SoylentNews

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

New data suggest that the reading public is ditching e-books and returning to the old fashioned printed word.

Sales of consumer e-books plunged 17% in the U.K. in 2016, according to the Publishers Association. Sales of physical books and journals went up by 7% over the same period, while children's books surged 16%.

The same trend is on display in the U.S., where e-book sales declined 18.7% over the first nine months of 2016, according to the Association of American Publishers. Paperback sales were up 7.5% over the same period, and hardback sales increased 4.1%.

"The print format is appealing to many and publishers are finding that some genres lend themselves more to print than others and are using them to drive sales of print books," said Phil Stokes, head of PwC's entertainment and media division in the U.K.

Stokes said that children's book have always been more popular in print, for example, and that many people prefer recipe books in hardback format.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/27/media/ebooks-sales-real-books/index.html

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Center for American Progress reports

On [April 29], Donald Trump marks the 100th day of his presidency, and finds his approval ratings much lower than any of his modern predecessors.

One reason for this could be perceptions about his accountability. To become president, Trump made a lot of promises to a lot of people--663, in fact. In just 100 days of what would be 1,461 days of a first term, Donald Trump has broken 80 promises he made before he was sworn in.

[...] A close analysis of the 663 promises Trump made on the campaign trail shows how few he has kept, and how many more he has broken.

Trump's promises about what he would accomplish in his first 100 days are not the first vows pegged to a key milestone that were summarily ignored or broken. As a candidate, Trump made several pledges about the first paper he would sign, as well as what would he would do during his first minute and first hour as president. He kept none of them. On his first day in office, Trump failed to keep 34 different promises of what he said he would do on Day One in the White House--and fulfilled just two.

Phoenix666 writes:

Lucid Motors is one of the most exciting automotive startups since Tesla, and the big claims continue rolling in ahead of its first production car – the Air – hitting the market. We already know the base model will be cheaper than the base Tesla Model S, but a recent chat with the company has shed light on the crazy performance you can expect from its range-topping cars.

The performance potential on offer from electric cars is clear: the Tesla Model S P100D will hit 100 km/h (62 mph) in less than three seconds, putting it on pace with exotic hypercars, while offering seating for five and room for all their luggage. In an attempt to one up the Ludicrous best from Elon Musk, you can expect the flagship Air to hit 60 mph (98 km/h) in 2.5 seconds on its way to a top speed beyond 200 mph (322 km/h). In testing, the company has apparently seen 217 mph (349 km/h).

[...] Whereas the largest battery pack on offer in the Model S is 100 kWh, the Air will be offered with 65, 100 or 130 kWh options, delivering a maximum range of 400 miles (644 km).

[...] At the cell level, we have worked together with Samsung SDI to develop a cell chemistry that is far more tolerant of repeated fast-charging than the chemistries found in existing EVs. This means the Air will be able to fast charge repeatedly with minimal loss of battery capacity...

Would a serious competitor for the electric car crown hurt Tesla?

Original Submission

c0lo writes:

The Guardian

An Australian man has been handcuffed and locked up in a US detention centre after apparently breaching his visa conditions by just over one hour.

Sydney man Baxter Reid, 26, was in the US on a five-year visa and had travelled to Canada as part of a requirement for him to exit and re-enter America every six months to keep his visa valid.

But his American girlfriend Heather Kansco said Reid was arrested by US Border Patrol officers on 23 April after delays receiving clearance to cross into Canada meant he breached his visa conditions by just over an hour.

According to Kansco's account, the couple were given "the runaround" for more than four hours at the US-Canada border. By the time Canadian authorities referred them back to US Border Patrol, Reid had "technically violated his visa requirements".

"The US Border Patrol ended up taking Baxter away, because after waiting for hours with the Canadians, he ... was illegally in the US for a SINGLE HOUR," wrote Kansco.

Australian Broadcast Corp

A Canberra man has been detained in the United States for reportedly overstaying his visa by less than two hours.

... Mr Reid's brother, Alexander, said Canadian officials did not want to let Baxter through because his visa was close to expiring. "Because they had kept him, his visa had expired by 90 minutes," he said.

"He wants to go back home, but he wants to go of his own accord," Alexander said. "He doesn't want to get deported because he still wants to go back to the US because that's where his girlfriend lives."

