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"Arthur T Knackerbracket" writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

People buying items on eBay will be able to pay without leaving its website, and sellers will have lower processing costs, the online giant said in a blog post.

EBay has signed an agreement with Dutch firm Adyen to process payments, but buyers will still be able to use PayPal on the site until at least 2020.

PayPal was spun off from eBay in 2015.

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takyon writes:

Bill Gates has donated $40 million to Scottish researchers trying to create a cow that can thrive in hotter conditions, such as those in Africa:

Tweaking genes could be one way of increasing the hardiness of some livestock breeds. By isolating desirable genetics traits from European and African cow breeds, geneticists hope to design a cow that produces high quantities of milk and is also able to withstand exceptionally high temperatures.

An Edinburgh-based nonprofit, GALVmed (Global Alliance for Livestock Veterinary Medicines) just received $40 million from Bill Gates to conduct genetic research with this aim in mind. "You can have a cow that is four times as productive with the same survivability," Gates told the Times.

The philanthropist told the BBC that he was investing in the nonprofit's research because "there is great [...] understanding here of both animal diseases and how we can treat it, and how we enhance the genetics so that you can get, say the same type of milk or egg productivity that we have in the U.K."

Related: Bill Gates Commits $100 Million to Alzheimer's Research
Bill Gates Invests $80 Million in Arizona "Smart City"
Bill Gates Looks to Immunotherapy to Help Control All Infectious Diseases

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"Arthur T Knackerbracket" has found the following story:

Enterprise Linux biz Red Hat on Tuesday said it has reached an agreement to acquire CoreOS, a maker of open source container software, for $250 million.

Kubernetes, for those who have managed to avoid it, is a Google-spawned open source project that has become more or less the standard for orchestrating the deployment and oversight of large numbers of software-based containers.

The elder open source software biz sees the younger firm's technology helping it automate and simplify its OpenShift container app platform, as well as improving its security and application portability in hybrid cloud environments.

Red Hat says it will provide more details about how CoreOS products will be handled in the months ahead. It characterizes them as complementary to its own wares, althugh its plans may involve "integrating products and migrating customers to any combined offerings" at some later date.

[...] Forrester analyst Dave Bartoletti told The Register that he thinks the deal is great news for CoreOS and for the Kubernetes market in general.

"I don't think the industry needed another Kubernetes-based container automation platform," he said, in reference to Tectonic. "Now that every major cloud development platform provider offers managed Kubernetes, how was CoreOS going to monetize its own?"

Bartoletti said Red Hat has already demonstrated that it can make money off open source and made the shift to Kubernetes three years ago.

"I expect Polvi and team will mainly continue to do what they already do well: contribute to and set the direction of the major open source technologies that will power the next generation of container-based apps – a market that's set to double in the next 18 months," he said. ®

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

Christine Peterson finally publishes her account of the day that the term "open source software" was coined, 20 years ago.

In a few days, on February 3, the 20th anniversary of the introduction of the term "open source software" is upon us. As open source software grows in popularity and powers some of the most robust and important innovations of our time, we reflect on its rise to prominence.

I am the originator of the term "open source software" and came up with it while executive director at Foresight Institute. Not a software developer like the rest, I thank Linux programmer Todd Anderson for supporting the term and proposing it to the group.

This is my account of how I came up with it, how it was proposed, and the subsequent reactions. Of course, there are a number of accounts of the coining of the term, for example by Eric Raymond and Richard Stallman, yet this is mine, written on January 2, 2006.

The article is not going to change the world, but it is an interesting piece of history that many in our community will find interesting.

Source: https://opensource.com/article/18/2/coining-term-open-source-software

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realDonaldTrump writes:

Filing cabinets containing thousands of classified documents from the Australian government ended up being sold at a secondhand shop, prompting government officials Wednesday to launch an investigation into how the highly sensitive documents were disposed of.

The cache of documents was obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which reported the two cabinets were sold by a Canberra furniture shop at a discount price because they were locked and no one could find keys." http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/01/31/top-secret-files-left-in-filing-cabinets-sold-at-second-hand-shop.html

Nearly all the files are classified, some as "top secret" or "AUSTEO", which means they are to be seen by Australian eyes only.

But the ex-government furniture sale was not limited to Australians — anyone could make a purchase. And had they been inclined, there was nothing stopping them handing the contents to a foreign agent or government.

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canopic jug writes:

A very small survey of people of different ages suggests that there are age and gender differences in the acceptance of riding in automated cars. In summary, 2,600 people in the US replied and of them 38% of the men and just 16% of women would be happy to ride in an automated vehicle. About a quarter of respondents said they would feel safe in a driverless car while around two thirds said they would not travel unless there was a driver. No mention was made about their opinions of sharing the road with these massive projectiles when driving themselves in traditional cars.

