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Phoenix666 writes:

Tiny mobile robots are learning to work with insects in the hope the creatures' sensitive antennae and ability to squeeze into small spaces can be put to use serving humans.

With a soft electronic whirr, a rather unusual looking ant trundles along behind a column of its arthropod comrades as they march off to fetch some food.

While the little insects begin ferrying tiny globules of sugar back home, their mechanical companion bustles forward to effortlessly pick up the entire container and carry it back to the nest.

It is a dramatic demonstration of how robots can be introduced and accepted into insect societies.

But the research, which is being conducted as part of the EU-funded CyBioSys project, could be an important step towards using robots to subtly control, or work alongside, animals or humans.

The scientists hope to use the robots to modify animal behavior for pest control or other purposes.

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"exec" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Hewlett Packard Enterprise allowed a Russian defense agency to review the inner workings of cyber defense software used by the Pentagon to guard its computer networks, according to Russian regulatory records and interviews with people with direct knowledge of the issue.

The HPE system, called ArcSight, serves as a cybersecurity nerve center for much of the U.S. military, alerting analysts when it detects that computer systems may have come under attack. ArcSight is also widely used in the private sector.

The Russian review of ArcSight's source code, the closely guarded internal instructions of the software, was part of HPE's effort to win the certification required to sell the product to Russia's public sector, according to the regulatory records seen by Reuters and confirmed by a company spokeswoman.

Six former U.S. intelligence officials, as well as former ArcSight employees and independent security experts, said the source code review could help Moscow discover weaknesses in the software, potentially helping attackers to blind the U.S. military to a cyber attack.

"It's a huge security vulnerability," said Greg Martin, a former security architect for ArcSight. "You are definitely giving inner access and potential exploits to an adversary."

Despite the potential risks to the Pentagon, no one Reuters spoke with was aware of any hacks or cyber espionage that were made possible by the review process.

[...] The HPE spokeswoman said Reuters' questions about the potential vulnerabilities were "hypothetical and speculative in nature."

HPE declined to say whether it told the Pentagon of the Russian review, but said the company "always ensures our clients are kept informed of any developments that may affect them."

-- submitted from IRC

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Phoenix666 writes:

Google is biting off a big piece of device manufacturer HTC for $1.1 billion to expand its efforts to build phones, speakers, and other gadgets equipped with its arsenal of digital services.

It's buying the HTC engineering team that built the Pixel smartphone for Google in a cash deal, the companies said in a joint statement Thursday. Google is also getting a non-exclusive license for Taiwan-based HTC's intellectual property to help support Pixel phones.

The deal underscores how serious Google is becoming about designing its own family of devices to compete against Apple and Amazon in a high-stakes battle to become the technological hub of people's lives.

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"exec" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A study has given new insights into how sleep contributes to brain plasticity – the ability for our brain to change and reorganise itself – and could pave the way for new ways to help people with learning and memory disorders.

Researchers at the Humboldt and Charité Universities in Berlin, led by Dr Julie Seibt from the University of Surrey, used cutting edge techniques to record activity in a particular region of brain cells that is responsible for holding new information – the dendrites.

The study, published in Nature Communications, found that activity in dendrites increases when we sleep, and that this increase is linked to specific brain waves that are seen to be key to how we form memories.

Julie Seibt, et. al. Cortical dendritic activity correlates with spindle-rich oscillations during sleep in rodents. Nature Communications, 2017; 8 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00735-w

-- submitted from IRC

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

A new report (PDF) lists violations of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which will expire at the end of the year unless it is renewed.

New research by the Open Tech Institute has found over 200 violations by the NSA and the FBI since the introduction of a controversial surveillance provision designed to collect foreign intelligence. Violations include over-collecting data, violating attorney-client privilege, and conducting unlawful surveillance of Americans, who are generally protected from spying under the constitution.

(source: ZDnet)

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Eric Gable writes:

QuantaMagazine.org has a very long and interesting article on computers redefining the roots of Math.

On a recent train trip from Lyon to Paris, Vladimir Voevodsky sat next to Steve Awodey and tried to convince him to change the way he does mathematics.

Voevodsky, 48, is a permanent faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, N.J. He was born in Moscow but speaks nearly flawless English, and he has the confident bearing of someone who has no need to prove himself to anyone. In 2002 he won the Fields Medal, which is often considered the most prestigious award in mathematics.

