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takyon writes:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/29/politics/turkish-embassy-indictments/index.html

A DC grand jury returned indictments against 15 Turkish security officials and four other individuals Tuesday on charges of attacking protesters during an incident outside the Turkish ambassador's residence on May 16, 2017. The violence took place during Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to the US.

CNN previously reported that nine people were injured in the melee, though witness and Turkish authorities have offered conflicting accounts of who was involved and who was to blame. All defendants were also indicted with "bias crime enhancements" -- referring to hate crimes -- to the charges.

The Turkish embassy says the protesters were affiliated with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which is a designated terror group in Turkey, the US and Europe, and has been engaged in a 30-year conflict with the Turkish government. Turkey alleges the protesters "began aggressively provoking Turkish-American citizens who had peacefully assembled to greet the President." In June, DC Police Chief Peter Newsham said that "there's no indication at all that the protesters were a terrorist group."

Also at Reuters and The Hill.

Previously: Violence at Turkish Embassy in Washington
Erdogan Decries 'Unacceptable' US Arrest Warrants for Staff in Washington Brawl

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

An Indian site, YourStory, has an unusually broad ranging interview with Richard Stallman. While much of the background and goals will already be familiar to SN readers, the interview is interesting not only for its scope but also that India is starting to take an interest in these matters.

To know Richard Stallman is to know the true meaning of freedom. He's the man behind the GNU project and the free software movement, and the subject of our Techie Tuesdays this week.

This is not a usual story. After multiple attempts to get in touch for an interaction with Richard Stallman, I got a response which prepared me well for what's coming next. I'm sharing the same with you to prepare you for what's coming next.

I'm willing to do the interview — if you can put yourself into philosophical and political mindset that is totally different from the one that the other articles are rooted in.

The general mindset of your articles is to admire success. Both business success, and engineering success. My values disagree fundamentally with that. In my view, proprietary software is an injustice; it is wrongdoing. People should be _ashamed_ of making proprietary software, _especially_ if it is successful. (If nobody uses the proprietary program, at least it has not really wronged anyone.) Thus, most of the projects you consider good, I consider bad.

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Phoenix666 writes:

As the number of highly educated women has increased in recent decades, the chances of "marrying up" have increased significantly for men and decreased for women, according to a new study led by a University of Kansas sociologist.

"The pattern of marriage and its economic consequences have changed over time," said lead author ChangHwan Kim, associate professor of sociology. "Now women are more likely to get married to a less-educated man. What is the consequence of this?"

Kim's co-authored the study with Arthur Sakamoto of Texas A&M University, and the journal Demography recently published their findings. They examined gender-specific changes in the total financial return to education among people of prime working ages, 35 to 44 years old, using U.S. Census data from 1990 and 2000 and the 2009-2011 American Community Survey.

Your dreams of finding a Sugar Momma may finally come true.

ChangHwan Kim, Arthur Sakamoto. Women's Progress for Men's Gain? Gender-Specific Changes in the Return to Education as Measured by Family Standard of Living, 1990 to 2009–2011. Demography, 2017; DOI: 10.1007/s13524-017-0601-3

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The New York Police Department's Deputy Commissioner of IT has defended the department's purchase of $160 million worth of obsolete Windows phones after a New York Post article criticized the "boondoggle". The NYPD plans to switch to iPhones:

On Monday, Jessica Tisch, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of information technology, wrote a scathing defense of the NYPD's choice of Windows phone.

The two-year project wrapped up in October and cost $160 million. It put Windows phones into the hands of all 36,000 officers.

The NY Post's Tina Moore originally reported on the change with the headline: NYPD needs to replace 36K useless smartphones. In the article Moore points out:

"Just months after the last phone was handed out, officials plan to begin replacing them all with brand-new iPhones by the end of the year, sources said."

This clearly didn't sit well with Tisch. She penned a retort that extolled the virtues of the Windows smartphone program, while also confirming that the NYPD has given up on Windows in favor of iPhones.

The smartphones purchased were the Lumia 830 and Lumia 640 XL.

Blog post defending the use of Windows phones. Also at New York Magazine, The Register, and Mac Rumors.