"He wants to get a court date so he can say to the judge 'I was leaving [of] my own accord, I don't want to stay here illegally'," he said.

"But unfortunately a court date can be anywhere from a few weeks to six months.

"He could be locked up in detention for months only because his visa expired by 90 minutes."

Offering (forced) accommodation for free (on tax money) for at least a few weeks will prove a good investment in advertising the US tourism industry, right?

Original Submission

"exec" writes:

Marine microorganisms pose a research challenge for biologists, since many of these microorganisms cannot be grown in the laboratory. One way to study them is to collect water from the ocean and study the genetic material (DNA) the sample contains.

In a April 27 article published in Current Biology, researchers from the Technion-Israel institute of Technology present new findings obtained in this way about viruses that attack microorganisms from one of the archaeal marine groups (Euryarchaeota). This group is highly abundant in the oceans, and can produce energy from sunlight using a mechanism that is different from photosynthesis. But little is known about this group, and the team's findings shed light, for the first time, on the interaction between key groups in the marine ecosystem.

In the study conducted by Dr. Alon Philosof, under the supervision of Prof. Oded Béjà of the Technion Faculty of Biology, samples of dozens of liters were collected from the surface water layer in the Gulf of Eilat, from which DNA segments were sequenced. The researchers used the DNA segments to identify the microorganisms living in these waters. This was done by means of metagenomics – a bioinformatics approach that combines computer science algorithms with biological knowledge.

The researchers assembled the DNA segments computationally – a method similar to putting together a jigsaw puzzle from millions of pieces without a picture to serve as a guide. In doing so, they were able to reconstruct the genomes of viruses that attack the marine archaea. This complex reconstruction was made possible through the use of the ATLAS computing system (which is also used to analyze results from the CERN particle accelerator in Switzerland).

In all, 26 viruses that were previously unknown to science were detected in the study.

http://www.ats.org/news/the-ocean-detectives/

PDF of the paper.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

ESPN, which laid off 100 people this week, has a multitude of problems, but the basic one is this: It pays too much for content and costs too much for consumers.

That didn't used to matter because, thanks to the way the cable industry "bundled" channels, cable customers were forced to pay for it even if they never watched it. Now, however, as the cable bundle slowly disintegrates, it matters a lot.

[...] But it's a pipe dream to think that ESPN will ever make the kind of profits ($6.4 billion in 2014) that it once did, for two reasons. First, as is the case with so many other industries, the internet has both shined a light on the flaws of the cable model and exploited them. What was the main flaw of the cable model? It was that consumers had to pay for channels they never watched.

And now they don't.

It turns out that there were lots of people, including sports fans, who resented having to pay for the most expensive channel in the bundle. The popularity of streaming led to "cord cutting," but it also caused cable companies to begin offering less expensive "skinny bundles," some of which don't include ESPN.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg began 2017 with a bold personal challenge: "to have visited and met people in every state in the US by the end of the year."

So far, his whistlestop tour of the states certainly bears all the hallmarks of early political canvassing.

As part of the challenge, Zuckerberg reportedly wanted to meet longtime Democrats who voted for Trump in the last election and asked his team to reach out and find such people.

[...]

Such a tour becomes even more conspicuous in light of unsealed court filings from a class-action lawsuit in 2016 in which Zuckerberg attempted to dilute shareholder power and afford himself permanent control of the $440 billion company.

Of particular note in the proceedings was a message sent to Zuckerberg by Marc Andreessen, one of Facebook's most prominent investors, in which he raised the issue of "how to define the government service thing without freaking out shareholders that you are losing commitment."

"It's the thing people will point to on announcement and say 'what the f**k are you guys doing agreeing to this', particularly since... government service would require you to give up control of Facebook anyway and it's a moot point," said Andreessen, adding credence to speculation that Zuckerberg will make a run for political office at some point in the future.

One of the richest men in the world will be looking out for the little guy, right?

Source: https://www.rt.com/usa/386718-zuckerberg-political-campaign-rumors/

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Linus Torvalds has given the world version 4.11 of the Linux kernel.

"So after that extra week with an rc8, things were pretty calm," Torvalds posted to the Linux Kernel Mailing List, adding "I'm much happier releasing a final 4.11 now.