Source : Driverless cars: Men and women have very different opinions on letting go of the wheel

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Runaway1956 writes:

This psychologist's "gaydar" research makes us uncomfortable. That's the point.
Michal Kosinski used artificial intelligence to detect sexual orientation. Let him explain why.
By Brian Resnick@B_resnickbrian@vox.com Jan 29, 2018, 12:00pm EST

In September, Stanford researcher Michal Kosinski published a preprint of a paper that made an outlandish claim: The profile pictures we upload to social media and dating websites can be used to predict our sexual orientation.

Kosinski, a Polish psychologist who studies human behavior from the footprints we leave online, has a track record of eyebrow-raising results. In 2013, he co-authored a paper that found that people's Facebook "likes" could be used to predict personal characteristics like personality traits (a finding that reportedly inspired the conservative data firm Cambridge Analytica).

For the new paper, Kosinski built a program with his co-author Yilun Wang using a common artificial intelligence program to scan more than 30,000 photos uploaded to an unnamed dating site. The software's job? To figure out a pattern about what could distinguish a gay person's face from a straight person's.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/1/29/16571684/michal-kosinski-artificial-intelligence-faces

I hate the terms "Must see TV" and "must read" and similar terms. But, this article comes pretty close to "must read" for those who wish to understand where computer are going to take us. Especially read the conversation between Resnick and Kosinski - the research is not really about homosexuality, but about analyzing people in general.

Michal Kosinski

Exactly.

It proves to be uncomfortably accurate at making predictions.

We know that companies are already collecting this data and using such black boxes to predict future behavior. Google, Facebook, and Netflix are doing this.

Basically, most of the modern platforms are just virtually based on recording digital footprints and predicting future behavior.

Psychologists would say, "Oh, yes, that's true, but not personality. This is just pseudoscience." I'm like, wait. You can accept that you can predict 57 things, but if I say, "What about 58?" you say, "This is absolutely theoretically impossible. This is pseudoscience. How can you even say that?"

Science or pseudoscience, we can bet that corporate America and the government are going to be using this.

A smart person with a computer and access to the internet can judge sexual orientation of anyone in the world, or millions of people simultaneously with very little effort, which makes lives of homophobes and oppressive regimes just a tiny bit more easy.

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

In a report yesterday, blockchain start up "The Prodeum Project," whose goal was to "revolutionize the fruit and vegetable industry" with Ethereum has apparently absconded with millions of investor dollars. Upon exiting with the investors money, the website went offline, and was replaced with one word: "Penis." The companies press release detailing the project is still online.

I really need to come up with some half-baked idea and slap "blockchain" in it so investors give me millions. This article also states that other digital fingerprints of the crypto-team's former existence are being scrubbed from the web. Webpages from TokennDesk, a Linkedin profile, twitter handle, and even a blog post on Medium have all been deleted. One could say a lot of people got the...shaft.

Source: https://www.hardocp.com/news/2018/01/30/blockchain_startup_takes_11_leaves_penis/

Also at Wired and Business Insider.

[Ed. Note - Although the quote mentions millions of investor dollars, as far as I can tell they made off with just $11 US.]

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google is testing a service called Bulletin that would focus on local news published by the masses:

Google is testing a tool called Bulletin that would allow anyone to publish local news stories and events, according to a report from Slate, which Google later confirmed. The company described Bulletin as a way for others to communicate information of local interest, like bookstore readings, high school sporting events, or information about street closures, for example.

Slate found a website for creating Bulletin posts was already up-and-running, but was still in "early access mode." The service is currently being piloted in Nashville and in Oakland, Calif., the webpage states.

On the site, Google explains that Bulletin is a lightweight app for telling stories, capturing photos and videoclips from your phone, and then publishing them straight to the web – without having to create a blog or build a website yourself.

Meanwhile, Facebook says it will prioritize local news:

In a newsroom post on Monday, Facebook's Alex Hariman, head of news product and Campbell Brown, heads of news partnerships, announced the social platform would begin to prioritize local news outlets in the feeds of its users, emphasizing that local communities benefit and trust the outlets closest to them.

• Facebook and Google Won't Save Local News
• Facebook and Google are trying to dig local news out of the grave they put it in
• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says users are spending less time on the social network
• Facebook is untouchable (growth in revenue despite less time spent by users)

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takyon writes:

Amazon Health-Care Move May Be Next 'Home Run' Like Cloud Services

Amazon.com Inc.'s foray into health care won't be the first time it has disrupted an entire industry by starting with an effort inside the company.

