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Fnord666 writes:

A new report concludes that a Department of Homeland Security pilot program improperly gathers data on Americans when it requires passengers embarking on foreign flights to undergo facial recognition scans to ensure they haven't overstayed visas.

The report, released on Thursday by researchers at the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown University's law school, called the system an invasive surveillance tool that the department had installed at nearly a dozen airports without going through a required federal rule-making process.

The report's authors examined dozens of Department of Homeland Security documents and raised questions about the accuracy of facial recognition scans. They said the technology had high error rates and were subject to bias, because the scans often fail to properly identify women and African-Americans.

"It's telling that D.H.S. cannot identify a single benefit actually resulting from airport face scans at the departure gate," said Harrison Rudolph, an associate at the center and an author of the report.

"D.H.S. doesn't need a face-scanning system to catch travelers without a photo on file," he added. "It's alarming that D.H.S. still hasn't supplied evidence for the necessity of this $1 billion program."

Homeland security officials said the program was necessary and fulfilled a decades-old congressional requirement to prevent foreign visitors from overstaying their visas.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/21/us/politics/facial-scans-airports-security-privacy.html

Original Submission

takyon writes:

'Longest-frozen' embryo born 24 years on

A baby has been born from an embryo frozen for nearly 25 years - possibly the longest gap between conception and birth since IVF began. The embryo was donated by a family in the US and has become the first child for a woman who would herself have been only one when the baby was conceived.

The donated embryo that would become Emma Wren Gibson, a healthy baby girl, was thawed in March and transferred to mum Tina Gibson's uterus. Emma was born in November.

"Do you realise I'm only 25? This embryo and I could have been best friends," Mrs Gibson, now 26, of eastern Tennessee told CNN. "I just wanted a baby. I don't care if it's a world record or not," she added.

Also at CNN.

2010 case study for a 42-year-old who received a >19-year-old embryo: Live birth from a frozen–thawed pronuclear stage embryo almost 20 years after its cryopreservation (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2010.08.056) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Apple is facing a class action lawsuit in California over slowing iPhone speeds as batteries age:

Residents of Los Angeles, Stefan Bogdanovich, and Dakota Speas have been represented by Wilshire Law Firm and both of them filed a lawsuit with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The plaintiffs are accusing Apple of slowing down their older iPhone models when newer models are released and this has been happening without their consent or approval.

Another class action lawsuit has been filed in Illinois [Ecmascript required]:

A day after Apple acknowledged that their software updates slow down older iPhone models, five customers have filed a federal lawsuit in Chicago against the tech giant for what they're calling "deceptive, immoral and unethical" practices that violate consumer protection laws.

The suit was filed Thursday by two Illinoisans along with Ohio, Indiana and North Carolina residents, who had a range of models from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 7. They claim that Apple's iOS updates "were engineered to purposefully slow down or 'throttle down' the performance speeds" of the iPhone 5, iPhone 6 and iPhone 7.

[...] Apple partially confirmed the theory on Wednesday, releasing a statement admitting updates would slow down phones, but only to prevent devices with old batteries "from unexpectedly shutting down."

TechCrunch's defense of Apple. Also at Business Insider.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Gamers Want DMCA Exemption for 'Abandoned' Online Games

The U.S. Copyright Office is considering whether or not to update the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, which prevent the public from tinkering with DRM-protected content and devices. These provisions are renewed every three years. To allow individuals and organizations to chime in, the Office traditionally launches a public consultation, before it makes any decisions.

This week a series of new responses were received and many of these focused on abandoned games. As is true for most software, games have a limited lifespan, so after a few years they are no longer supported by manufacturers. To preserve these games for future generations and nostalgic gamers, the Copyright Office previously included game preservation exemptions. This means that libraries, archives and museums can use emulators and other circumvention tools to make old classics playable. However, these exemptions are limited and do not apply to games that require a connection to an online server, which includes most recent games. When the online servers are taken down, the game simply disappears forever.

