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Phoenix666 writes:

Deep in the jagged red mountains of Oman, geologists are drilling in search of the holy grail of reversing climate change: an efficient and cheap way to remove carbon dioxide from the air and oceans.

They are coring samples from one of the world's only exposed sections of the Earth's mantle to uncover how a spontaneous natural process millions of years ago transformed CO2 into limestone and marble.

[...] Around 13 tons of core samples from four different sites will be sent to the Chikyu, a state-of-the-art research vessel off the coast of Japan, where Keleman and other geologists will analyze them in round-the-clock shifts.

They hope to answer the question of how the rocks managed to capture so much CO2 over the course of 90 million years — and to see if there's a way to speed up the timetable.

Kelemen thinks a drilling operation could cycle carbon-rich water into the newly formed seabed on oceanic ridges far below the surface. Just like in Oman's mountains, the submerged rock would chemically absorb carbon from the water. The water could then be cycled back to the surface to absorb more CO2 from the atmosphere, in a sort of conveyor belt.

The geologists are studying how well the rock core samples from Oman absorb CO2 in the hope they can build a means to sequester captured carbon in the Earth's mantle.

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butthurt writes:

Ken Munro of Pen Test Partners describes his investigation of the AGA Total Control oven, which can be controlled remotely with an app, via GSM. Munro found that:

• the app uses HTTP rather than SSL
• there was a potential for telephone numbers associated with the ovens to be enumerated
• the app allowed passwords as short as five characters
• "it would be trivial" to turn someone else's oven on and off
• the control system could be misused to send SMS messages to mobile phones

According to the researcher,

additional coverage:

• BBC News
• The Inquirer

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Drivers commonly perform secondary tasks while behind the wheel to navigate or communicate with others, which has led to a significant increase in the number of injuries and fatalities attributed to distracted driving. Advances in wearable technology, particularly devices such as Google Glass, which feature voice control and head-up display (HUD) functionalities, raise questions about how these devices might impact driver attention when used in vehicles. New human factors/ergonomics research examines how these interface characteristics can have a deleterious effect on safety.

In their Human Factors article, "Driving While Interacting With Google Glass: Investigating the Combined Effect of Head-Up Display and Hands-Free Input on Driving Safety and Multitask Performance," authors Kathryn Tippey, Elayaraj Sivaraj, and Thomas Ferris observed the performance of 24 participants in a driving simulator. The participants engaged in four texting-while-driving tasks: baseline (driving only), and driving plus reading and responding to text messages via (a) a smartphone keyboard, (b) a smartphone voice-to text system, and (c) Google Glass' voice-to-text system using HUD.

The authors found that driving performance degraded regardless of secondary texting task type, but manual entry led to slower reaction times and significantly more eyes-off-road glances than voice-to-text input using both smartphones and Google Glass. Glass' HUD function required only a change in eye direction to read and respond to text messages, rather than the more disruptive change in head and body posture associated with smartphones. Participants also reported that Glass was easier to use and interfered less with driving than did the other devices tested.

IOW, wait until you're in a self-driving car before you mix texting and driving.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

DARPA wants to eliminate seven classes of hardware vulnerabilities (warning, contains cyberjargon):

Military and civilian technological systems, from fighter aircraft to networked household appliances, are becoming ever more dependent upon software systems inherently vulnerable to electronic intruders. To meet its mission of preventing technological surprise and increasing national security, DARPA has advanced a number of technologies to make software more secure. But what if hardware could be recruited to do a bigger share of that work? That's the question DARPA's new System Security Integrated Through Hardware and Firmware (SSITH) program aims to answer.

[...] SSITH specifically seeks to address the seven classes of hardware vulnerabilities listed in the Common Weakness Enumeration (cwe.mitre.org), a crowd-sourced compendium of security issues that is familiar to the information technology security community. In cyberjargon, these classes are: permissions and privileges, buffer errors, resource management, information leakage, numeric errors, crypto errors, and code injection. Researchers have documented some 2800 software breaches that have taken advantage of one or more of these hardware vulnerabilities, all seven of which are variously present to in the integrated microcircuitry of electronic systems around the world. Remove those hardware weaknesses, Salmon said, and you would effectively close down more than 40% of the software doors intruders now have available to them.