So what do we get this time around? Among other things, Linux is now better at hot-swapping solid state disks and can now do journaling on RAID 4/5/6 volumes. While we're talking storage, there's also support for the OPAL self-encrypting disk drive standard.

The kernel has also gained support for the Shared Memory Communications over RDMA (SMC-R) (SMC-R) spec, an IBM invention that allows virtual machines to share memory and therefore speeds up communications between the machines, helps with load balancing and doesn't hurt when clustering Linux boxen.

Enterprise users and gamers will both be happy that the kernel adds improved support for Intel's Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0, technology that lets a CPU figure out which of its cores is fastest and then increase its clock speed in response to a critical workload's needs

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard to let us know that a serious bug in GCC.

This post is to inform you about a bug in GCC that may cause memory (or other resource) leaks in your valid C++ programs.

One of the pillars of C++ philosophy is what we often call RAII [Resource Acquisition Is Initialization]: if you use classes to manage resources, use constructors for allocating resources and destructors for releasing them, the language makes sure that whatever happens, however you use such classes the resources will get properly released.

[...] This is the contract: I take care that my classes correctly manage resources, and the language takes care that the resources will always be managed correctly regardless of the complexity of the program.

This is where the bug manifests. Member r1 is initialized but never destroyed. Admittedly, this is a rare case: it requires an exception in the middle of initialization, a temporary and an aggregate initialization. But usually, leaks manifest in the face of exceptions. And the fact that it is rare makes you less prepared for it.

Here is a full example:

*SPOILER* (click to show) *SPOILER* (click to hide)

#include <cstdio>
#include <stdexcept>

struct Resource
{
  explicit Resource(int) { std::puts("create"); }
  Resource(Resource const&) { std::puts("create"); }
  ~Resource() { std::puts("destroy"); }
};

Resource make_1() { return Resource(1); }
Resource make_2() { throw std::runtime_error("failed"); }

struct User
{
  Resource r1;
  Resource r2;
};

void process (User) {}

int main()
{
  try {
    process({make_1(), make_2()});
  }
  catch (...) {}
}

You can test it online here. It is present in GCC 4, 5, and 6. For a more real-life, and somewhat longer, illustration of the problem, see this example provided by Tomasz Kamiński.

Interesting but thankfully not my worry at the moment as I'm on a Learn Rust kick and my problem areas of SN are all perl.

Source: https://akrzemi1.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/a-serious-bug-in-gcc/

Original Submission

takyon writes:

https://arstechnica.com/apple/2017/05/apple-has-a-record-250-billion-in-the-bank/

When it reports its quarterly financial results on Tuesday, Apple will likely have a quarter-trillion dollars in cash in the bank.

That's a greater hoard than any other company in recent US history, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported the numbers on Sunday. For comparison, Apple's cash pile exceeds the market value of Walmart and Procter & Gamble. The sum is more than the foreign cash reserves of the UK and Canada combined.

Some 93 percent of the company's cash and other liquid assets are kept overseas. The Trump administration has proposed a tax holiday to encourage companies to bring money back to the US, as well as a lower corporate tax rate, fueling more speculation about how Apple will use its money. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said he's interested in moving some of the company's cash stateside if tax conditions are right.

The article speculates about Apple buying another company, such as Tesla, Netflix, or Walt Disney.

From the WSJ article:

Mr. Cook has been somewhat more accommodating of shareholder desires than his predecessor. He started a dividend-and-stock-buyback program in 2012 that has since sent more than $200 billion to shareholders. And he has invested more in some areas, such as R&D.

But the CEO also stared down Carl Icahn in 2013 and 2014 when the activist investor bought a stake in Apple and demanded it increase buybacks. And Apple remains frugal in other realms, such as marketing. It spent less than $1.8 billion on advertising last year -- not even half the amounts laid out by smaller rivals Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., according to company filings.

Apple also avoids large acquisitions. It bought at a rate of 15 to 20 companies a year over the past four years, generally spending several hundred million dollars on companies it can easily assimilate. Its biggest deal was the $3 billion it spent to buy Beats Electronics LLC in 2014.