This should be prevented, according to The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment (the MADE), a nonprofit organization operating in California. "Although the Current Exemption does not cover it, preservation of online video games is now critical," MADE writes in its comment to the Copyright Office. "Online games have become ubiquitous and are only growing in popularity. For example, an estimated fifty-three percent of gamers play multiplayer games at least once a week, and spend, on average, six hours a week playing with others online."

During the previous review, similar calls for an online exemption were made but, at the time, the Register of Copyrights noted that multiplayer games could still be played on local area networks. "Today, however, local multiplayer options are increasingly rare, and many games no longer support LAN connected multiplayer capability," MADE counters, adding that nowadays even some single-player games require an online connection.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Why DARPA and NASA are building robot spacecraft designed to act like service stations on orbit (archive)

[...] Even the most robust and expensive satellites eventually break down or run out of fuel, and must be retired to a remote parking orbit more than 22,000 miles away, safely out of the way of other satellites. There, the graveyard holds billions of dollars-worth of some of the most expensive hardware ever to leave the surface of the Earth — including not just commercial communications satellites, but some of the Pentagon's most sensitive assets, used for spying, guiding bombs and warning against missile launches.

Now, the Defense Advanced Projects Agency, NASA and others, are developing technologies that would extend the life of the critical infrastructure in space, preventing satellites from being shipped to the graveyard for years. If successful, the agencies would have fleets of robots with arms and cameras that could inspect, refuel and repair satellites keeping them operational well beyond their expected lifetimes. The spacecraft might even upgrade the satellites they service with the latest technology, like an iPhone update.

[...] Orbital ATK, based in Dulles, is developing a "mission extension vehicle" that would be able to attach itself to a satellite, and then take over propulsion, firing thrusters to keep the satellite in the correct orbit. The company already has a customer, Intelsat, and plans to demonstrate the technology by early 2019, said Tom Wilson, the company's president of Orbital ATK Space Logistics.

NASA's program is focused instead on low Earth orbit, where there are all sorts of communications satellites whizzing about at 17,500 mph. At the end of their lives, those satellites eventually deorbit, falling back to Earth and burning up in the atmosphere. NASA, through a program, called "Restore-L," is working with Space Systems Loral, based in Palo Alto, Calif. to develop a spacecraft that could reach out with a robotic arm, and refuel the satellites so that they could continue maintain their position.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Samsung's second generation ("1y-nm") 8 Gb DDR4 DRAM dies are being mass produced:

Samsung late on Wednesday said that it had initiated mass production of DDR4 memory chips using its second generation '10 nm-class' fabrication process. The new manufacturing technology shrinks die size of the new DRAM chips and improves their performance as well as energy efficiency. To do that, the process uses new circuit designs featuring air spacers (for the first time in DRAM industry). The new DRAM ICs (integrated circuits) can operate at 3600 Mbit/s per pin data rate (DDR4-3600) at standard DDR4 voltages and have been validated with major CPU manufacturers already.

[...] Samsung's new DDR4 chip produced using the company's 1y nm fabrication process has an 8-gigabit capacity and supports 3600 MT/s data transfer rate at 1.2 V. The new D-die DRAM runs 12.5% faster than its direct predecessor (known as Samsung C-die, rated for 3200 MT/s) and is claimed to be up to 15% more energy efficient as well. In addition, the latest 8Gb DDR4 ICs use a new in-cell data sensing system that offers a more accurate determination of the data stored in each cell and which helps to increase the level of integration (i.e., make cells smaller) and therefore shrink die size.

Samsung says that the new 8Gb DDR4 chips feature an "approximate 30% productivity gain" when compared to similar chips made using the 1x nm manufacturing tech.
UPDATE 12/21: Samsung clarified that productivity gain means increase in the number of chips per wafer. Since capacity of Samsung's C-die and D-die is the same, the increase in the number of dies equals the increase in the number of bits per wafer. Therefore, the key takeaway from the announcement is that the 1y nm technology and the new in-cell data sensing system enable Samsung to shrink die size and fit more DRAM dies on a single 300-mm wafer. Meanwhile, the overall 30% productivity gain results in lower per-die costs at the same yield and cycle time (this does not mean that the IC costs are 30% lower though) and increases DRAM bit output.