The strategic challenge for participants in the SSITH program will be to develop new integrated circuit (IC) architectures that lack the current software-accessible points of illicit entry, yet retain the computational functions and high-performance the ICs were designed to deliver. Another goal of the program is the development of design tools that would become widely available so that hardware-anchored security would eventually become a standard feature of ICs in both Defense Department and commercial electronic systems. The anticipated 39-month program centers on two technical areas. One of them focuses on the development and demonstration of hardware architectures that protect against one or more of the seven vulnerability classes as well as design tools the electronics community would need for including hardware-based security innovations in their design and manufacturing practices. The second technical area encompasses methodologies and metrics for measuring (and representing for system designers) the security status of the newly designed electronic systems and any tradeoffs the hardware-won security might levy in the form of system performance, power needs and efficiency, circuit area, and other standard circuit features.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Nanopore materials can be used to detect methylation of DNA, which could suggest the presence of cancer:

University of Illinois researchers have designed a high-resolution method to detect, count, and map tiny additions to DNA called methylations, which can be a early-warning sign of cancer. The method threads DNA strands through a tiny hole, called a nanopore, in an atomically thin sheet of graphene or other 2D material with an electrical current running through it. Many methylations packed close together suggest an early stage of cancer, explained study leader Jean-Pierre Leburton, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Illinois.

There have been previous attempts to use nanopores to detect methylation (by measuring ionic changes), which have been limited in resolution (how precise the measurement is). The Illinois group instead applied a current directly to the conductive sheet surrounding the pore. Working with Klaus Schulten, a professor of physics at Illinois, Leburton's group at Illinois' Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, they used advanced computer simulations to test applying current to different flat materials, such as graphene and molybdenum disulfide, while methylated DNA was threaded through.

Detection and mapping of DNA methylation with 2D material nanopores (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41699-017-0005-7) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

At a NASA press conference on Thursday, scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA's D.C. Headquarters, and the Space Telescope Science Institute announced new observations about the "ocean worlds" Enceladus and Europa. At Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, the Cassini spacecraft has measured emissions of hydrogen gas that could indicate a source of chemical energy for life forms. 2016 Hubble observations of Jupiter's moon Europa have found evidence of a water plume emanating from the same location as a plume measured in 2014.

The Cassini spacecraft took a "deep dive" into one of the Enceladus plumes on Oct. 28, 2015. The plume contains about 98% water, 0.4-1.4% hydrogen, and a mixture of carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and other molecules. The findings support the conclusion of hot water interacting with rock at hydrothermal vents on the seafloor, a type of habitat known to support life without the need for sunlight. NASA scientists have concluded that Enceladus has all of the conditions and ingredients necessary to support life, although the detection of hydrogen gas does not prove that the internal ocean currently contains life forms, and phosphorus and sulfur have yet to be measured.

The new Hubble images of Europa show that the height of the plume is about twice that of the one measured in 2014. The location of this periodic plume corresponds with a thermal hotspot on Europa's surface found by the Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s, which was once dismissed as an anomaly. The lack of craters on Europa's surface indicates that water is spraying out of the internal ocean through cracks and reshaping the surface. However, Europa's ice shell is thought to be thicker than that of Enceladus, with water vapor escaping the crust less often. NASA is currently developing a Europa Clipper mission that would conduct a series of 45 or more flybys of Europa, with the possibility of flying directly through water vapor plumes for sampling. The European Space Agency's Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer will study Europa and Callisto, but end its mission by orbiting Ganymede.

The same chemistry detected at Enceladus could also be taking place in interior oceans on other icy worlds, such as Ceres, Titan, Ganymede, Callisto, Dione, Rhea, Titania, Triton, Pluto, Eris, Sedna, etc.

Here's the press briefing (48m16s). Also at Science Magazine, BBC, Space.com, and Popular Mechanics (mhajicek's link).