Older article about the "crime-fighting phone".

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Aston Martin is the latest car maker to announce it's going to move to an all-hybrid lineup. CEO Andy Palmer has told the Financial Times that "We will be 100 per cent hybrid by the middle of the 2020s." Palmer also told the FT that he expects about 25 percent of Aston Martin sales will be EVs by 2030. A similarly bold announcement was made by Volvo earlier this summer; however, in this case Aston Martin will continue to sell non-hybrid versions of its cars as an option.

The first all-electric Aston Martin will be the RapidE, a sleek four-seater due in 2019. But that will be a limited-run model, with only 115 planned. There's also the hybrid Valkyrie hypercar in the works, an F1 car for the road that's being designed by Aston Martin in conjunction with Red Bull Racing's Adrian Newey. But there will be more mainstream (if such a word can apply) hybrid and battery EV Aston Martins coming, too. Like Volvo, some of these will just be 48V mild hybrids.

Guess it's embarassing when your gas-powered supercar gets left in the dust by an EV.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given its approval for Phase 3 trials to treat participants with PTSD using MDMA ("ecstacy"):

The non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to MDMA for the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). MAPS and the FDA have also reached agreement under the Special Protocol Assessment Process (SPA) for the design of two upcoming Phase 3 trials (MAPP1 and MAPP2) of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for patients with severe PTSD.

MDMA-assisted psychotherapy is a novel treatment package that combines psychotherapeutic techniques with three administrations of MDMA as a pharmacological adjunct. By granting Breakthrough Therapy Designation, the FDA has agreed that this treatment may have a meaningful advantage and greater compliance over available medications for PTSD.

The first Phase 3 trial (MAPP1), "A Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Multi-Site Phase 3 Study of the Efficacy and Safety of Manualized MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for the Treatment of Severe Posttraumatic Stress Disorder," will begin enrolling subjects in Spring 2018, after the completion of an open-label lead-in training study at Phase 3 sites starting this fall.

[...] The Phase 3 trials will assess the efficacy and safety of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in 200-300 participants with PTSD, aged 18 and older, at sites in the U.S., Canada, and Israel. Participants will be randomized to receive three day-long sessions of either MDMA or placebo in conjunction with psychotherapy over a 12-week treatment period, along with 12 associated 90-minute non-drug preparatory and integration sessions. The primary endpoint will be the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS-5), as assessed by a blinded pool of independent raters.

In MAPS' completed Phase 2 trials with 107 participants, 61% no longer qualified for PTSD after three sessions of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy two months following treatment. At the 12-month follow-up, 68% no longer had PTSD. All Phase 2 participants had chronic, treatment-resistant PTSD, and had suffered from PTSD for an average of 17.8 years.

Also at ScienceAlert, the Washington Post, and Science Magazine:

Since 2012, FDA has designated close to 200 drugs as breakthrough therapies, a status that indicates there's preliminary evidence that an intervention offers a substantial improvement over other options for a serious health condition. The agency aims to help develop and review these treatments faster than other candidate drugs.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Earlier this month, radio dishes from three deep-space networks combined to catch faint 'survival' whispers from one of ESA's Mars orbiters, underlining the value of international collaboration for exploring the Red Planet.

For the first time ever, deep-space ground stations from ESA, NASA and Russia's Roscosmos joined together, on 13 August, to receive ultra-faint signals from ESA's ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, now circling Mars.

Engineers carefully designed the test to probe the limits of what their ground stations could achieve, and confirm that all three could catch signals from the orbiter should it ever switch itself into the low-power, minimal 'survival mode'.

This special mode can occur if a software or hardware glitch causes multiple onboard computer reboots.

The test took place just as Mars was moving from the opposite side of the sun, where it is at its greatest distance from us.

This meant that ExoMars was more than 397 million km from the three dishes, a situation that occurs only every two years, when communications are at their most difficult.

Scientists can still work together.