[...] The idea of doing mathematics in a program like Coq has a long history. The appeal is simple: Rather than relying on fallible human beings to check proofs, you can turn the job over to computers, which can tell whether a proof is correct with complete certainty. Despite this advantage, computer proof assistants haven't been widely adopted in mainstream mathematics. This is partly because translating everyday math into terms a computer can understand is cumbersome and, in the eyes of many mathematicians, not worth the effort.

For nearly a decade, Voevodsky has been advocating the virtues of computer proof assistants and developing univalent foundations in order to bring the languages of mathematics and computer programming closer together. As he sees it, the move to computer formalization is necessary because some branches of mathematics have become too abstract to be reliably checked by people.

"The world of mathematics is becoming very large, the complexity of mathematics is becoming very high, and there is a danger of an accumulation of mistakes," Voevodsky said. Proofs rely on other proofs; if one contains a flaw, all others that rely on it will share the error.

This is something Voevodsky has learned through personal experience. In 1999 he discovered an error in a paper he had written seven years earlier. Voevodsky eventually found a way to salvage the result, but in an article last summer in the IAS newsletter, he wrote that the experience scared him. He began to worry that unless he formalized his work on the computer, he wouldn't have complete confidence that it was correct.

But taking that step required him to rethink the very basics of mathematics. The accepted foundation of mathematics is set theory. Like any foundational system, set theory provides a collection of basic concepts and rules, which can be used to construct the rest of mathematics. Set theory has sufficed as a foundation for more than a century, but it can't readily be translated into a form that computers can use to check proofs. So with his decision to start formalizing mathematics on the computer, Voevodsky set in motion a process of discovery that ultimately led to something far more ambitious: a recasting of the underpinnings of mathematics.

Geometry and classic algebra are not really isomorphic. Boolean logic and number theory were proved incompatible by Bertrand Russell

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow5743

Saudi Arabia's under-secretary for curricula has been fired and exiled to Dagobah after an official Saudi social studies textbook included a photo of Jedi Master Yoda. In the photo, Yoda can be seen sitting next to Saudi Arabia's King Faisal at the 1945 ceremony that created the United Nations. The textbook page began circulating on social media last week.

The photograph was created by Saudi artist Abdullah Al Shehri, who goes by the nickname Shaweesh. He told the BBC that he hadn't meant any disrespect to King Faisal.

"The 2013 artwork, entitled United Nations (Yoda), is part of a series in which symbols of American pop culture—ranging from Captain America to Darth Vader—are superimposed onto archive photos of historical events," the BBC reports.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/09/saudi-minister-fired-after-textbook-shows-yoda-at-un-signing-ceremony/

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takyon writes:

Google has apologized on behalf of its algorithm(s), which promoted a fake news story identifying the wrong man as the recent Las Vegas shooter:

After yesterday's mass shooting in Las Vegas, Google briefly gave its "Top Stories" stamp of approval to two 4chan threads identifying (and triumphantly smearing) the wrong man as the shooter. Google apologized for including "inaccurate" web pages in its top results, saying that its algorithm had spotted a burst of activity around a little-used search term (the name of 4chan's so-called suspect), created a Top Stories carousel, and favored "fresh" content there above more authoritative sources.

This is far from the first time Google's search results have purveyed misinformation. In March, it finally instructed human quality raters — who manually evaluate web pages to train the Search algorithm — to flag offensive and factually incorrect material, which Search could then downgrade for users seeking general information about a topic. As the 4chan incident shows, though, it still has blind spots. And that's not really because of a problem with Google's algorithm. It's happening because Google's core business has never been about defining truth — yet that's what Top Stories is implicitly promising.

Facebook also promoted the "fresh" content:

[A] story by the pro-Trump political website "The Gateway Pundit" named a different person as the shooter, citing a Facebook page to claim the individual was "a far left loon" and "a Democrat who liked (MSNBC host) Rachel Maddow." Posters on the anonymous, anarchic 4chan.org forum likewise trumpeted supposed findings that the same individual was both the shooter and a "social democrat." BuzzFeed saved screenshots of the stories, which no longer turn up on either Gateway Pundit or 4chan.