The in-cell data sensing system and air spacers will be used by Samsung in other upcoming types of DRAM, including DDR5, LPDDR5, High Bandwidth Memory 3.0, and GDDR6.

Also at Tom's Hardware.

Previously: Samsung Announces "10nm-Class" 8 Gb DRAM Chips

Related: Samsung Announces 12Gb LPDDR4 DRAM, Could Enable Smartphones With 6 GB of RAM
Samsung Announces 8 GB DRAM Package for Mobile Devices
Samsung's 10nm Chips in Mass Production, "6nm" on the Roadmap
Samsung Increases Production of 8 GB High Bandwidth Memory 2.0 Stacks
IC Insights Predicts Additional 40% Increase in DRAM Prices

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Was trading by nomads crucial to the rise of cities?

Nearly 4000 years ago, in the royal palace of the Mesopotamian city of Mari, King Zimri-Lim awoke from a nightmare in which nomads from the surrounding desert had captured his beloved wife. Archaeologists have long thought that that Zimri-Lim's fear, described in a cuneiform text, reflects the key roles that nomads played in early urban life. These mobile marauders, powerful enough to trouble the sleep of rulers, were tolerated for the exotic goods they carried from faraway places. Traveling hundreds of kilometers in search of grazing land, pastoralists have long been seen as likely architects of the long-distance trade networks that helped spur the rise of the world's first civilization around 3000 B.C.E., in what is now Iraq.

Because physical traces of ancient pastoralists are often all but invisible, researchers relied heavily on comparative studies of 20th century Middle Eastern nomads in building this picture. But archaeologists are increasingly using new methods to read the faint clues left by ancient nomads. Armed with data from animal dung, bones, dental calculus, and plant remains, these researchers suggest herders mainly stuck close to and served the needs of specific urban areas, rather than migrating between far-flung cities. "They were not traveling long distances, so they are not the natural conduit for trade," says Emily Hammer, an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania.

That assertion, which Hammer and archaeologist Ben Arbuckle of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill lay out in a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Archaeological Research, has touched off intense debate about how early urban life flourished. To Abbas Alizadeh of the University of Chicago in Illinois, who has spent decades studying pastoralists such as the Bakhtiari of southwest Iran, Hammer and Arbuckle "are completely wrong—I bet they've never even seen a nomad in their life."

The paper is not published yet, but should be around here when it is: Journal of Archaeological Research

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Edward Snowden has helped to develop (or at least endorsed) an app meant to surveil a room:

Like many other journalists, activists, and software developers I know, I carry my laptop everywhere while I'm traveling. It contains sensitive information; messaging app conversations, email, password databases, encryption keys, unreleased work, web browsers logged into various accounts, and so on. My disk is encrypted, but all it takes to bypass this protection is for an attacker — a malicious hotel housekeeper, or "evil maid," for example — to spend a few minutes physically tampering with it without my knowledge. If I come back and continue to use my compromised computer, the attacker could gain access to everything.

Edward Snowden and his friends have a solution. The NSA whistleblower and a team of collaborators have been working on a new open source Android app called Haven that you install on a spare smartphone, turning the device into a sort of sentry to watch over your laptop. Haven uses the smartphone's many sensors — microphone, motion detector, light detector, and cameras — to monitor the room for changes, and it logs everything it notices. The first public beta version of Haven has officially been released; it's available in the Play Store and on F-Droid, an open source app store for Android.

Snowden is helping to develop the software through a project he leads at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, which receives funding from The Intercept's parent company. I sit on the FPF board with Snowden, am an FPF founder, and lent some help developing the app, including through nine months of testing. With that noted, I'll be forthright about the product's flaws below, and have solicited input for this article from people not involved in the project.

Also collaborating on Haven is the Guardian Project, a global collective of mobile security app developers.

Also at Boing Boing, CNET, and eWeek.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Microbial activity could be found in compressed ice, which may throw off measurements of carbon dioxide and broaden the habitability potential of exoplanets:

"As microbial activity and its influence on its local environment has never been taken into account when looking at ice-core gas samples it could provide a moderate source of error in climate history interpretations," said lead author Dr. Kelly Redeker, from the Department of Biology at the University of York.