Original Submission

Rich26189 writes:

Sweden's Transport Agency moved all of its data to "the cloud", apparently unaware that there is no cloud, only somebody else's computer. In doing so, it exposed and leaked every conceivable top secret database: fighter pilots, SEAL team operators, police suspects, people under witness relocation. Names, photos, and home addresses: the list is just getting started. The responsible director has been found guilty in criminal court of the whole affair, and sentenced to the harshest sentence ever seen in Swedish government: she was docked half a month's paycheck.

Story here:
https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/2017/07/swedish-transport-agency-worst-known-governmental-leak-ever-is-slowly-coming-to-light/

Original Submission

tonyPick writes:

Spotted at BBC News is the report that Burger King has launched a crypto-currency-like scheme in Russia called "WhopperCoin".

Customers will be able to claim one coin for every rouble (1.3p) they spend on the Whopper sandwich.

Russians will be able to buy a Whopper with the virtual cash, once they have amassed 1,700 whoppercoins.

The company said it would release Apple and Android apps next month so people could save, share and trade their wallet full of whoppercoins.

Burger King has partnered with crypto-cash start-up Waves to create and run the scheme.

The tech company will run the blockchain ledger for the coin to keep track of who has coins and what has been done with them.

Customers will be able to claim their coins by scanning a receipt with a smartphone.

The crypto-currency is a stand-alone system that has some technical similarities to Bitcoin but is distinct from it.

Also covered at Verge and CNBC, this scheme appears to be using the blockchain as a loyalty rewards scheme:

WhopperCoin transactions will be powered by Ethereum rival Waves' distributed ledger network. The blockchain platform allows users to issue and transfer custom blockchain tokens, and to trade them on an integrated peer-to-peer exchange.

The Waves Community page contains further information on this scheme.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Amazon.com Inc. spent its first day as the owner of a brick-and-mortar grocery chain cutting prices at Whole Foods Market as much as 43 percent.
...
The tech giant's $13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods has sent shock waves through the already changing $800 billion supermarket industry. The wedding between Amazon and the upscale grocery promises to upend the way customers shop for groceries. Cutting prices at the chain with such an entrenched reputation for high cost that its nickname is Whole Paycheck is a sign that Amazon is serious about taking on competitors such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Kroger Co. and Costco Wholesale Corp.

"Price was the largest barrier to Whole Foods' customers," said Mark Baum, a senior vice president at the Food Marketing Institute, an industry group. "Amazon has demonstrated that it is willing to invest to dominate the categories that it decides to compete in. Food retailers of all sizes need to look really hard at their pricing strategies, and maybe find some funding sources to build a war chest."

"Whole Paycheck" is now "Half Paycheck."

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

If you dream of owning a Linux phone that respects your privacy and keeps your data secure you'll want to check out Purism's new crowdfunding campaign.

The security-conscious US-based Linux laptop maker is hoping to raise $1.5 million to manufacture a 5-inch privacy-focused smartphone powered by open-source software.

Starting at $599, the Librem 5 will run the GNU/Linux PureOS distribution instead of Android, and will include a slate of features aimed at helping you protect your 'digital identity' — including end-to-end encryption of calls and texts made to other Librem 5 handsets.

While the phone will use as much free software as possible Purism do concede that the mobile baseband will likely use ROM loaded firmware (but with a FOSS kernel driver).

Wondering what kind of smartphone you get for $599? Us too. As it is, Purism say Librem 5 specs won't be finalized until after the campaign ends. This, they say, is to "ensure the best available components."

[...] If you're thinking of replacing your current smartphone with the Librem 5 you will need to look elsewhere as Purism plan to ship the phone in January 2019.

Source: Purism is Crowdfunding an Encrypted Linux Phone

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

When Christopher Nolan was promoting his previous film Interstellar, he made the casual observation that "Take a field like economics for example. [Unlike physics] you have real material things and it can't predict anything. It's always wrong." There is a lot more truth in that statement than most academic economists would like to admit.

[...] several famous Keynesian and neo-classical economists, including Paul Romer, [...] criticized the "Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth" and [...] Paul Krugman. In this instance, though, Krugman is mostly correct observing that "As I see it, the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth."