[...] Facebook said its security team removed Gateway Pundit results and other similar posts from its social network, some within minutes. But because that removal was "delayed," the company said, images of the incorrect story were captured and circulated online.

"We are working to fix the issue that allowed this to happen in the first place and deeply regret the confusion this caused," a Facebook spokesman said in a statement.

Also at BBC.

Previously: Over 50 dead in mass shooting in Las Vegas

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Roku has refreshed its lineup of TV streaming sticks and boxes, shortly after Apple and Amazon released similar products. Roku now has a device that supports 2160p resolution and high dynamic range:

Roku just announced updates to five of its TV streaming products, as well as a new operating system that marries access to over-the-air TV with video streaming services. The announcements from Roku come after both Apple and Amazon have revealed updates to their own video streaming boxes in recent weeks, with all three companies pushing further into the home with things like 4K, voice control, and improved search functionality.

Roku's low-cost streaming sticks are getting the most interesting updates. The basic Roku streaming stick, which at $49.99 is priced the same as last year's model, is getting a processor update that Roku claims is 50 percent faster. The remote is also getting voice control functionality, along with power and volume buttons to control those functions on your TV set.

Then there's the Roku Streaming Stick Plus, which now supports HDR and 4K Ultra HD. It also has four times the wireless range of the basic stick, which is partly enabled by the wireless module being built directly into the cable, rather than the stick itself. The idea is that moving it away from the television reduces interference. This one, which effectively replaces last year's Roku Premiere 4K box, will cost $69.99.

Also at Ars Technica and Roku.

Previously: Roku OS 7: Developer Highlights
Roku Media Player Maker Seeking IPO

Related: MPAA Chief Focuses Attention on the Kodi Platform
Kodi Panic in the UK and Popularity in North America
Kodi Add-on Library "TVAddons" Disappears After Lawsuit
Apple Investing $1 Billion in Acquiring and Producing TV Shows

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rylyeh writes:

Spacetime events and objects aren't all that exists, a new quantum interpretation suggests.

[...] In the new paper, three scientists argue that including "potential things on the list of "real" things can avoid the counterintuitive conundrums that quantum physics poses. It is perhaps less of a full-blown interpretation than a new philosophical framework for contemplating those quantum mysteries. At its root, the new idea holds that the common conception of "reality" is too limited. By expanding the definition of reality, the quantum's mysteries disappear. In particular, "real" should not be restricted to "actual" objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or "potential" realities, that have not yet become "actual." These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are "ontological" — that is, real components of existence.

"This new ontological picture requires that we expand our concept of 'what is real' to include an extraspatiotemporal domain of quantum possibility," write Ruth Kastner, Stuart Kauffman and Michael Epperson.

[...] In their paper, titled "Taking Heisenberg's Potentia Seriously," Kastner and colleagues elaborate on this idea, drawing a parallel to the philosophy of René Descartes. Descartes, in the 17th century, proposed a strict division between material and mental "substance." Material stuff (res extensa, or extended things) existed entirely independently of mental reality (res cogitans, things that think) except in the brain's pineal gland. There res cogitans could influence the body. Modern science has, of course, rejected res cogitans: The material world is all that reality requires. Mental activity is the outcome of material processes, such as electrical impulses and biochemical interactions.

Kastner and colleagues also reject Descartes' res cogitans. But they think reality should not be restricted to res extensa; rather it should be complemented by "res potentia" — in particular, quantum res potentia, not just any old list of possibilities. Quantum potentia can be quantitatively defined; a quantum measurement will, with certainty, always produce one of the possibilities it describes. In the large-scale world, all sorts of possibilities can be imagined (Browns win Super Bowl, Indians win 22 straight games) which may or may not ever come to pass.

This could be an amazing breakthrough - and it would also reconcile Einstein's 'Left Shoe' construction.
Somehow, reading this paper also made me think of software design!

Read the article at sciencenews.org
Read the paper at arxiv.org

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Obesity Was Rising as Ghana Embraced Fast Food. Then Came KFC.

Ghana, a coastal African country of more than 28 million still etched with pockets of extreme poverty, has enjoyed unprecedented national prosperity in the last decade, buoyed by offshore oil. Though the economy slowed abruptly not long ago, it is rebounding and the signs of new fortune are evident: millions moving to cities for jobs, shopping malls popping up and fast food roaring in to greet people hungry for a contemporary lifestyle.