"Respiration by bacteria may have slightly increased levels of carbon dioxide in pockets of air trapped within polar ice caps meaning that before human activity carbon dioxide levels may have been even lower than previously thought. In addition, the fact that we have observed metabolically active bacteria in the most pristine ice and snow is a sign of life proliferating in environments where you wouldn't expect it to exist. This suggests we may be able to broaden our horizons when it comes to thinking about which planets are capable of sustaining life."

Dr. Redeker and his colleagues from Northumbria University, the University Centre in Svalbard and the Universities of York and Sheffield looked at snow in is natural state, and in other areas they sterilized it using UV sterilizing lamps. When they compared the results, the researchers found unexpected levels of iodomethane (methyl iodide) — a gas known to be produced by marine bacteria — in the untouched snow.

Microbial metabolism directly affects trace gases in (sub) polar snowpacks (open, DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2017.0729) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Out with the old, in with the new:

Eric Schmidt joined Google in 2001 to provide what amounted to adult supervision for the company’s young founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. He helped take Google public in 2004 and built it into a colossus. In 2011, after being appointed executive chairman, he became a prominent emissary for the company to Washington.

Now, Mr. Schmidt is stepping down as executive chairman of the internet search giant’s parent, Alphabet, the company said on Thursday. He will relinquish his role at Alphabet’s next board meeting, in January. Mr. Schmidt, 62, will continue to be a member of the company’s board and become a technical adviser, Alphabet said, adding that it expects to appoint another chairman.

No reason was provided for the change. In a statement, Mr. Schmidt said that he, Mr. Page, Mr. Brin and Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, “believe that the time is right in Alphabet’s evolution for this transition.”

The shift underlines how Mr. Schmidt’s influence at Alphabet has waned over time and how a new generation of leaders is firmly in charge at the giant company. Mr. Page and Mr. Brin remain at the top of Alphabet and retain voting control, but the executives they now have working for them have evolved. More of them are younger executives who rose through the ranks, such as Mr. Pichai, or are superstar executives hired from the outside, including Ruth Porat, the chief financial officer who was brought in from Morgan Stanley in 2015.

Also at Reuters.

Original Submission

-- OriginalOwner_ writes:

The Intercept reports

On [December 21], a jury acquitted six defendants charged with felonies stemming from their arrests at protests surrounding Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20. The acquittal is a blow to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia: a jury rebuke in the first tranche of 194 defendants [that] the government is seeking to collectively punish for the acts of a handful of individuals.

[...] The defendants had been arrested in Washington on Inauguration Day when police corralled more than 200 people, many of them demonstrating under the banner of "DisruptJ20". The government eventually charged hundreds of people in connection with a small amount of property damage committed by a few individuals. Prosecutors sought to use a novel approach to group liability in the case to charge the defendants with an array of crimes--a tactic critics of the prosecution have said runs the risk of criminalizing dissent and poses a threat to the First Amendment.

[...] Although the jury had lots of careful discussion over the past three days, a juror who only gave his name as Steve told the media collective Unicorn Riot it was not ultimately a close call. "The prosecution admitted the morning of day one that they would present no evidence that any of the defendants committed any acts of violence or vandalism", Steve said. "From that point, before the defense ever uttered a sound, it was clear to me that ultimately we would find everyone not guilty."

[...] Instead of presenting evidence that any of the six personally engaged in property destruction, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Kerkhoff argued that by showing up to the march in black, moving through the streets with the group, and chanting anti-capitalist slogans, the defendants had willfully associated with a "riot". The government charged the six with misdemeanor rioting, misdemeanor conspiracy to riot, and five felony counts of property destruction, charges which carry a maximum sentence of 50 years in prison.