The swelling war chest has fueled hopes for bigger deals to vault Apple in new directions such as self-driving cars and entertainment. At Apple's 2015 shareholder meeting, one investor asked Mr. Cook about buying Tesla Inc., which today is valued around $51 billion. The CEO didn't directly respond.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

On April 4, the world's largest tunnel boring machine broke through to the open air after almost four years underground. Called Bertha, the giant digger was tasked with the challenge of building a tunnel large enough to carry four lanes of motor traffic under the heart of Seattle. The story of how it made the 1.7 mi (2.7 km) journey under the skyscrapers of the port city is not only a tale of a remarkable machine, but also of civil engineering, geology, politics, luck, and proving the old adage that anything that can go wrong, will.

It's an interesting story in its own right, made more timely by announcements that Elon Musk has formed a tunneling company to alleviate traffic.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/04/public-defender-lambasts-judicial-ruling-to-not-fix-flawed-court-software/

The public defender's office in Alameda County, California, has recently appealed a local judge's recent rejection of its demands to fix an upgraded court software. That software led to the unconstitutional and erroneous jailing of some of its clients.

"These delays and errors violate Government Code § 69844's express requirement that Superior Court clerks enter judicial orders 'forthwith,' as well as the constitutional right to a complete and accurate record on appeal and the Fourth Amendment prohibition upon unlawful arrests and illegal searches," Charles Denton, an assistant public defender, wrote in his April 10 brief.

[...] As part of his March 2017 ruling, Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson noted that, while a state law mandates that such court records be kept "forthwith," it does not specify that such records be processed within 24 hours. Instead, the law stipulates that records should be processed within an unspecified "reasonable" time.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

'We don't want to be an office:' Café owners are pulling the plug on WiFi

When HotBlack Coffee opened in downtown Toronto a year ago, it took a risk few businesses would dare take in today's online-driven world: it turned off the WiFi.

"Every day people come in and ask for it," says Jimson Bienenstock, the café's co-owner.

Still, he hasn't wavered.

"In the short term, it hurt us," Mr. Bienenstock says. "It took us longer to become established, but once we reached critical mass, it has become a self-fulfilling virtuous circle."

While most cafés offer free WiFi, including large chains such as Starbucks, McDonald's and Tim Hortons, HotBlack is among a small but growing number of independent coffee shops choosing to ditch or limit Internet use. By not offering WiFi, they're hoping to create more of a community atmosphere where people talk to each other instead of silently typing on their computers.

If coffeeshops come to discourage people working, perhaps that activity can shift to libraries.

Original Submission

butthurt writes:

The Verge reports that Lego is to offer a kit for building a model Saturn V rocket.

[...] looks amazing because it’s not just the rocket: it’s an entire Apollo mission in a box. The Saturn V splits into its three stages, while the Command and Lunar Modules are nestled at the top. There’s even parts for the Command Capsule to land in the ocean, although you’re on your own if you want an aircraft carrier to pick up your crew. Fittingly, the set is made up of 1,969 individual pieces (the year the US first landed on the Moon), and it’s the tallest toy the company’s ever made, standing at a meter tall, or 110th the size of the original Saturn V rocket.

[...] The set is scheduled for release on June 1st, and will retail for $119.99 in the US (€119.99 in Europe and £109.99 in the UK).

Additional coverage:

• Ars Technica
• Culturess
• Gizmodo
• Florida Today
• CNET
• Business Insider
• New Atlas
• Engadget
• Mashable
• Popular Mechanics

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story taken from The Register:

For the past nine years, millions of Intel desktop and server chips have harbored a security flaw that can exploited to remotely control and infect vulnerable systems with spyware.

Specifically, the bug is in Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT), Standard Manageability (ISM) and Small Business Technology (SBT) firmware versions 6 to 11.6. According to Chipzilla, the security hole allows "an unprivileged attacker to gain control of the manageability features provided by these products."

That means hackers exploiting the flaw can log into a vulnerable computer's hardware – right under the nose of the operating system – and silently snoop on users, read and make changes to files, install virtually undetectable malware, and so on. This is potentially possible across the network because AMT has direct access to the network hardware, and with local access.

These management features have been available in various Intel chipsets for nearly a decade, starting with the Nehalem Core i7 in 2008, all the way up to Kaby Lake Core parts in 2017. Crucially, the vulnerability lies at the very heart of a machine's silicon, out of sight of the running operating system, applications and any antivirus.

It can only be fully fixed with a firmware-level update, and it is present in millions of chips. It is effectively a backdoor into computers all over the world.