Cassini finds molecular hydrogen in the Enceladus plume: Evidence for hydrothermal processes (open, DOI: 10.1126/science.aai8703) (DX)

Active Cryovolcanism on Europa? (DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa67f8) (DX)

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butthurt writes:

Ars Technica reports that Nintendo, citing "high demand," has decided to cease production of its NES Classic Edition game console, also known as the NES Classic Mini. According to the story,

Also at The Verge.

Previously: Famicom Classic Mini Console Sold 263k Units in Japan
Nintendo to Bring $60 "Retro" Video Gaming Console to U.S. Market

Original Submission

The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast, also known as the "Mother of All Bombs", has been dropped in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. It is the most powerful non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal.

julian and An Anonymous Coward write:

CNN reports:

takyon writes:

Does the U.S. research community need a new body devoted to rooting out research misconduct?

The U.S. research community needs to do a better job of both investigating misconduct allegations and promoting ethical conduct—or the government might act unilaterally in ways that scientists won't like.

That's the implicit message sent by a new report out today from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine entitled Fostering Integrity in Research. The report's key recommendation is that universities and scientific societies create, operate, and fund a new, independent, nongovernmental Research Integrity Advisory Board (RIAB). The board would serve as a clearinghouse to raise awareness of the issues, as an honest broker to mediate disagreements, and as a beacon to help institutions that lack the knowledge or resources to root out bad behavior and foster good behavior.

Other entities are already doing these things, but none has research integrity as its sole focus nor covers so much territory. Federal funding agencies investigate and punish miscreants who misuse taxpayer dollars, universities train scientists as part of their mission to advance knowledge, and scientific societies and journals have adopted ethical standards for their authors and members. After reviewing that landscape, the committee concluded that all of those organizations need to step up their game.

Also at NPR.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Canonical CEO Jane Silber announced her departure yesterday, seven years after then-CEO Shuttleworth asked her to take over the company's top spot. She previously served as Canonical's chief operating officer.

"I originally agreed to be CEO for five years and we’ve extended my tenure as CEO by a couple of years already," Silber wrote. "We’ve been preparing for a transition for some time by strengthening the executive leadership team and maturing every aspect of the company, and earlier this year Mark and I decided that now is the time to effect this transition. Over the next three months I will remain CEO but begin to formally transfer knowledge and responsibility to others in the executive team. In July, Mark will retake the CEO role and I will move to the Canonical Board of Directors."

During Silber's years as CEO, Shuttleworth still played a key role in company strategy and product design and continued to invest his personal fortune in the company so that it could expand into new areas such as smartphones. But last week, Shuttleworth announced that Canonical will stop working on Unity 8, the user interface that was supposed to act as a bridge between the phone and desktop. Canonical is halting its phone and tablet development and next year will switch back to GNOME on the desktop.

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butthurt writes:

According to a pay-walled article in The Information:

additional coverage:

• SF Gate
• CNBC
• Fortune
• Tech Crunch
• New York Times
• New York Magazine

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Surprise: If you use the Web to train your artificial intelligence, it will be biased:

One of the great promises of artificial intelligence (AI) is a world free of petty human biases. Hiring by algorithm would give men and women an equal chance at work, the thinking goes, and predicting criminal behavior with big data would sidestep racial prejudice in policing. But a new study shows that computers can be biased as well, especially when they learn from us. When algorithms glean the meaning of words by gobbling up lots of human-written text, they adopt stereotypes very similar to our own. "Don't think that AI is some fairy godmother," says study co-author Joanna Bryson, a computer scientist at the University of Bath in the United Kingdom and Princeton University. "AI is just an extension of our existing culture."

The work was inspired by a psychological tool called the implicit association test, or IAT. In the IAT, words flash on a computer screen, and the speed at which people react to them indicates subconscious associations. Both black and white Americans, for example, are faster at associating names like "Brad" and "Courtney" with words like "happy" and "sunrise," and names like "Leroy" and "Latisha" with words like "hatred" and "vomit" than vice versa.