[...] "Today's verdict reaffirms two central constitutional principles of our democracy: first, that dissent is not a crime, and second, that our justice system does not permit guilt by association", said Scott Michelman, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Washington, D.C. chapter, in a statement applauding the verdict. "We hope today's verdict begins the important work of teaching police and prosecutors to respect the line between lawbreaking and constitutionally protected protest."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

There were 42,249 deaths due to opioid overdoses in 2016, compared to a projected 41,070 deaths from breast cancer in 2017 (42,640 in 2015). U.S. life expectancy has dropped for the second year in a row:

The increase largely stemmed from the continued escalation of deaths from fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, which jumped to 19,410 in 2016 from 9,580 in 2015 and 5,540 in 2014, according to a TFAH analysis of the report.

[...] The surge in overdose deaths has depressed recent gains in U.S. life expectancy, which fell to an average age of 78.6, down 0.1 year from 2015 and marking the first two-year drop since 1962-1963.

In a separate report, the CDC linked the recent steep increases in hepatitis C infections to increases in opioid injection.

Researchers used a national database that tracks substance abuse admissions to treatment facilities in all 50 U.S. states. They found a 133 percent increase in acute hepatitis C cases that coincided with a 93 percent increase in admissions for opioid injection between 2004 to 2014.

From the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:

• Mortality in the United States, 2016
• Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 1999–2016

Original Submission

takyon writes:

RZ Piscium is a star 550 light years away that has undergone dimming events. It may be destroying rather than building planets:

A team of U.S. astronomers studying the star RZ Piscium has found evidence suggesting its strange, unpredictable dimming episodes may be caused by vast orbiting clouds of gas and dust, the remains of one or more destroyed planets.

"Our observations show there are massive blobs of dust and gas that occasionally block the star's light and are probably spiraling into it," said Kristina Punzi, a doctoral student at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in New York and lead author of a paper describing the findings. "Although there could be other explanations, we suggest this material may have been produced by the break-up of massive orbiting bodies near the star."

RZ Piscium is located about 550 light-years away in the constellation Pisces. During its erratic dimming episodes, which can last as long as two days, the star becomes as much as 10 times fainter. It produces far more energy at infrared wavelengths than emitted by stars like our Sun, which indicates the star is surrounded by a disk of warm dust. In fact, about 8 percent of its total luminosity is in the infrared, a level matched by only a few of the thousands of nearby stars studied over the past 40 years. This implies enormous quantities of dust.

Also at UCLA.

Is the Young Star RZ Piscium Consuming Its Own (Planetary) Offspring? (DOI: 10.3847/1538-3881/aa9524) (DX)

Original Submission

aristarchus writes:

So it seems that the Chief of Police in Charlottesville is going to resign.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Alfred Thomas, the police chief in Charlottesville, Virginia, has announced his retirement on Monday after 27 years of law enforcement service. The decision comes just weeks after the release of a critical review of his department's reaction to a violent white nationalist rally over the summer.

[...] Earlier this month, former U.S. Attorney Tim Heaphy released findings from a monthslong investigation into law enforcement's response to the violent rally in August. The report criticized Thomas' "slow-footed response" and found that police failed on multiple fronts, leading to "deep distrust of government" in the local community. It also found a lack of preparation and coordination between state and city police and a passive response by officers to the chaos.

State police and Charlottesville police were unable to communicate by radio the day of the rally because they were on different channels, the report said, and commanders "instructed their officers not to intervene in all but the most serious physical confrontations."

All I can say, is that it was a good thing the antifa were there to do the job of the police, defending people from violent attack.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google fights fragmentation: New Android features to be forced on apps in 2018

While Apple's app store is heavily regulated, the Google Play Store has mostly lived its life under Google's laissez-faire attitude. As long as you didn't get caught by Google's malware scanning, your app was free to do just about anything.

But lately, Google's hands-off approach seems to be changing. The company tried to restrict Android's powerful accessibility APIs only to accessibility apps, but after a power user revolt, Google is currently rethinking that plan.

The Play Store's biggest change is coming in 2018, though. Recently Google announced it will start setting a minimum API level that new and updated apps will be required to use. This is a technical change but a massive one. Basically, Google will stop accepting old app code from developers. The move won't harm support for devices running old versions of Android, but it will require developers to adopt new Android features and restrictions as they come out.

Previously: Google Pauses Crackdown on Apps That Use Accessibility Features

Original Submission