[...] But more fundamentally, as Austrian economist Frank Shostak notes, "In the natural sciences, a laboratory experiment can isolate various elements and their movements. There is no equivalent in the discipline of economics. The employment of econometrics and econometric model-building is an attempt to produce a laboratory where controlled experiments can be conducted."

The result is that economic forecasts are usually just wrong."

"[Levinovitz] approvingly quotes one economist saying "The interest of the profession is in pursuing its analysis in a language that's inaccessible to laypeople and even some economists. What we've done is monopolise this kind of expertise.[...] that gives us power.""

[...] because economics models are mostly useless and cannot predict the future with any sort of certainty, then centrally directing an economy would be effectively like flying blind. The failure of economic models to pan out is simply more proof of the pretense of knowledge. And it's not more knowledge that we need, it's more humility. The humility to know that "wise" bureaucrats are not the best at directing a market "

Economists Are the New Astrologers

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

On a scale of one to five, how are your open source skills? If you picked a number below four, you might want to do something about it. According to the Linux Foundation's annual Open Source Jobs Report released on Wednesday, employment prospects for open source workers continues to rise.

Consider this: 86 percent of open source professionals believe that just knowing open source has advanced their careers, with 52 percent saying it would be easy to find another job. If that doesn't wet your whistle -- only 27 percent report not receiving a recruiting call in the past six months.

[...] Three major factors are pushing most companies' IT hiring plans, with company growth heading the list at 60 percent. After that, it's more open source specific, with 42 percent citing an increasing use of open source, followed by 30 percent who said that open source is becoming core to their IT needs.

[...] With data centers increasing their use of open source technologies, it's not surprising that a 77 percent majority of the tech professionals surveyed said the ability to architect solutions based on open source software topped the list of valuable skills. Also important: experience with open source development tools such as GitHub, and knowledge of new tools. The pros also predict that next year, employment opportunities will grow for those with skills in cloud technologies, big data and analytics, containers, and security.

Source: http://windowsitpro.com/open-source/demand-open-source-skills-continues-grow

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Intel has announced a Vision Processing Unit SoC named after the visualization processing company it bought last year:

Intel today introduced the Movidius Myriad X Vision Processing Unit (VPU) which Intel is calling the first vision processing system-on-a-chip (SoC) with a dedicated neural compute engine to accelerate deep neural network inferencing at the network edge. You may recall Intel acquired Movidius roughly a year ago for its visualization processing expertise. Introduction of the SoC closely follows release of the Movidius Neural Compute Stick in July, a USB-based offering "to make deep learning application development on specialized hardware even more widely available."

Intel says the VPU's new neural compute engine is an on-chip hardware block specifically designed to run deep neural networks at high speed and low power. "With the introduction of the Neural Compute Engine, the Myriad X architecture is capable of 1 TOPS – trillion operations per second based on peak floating-point computational throughput of Neural Compute Engine – of compute performance on deep neural network inferences," says Intel.

Commenting on the introduction Steve Conway of Hyperion Research said, "The Intel VPU is an essential part of the company's larger strategy for deep learning and other AI methodologies. HPC has moved to the forefront of R&D for AI, and visual processing complements Intel's HPC strategy. In the coming era of autonomous vehicles and networked traffic, along with millions of drones and IoT sensors, ultrafast visual processing will be indispensable."

Intel reports the new Movidius SoC VPU is capable of delivering more than 4 TOPS of total performance and that its tiny form factor and on-board processing are ideal for autonomous device solutions.

The device uses up to 1.5 W of power.

Also at Tom's Hardware and AnandTech.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

In a cramped Harvard University sub-basement, a team of women is working to document the rich history of women astronomers.

More than 40 years before women gained the right to vote, female "computers" at Harvard College Observatory were making major astronomical discoveries.

Between 1885 and 1927, the observatory employed about 80 women who studied glass plate photographs of the stars. They found galaxies and nebulas and created methods to measure distance in space.

They were famous - newspapers wrote about them, they published scientific papers under their own names. But they were virtually forgotten during the next century.

But a recent discovery of thousands of pages of their calculations by a modern group of women has spurred new interest in their legacy.

A worthy effort, though the correct term for "female 'computer'" is "femputer", at least according to Futurama.

Original Submission