Chief among the corporate players is KFC, and its parent company, YUM!, which have muscled northward from South Africa — where KFC has about 850 outlets and a powerful brand name — throughout sub-Saharan Africa: to Angola, Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana and beyond. The company brings the flavors that have made it popular in the West, seasoned with an intangible: the symbolic association of fast food with rich nations.

But KFC's expansion here comes as obesity and related health problems have been surging. Public health officials see fried chicken, french fries and pizza as spurring and intensifying a global obesity epidemic that has hit hard in Ghana — one of 73 countries where obesity has at least doubled since 1980. In that period, Ghana's obesity rates have surged more than 650 percent, from less than 2 percent of the population to 13.6 percent, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, an independent research center at the University of Washington.

The U.S. had a 13% obesity rate in 1962. The CDC estimated that 36.5-37.7% of U.S. adults aged 20+ were obese in 2014 (17% of children/teenagers aged 2-19).

Original Submission

takyon writes:

A cybersecurity firm hired by Uber found that Anthony Levandowski retained confidential information from Alphabet/Google after leaving the company:

A key document in Alphabet's legal battle against Uber reveals that a former Alphabet executive had a trove of data on Alphabet's self-driving car technology and accessed some of the files after he left the company.

The document outlines operational details of a startup founded by Anthony Levandowski, who was a lead engineer in Alphabet's self-driving car division. Uber commissioned the report in March 2016 specifically to discover if Levandowski had any confidential information from his former employer, Alphabet.

Levandowski's startup, Otto, was soon acquired by Uber, and he was put in charge of its budding self-driving department.

Levandowski and his co-founder Lior Ron had images of Alphabet's self-driving car components on his phone and repeatedly discussed deleting or actually deleted "potentially relevant" files from his personal devices, the report revealed.

It does caution, however, that some of these files may have been deleted in good faith so that neither Ron nor Levandowski retained any confidential information before leaving Alphabet and selling their company to Uber. In the same breath, the report, conducted by cybersecurity firm Stroz Friedberg, also said they were both still deleting files after they became aware they the firm would be looking through their personal devices.

The report does not indicate whether or not Uber used any trade secrets carried over from Google. That could be the key to getting a multi-billion dollar payout.

Stroz Friedberg report.

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Phoenix666 writes:

The Commodore 64 is coming back, in a form that owes a debt to both Nintendo's shrunken Mini SNES and thee[sic] Vega+ Sinclair ZX Spectrum reboot.

The due-in-early 2018 “C64 Mini” matches Nintendo's plan to shrink an old machine, in this case by 50 per cent. Like the Mini and the Vega+ the revived Commodore will pack in pre-loaded retro games, 64 of them to be precise. The device will also ship with a USB joystick boasting 80s styling, HDMI out so it can connect to modern tellies and USB-mini for power.

[...] Price has been set at £69.99/$69.99/€79.99 and the machine will “hit the shops in early 2018” with Koch Media handling distribution

There's plenty of nostalgia surrounding the C64, but is it worth reviving?

Original Submission

fliptop writes:

Yahoo has now reported every single account was affected by a data breach in 2013:

In 2016, Yahoo disclosed that more than one billion of about three billion accounts had likely been affected by the hack. In its disclosure Tuesday, the company said all accounts were likely victimized.

Yahoo included the finding in a recent update to its Account Security Update page, saying that it found out about the wider breach through new intelligence obtained during the company's integration into Verizon Communications. Outside forensic experts assisted in the discovery, the company said.

Related: Yahoo, Inc is No More
Two Russian FSB Officers Charged Over Yahoo! Hack
Yahoo! Discloses Second Hack of More Than a Billion Accounts
Anonymous Source: Yahoo! Breach May Have Affected 1 to 3 Billion Accounts
500 Million Yahoo Accounts Hacked

Original Submission   Alternate Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

US rock star Tom Petty, famous for classics such as Free Fallin', Refugee and American Girl, has died at the age of 66.

The singer-songwriter passed away on Monday night at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles after he suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu, California, spokeswoman Carla Sacks said.

Petty "died peacefully" at 8:40pm (03:40 GMT onTuesday) "surrounded by family, his bandmates, and friends," a statement from his longtime manager Tony Dimitriades said.

More sad news in a week full of sad news.

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