography.

State Rep. Bill Chumley, a Republican from Spartanburg, told his hometown newspaper that his Human Trafficking Prevention Act would require manufacturers or sellers of computers or other devices that access the Internet to install digital blocks to prevent the viewing of obscene content. Blocking websites that facilitate prostitution would also be required, he said.

If a purchaser wants the filter lifted, he or she has to pay $20 to have it taken out—provided the person is over the age of 18.

Also at the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

GO binaries are weird, or at least, that is where this all started out. While delving into some Linux malware named Rex, I came to the realization that I might need to understand more than I wanted to. Just the prior week I had been reversing Linux Lady which was also written in GO, however it was not a stripped binary so it was pretty easy. Clearly the binary was rather large, many extra methods I didn't care about - though I really just didn't understand why. To be honest - I still haven't fully dug into the Golang code and have yet to really write much code in Go, so take this information at face value as some of it might be incorrect; this is just my experience while reversing some ELF Go binaries! If you don't want to read the whole page, or scroll to the bottom to get a link to the full repo, just go here.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

takyon writes:

BBC reports:

A lorry has ploughed into a busy Christmas market in the heart of Berlin, killing nine people and injuring many more, police say. Police say they suspect it was a deliberate attack. Video shows stalls knocked over and people lying injured. A suspicious person has been arrested nearby, while a passenger was found dead, police say. The market is at Breitscheidplatz, close to the Kurfuerstendamm, the main shopping street in the city's west. Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert, tweeted to say: "We are in mourning for the dead and hope that the many injured can get help."

There are now reports from local police that 12 people have been confirmed killed in the attack.

https://twitter.com/polizeiberlin/status/810940347006197760

Reuters reports:

A man stormed into a Zurich mosque on Monday evening and opened fire on people praying, injuring three, Swiss police said.

They said they had collected evidence inside the building and would make more details available on Tuesday. They declined to comment on the potential motive.

Two of the three men -- aged 30, 35 and 56 -- were seriously injured in the attack shortly after 5:30 p.m. local time (1630 GMT) near the main train station in Switzerland's financial capital, Zurich police said.

Original Submission

Two Soylentils wrote to let us know about research into changes to a woman's brain as a result of pregnancy:

takyon writes:

Pregnancy causes visible changes in the female brain, enough to allow computers to determine whether a woman is pregnant by analyzing brain scan images:

Pregnancy reduces grey matter in specific parts of a woman's brain, helping her bond with her baby and prepare for the demands of motherhood. Scans of 25 first-time mums showed these structural brain changes lasted for at least two years after giving birth.

European researchers said the scale of brain changes during pregnancy were akin to those seen during adolescence. But they found no evidence of women's memory deteriorating. Many women have said they feel forgetful and emotional during pregnancy and put it down to "pregnancy" or "baby" brain - and, it seems, with good reason.

[...] This study, from researchers at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and Leiden University and published in Nature Neuroscience [open, DOI: 10.1038/nn.4458] [DX], looked at the brain scans of women before they became pregnant, soon after they gave birth, and two years later, to see how the brain changed. And they compared these women's brains with those of 19 first-time fathers, 17 men without children and 20 women who had never given birth. The researchers found "substantial" reductions in the volume of grey matter in the brains of first-time mothers. The grey matter changes occurred in areas of the brain involved in social interactions used for attributing thoughts and feelings to other people - known as "theory-of-mind" tasks.

Also at The New York Times .

hubie writes:

The female body undergoes dramatic, hormone-driven changes during pregnancy. In a new study, researchers have shown that gray matter regions shrink in areas involved with processing and responding to social signals. These changes occurred for women who conceived naturally or via in vitro fertilization. The researchers followed up with the study participants and found that, except for the hippocampus region, the gray matter loss remained true two years after they delivered their children. The changes were so consistent that a computer algorithm could predict with 100% accuracy whether a woman had been pregnant from her MRI scan.

[Continues...]