To test for similar bias in the "minds" of machines, Bryson and colleagues developed a word-embedding association test (WEAT). They started with an established set of "word embeddings," basically a computer's definition of a word, based on the contexts in which the word usually appears. So "ice" and "steam" have similar embeddings, because both often appear within a few words of "water" and rarely with, say, "fashion." But to a computer an embedding is represented as a string of numbers, not a definition that humans can intuitively understand. Researchers at Stanford University generated the embeddings used in the current paper by analyzing hundreds of billions of words on the internet.

Instead of measuring human reaction time, the WEAT computes the similarity between those strings of numbers. Using it, Bryson's team found that the embeddings for names like "Brett" and "Allison" were more similar to those for positive words including love and laughter, and those for names like "Alonzo" and "Shaniqua" were more similar to negative words like "cancer" and "failure." To the computer, bias was baked into the words.

I swear this is not a politics story.

Original Submission

FakeBeldin writes:

On the heels of United's heavy-handed removal of a booked passenger comes another wonderful piece of news from United:

Apparently, due to technical problems, a different plane was used that had slightly fewer seats. So fewer first class seats. So why bump off a first class passenger?

Seriously, United?

takyon writes:

According to an open access study in Nature's Science Reports, 76% of all of the animals living from the surface of the ocean to a depth of 3,900 meters have bioluminescence capability. The data was gathered by remotely operated vehicles surveying off the California Coast. The prevalence of bioluminescence suggests that it is an ecological trait, ie. something animals in the habitat should be expected to have.

Quantification of bioluminescence from the surface to the deep sea demonstrates its predominance as an ecological trait (open, DOI: 10.1038/srep45750) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google Cardboard now supports the WebVR API:

Mozilla and Google introduced the WebVR API 1.0 Proposal in March 2016 with the intent of making VR content accessible to anyone with a web browser. Google expanded on that mission in February with the announcement that its Chrome browser and Daydream platform would support WebVR, which meant you could interact with VR experiences on practically any PC, tablet, or smartphone, albeit in 2D and with limited features.

Now the API has made the jump to Google Cardboard. This should make true VR experiences more accessible--few Daydream phones have been announced, which means WebVR currently offers just a small taste of what VR is like. Not everyone can afford a high-end PC, VR HMD, and all the other equipment needed to experience VR; Google Cardboard lets you see what all the fuss is about without breaking the bank on a full setup.

MindMaze has developed a VR add-on that they claim can detect your facial expressions before you make them:

MindMaze developed a cost-effective VR HMD upgrade called Mask that can detect biosignals in your face to bring your facial expressions and emotional queues into VR experiences to help improve virtual social interactions.

[...] MindMaze Mask is a combination of hardware sensors and software. Mask uses biosignal processing technology and machine learning from the healthcare industry to detect your facial expressions "tens of milliseconds" before they manifest on your face. MindMaze's software then replicates your expressions on a VR avatar in real-time.

Next year's headline: Virtual NPCs Deny Sexual Favors to Awkward, Antisocial Players.

Finally, the Futuremark benchmarking company has joined the VR First global initiative, and Unigine has released an updated graphics benchmark test with support for 8K and VR.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

In response to a commercial that hijacks Google Assistant (aka the Google Home device), Google has updated their systems to prevent that single recording from triggering the device:

Burger King made waves today after it released a TV ad that purposely triggered the Google Assistant. The ad ends with a person saying "OK Google, what is the Whopper burger?"'—a statement designed to trigger any Google Assistant devices like Android phones and Google Home to read aloud a description of the hamburger's ingredients. Google apparently wasn't happy with a third-party hijacking its voice command system to advertise fast food, and has issued a server-side update to specifically disable Burger King's recording.

Very related: News Anchor Sets Off Alexa Devices Around San Diego Ordering Unwanted Dollhouses

Neither Amazon's Alexa nor Google Assistant can identify who is speaking to it based on a profile. This functionality could be added in the future with a hardware or cloud update.

Original Submission