Amazon Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is teaming up with fellow billionaires Warren Buffett and Jamie Dimon to revamp health care for the 2.4 million workers and dependents of the companies they run. The move fostered widespread speculation the trio will eventually make their approach to medical care available to companies far and wide.

Bezos has a long, increasingly successful, record of starting new businesses on a small scale, often for the benefit of his company, then spreading them to the masses -- creating a world of pain for incumbents. Consider the ways Amazon is changing industries as varied as product fulfillment, cloud computing and even the sale of cereals, fruits and vegetables.

This is just a cheap excuse to follow up on the machinations of the world's richest human:

Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and JPMorgan Chase to Offer Their Own Health Care to U.S. Employees

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DeathMonkey writes:

Donald Trump has signed an executive order to keep the Guantánamo Bay prison camp open, reversing the policy of the Obama administration.

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump said he had directed the defence secretary, James Mattis, "to re-examine our military detention policy and to keep open the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay". He added that he expected that "in many cases" captured terrorists would be sent to the camp.

The Trump executive order instructs Mattis, in consultation with the secretary of state and other officials, to deliver a new policy on battlefield detentions, "including policies governing transfer of individuals to US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay" within 90 days.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/30/guantanamo-bay-trump-signs-executive-order-to-keep-prison-open

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takyon writes:

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plans to make so-called "5nm" chips starting in early 2020:

TSMC last week held a groundbreaking ceremony for its Fab 18 phase 1 production facility. The fab will produce chips using TSMC's 5 nm process starting from early 2020. When all three phases of the manufacturing facility are completed, its wafer starts capacity will exceed one million 300-mm wafers per year, comparable with other three GigaFabs operated by TSMC.

TSMC's Fab 18 will be located in Tainan (in the Southern Taiwan Science Park), and will be built in three phases. The construction of the first phase or segment of the building will be completed in about a year from now, after which TSMC will move in equipment sometime in early 2019. In about two years from now, the company expects to start volume production of chips using its 5 nm process technology at the Fab 18/phase 1. Construction of the second and the third phases will commence in Q3 2018 and Q3 2019. The two phases will start volume production in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography could be used to make "7nm" chips, but not "5nm" yet.

Related: Samsung's 10nm Chips in Mass Production, "6nm" on the Roadmap
Moore's Law: Not Dead? Intel Says its 10nm Chips Will Beat Samsung's
Samsung Plans a "4nm" Process
GlobalFoundries to Spend $10-12 Billion on a 7nm Fab, Possibly $14-18 Billion for 5nm

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turgid writes:

The once mighty Xerox corporation, inventor of the photocopier, the graphical user interface, ethernet and the workstation is no more. Today it has been announced that Xerox is to be acquired by Fujifilm, with whom it had the joint venture FujiXerox, for $6.1 bilion.

In recent years, much of Xerox's previous, and quite recent, acquisitions have been sold off including Tektronix in Willsonville, Oregon (acquired for its solid ink technology) and Affiliated Computer Services.

Back in 2011, Xerox entered into a partnership with Indian outsourcing firm HCL, transferring thousands of engineering staff, including most in the UK and mainland Europe.

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In a followup submission to a previous story, Thexalon writes:

Amateur satellite enthusiast Scott Tilley was searching the sky for spy satellites to track when he discovered an unknown object. That object identified itself as the NASA IMAGE satellite, thought to have become non-operational in 2005. NASA has since confirmed that the satellite is indeed IMAGE, and is now planning on using it to observe the magnetosphere near the northern magnetic pole.

Another enthusiast, Cees Bassa, added his own detailed analysis of the error and how it recovered.

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bradley13 writes:

My old physics teacher always said: "It's the dumb criminals who get caught; you never catch the smart ones." He was a really smart guy, and he did live a nice lifestyle, hmmm...

Anyway, so IOTA. As with any digital currency, you need some random information - a passphrase typically - that is used when you create your wallet. In the case of IOTA, which is supposed to be IOT friendly, this means a string of 81 random characters, the generation of which could be pretty easily automated.

That's great, and the OSS world being full of helpful people, someone wrote a handy generator, put the code for all to see on GitHub, and put their generator onto a website where you could easily make use of it. Nice.

Actually, diabolical. The code on the website really was identical to the code on GitHub, except for one tiny, almost insignificant change: at some point, the owner swapped out the random seed to a value that he knew. Not even constant - that would have been too obvious - but known nonetheless.

And for many months, many people used his friendly little service. Until January 19th, when he emptied their IOTA wallets, erased his presence from the Interwebs, and quietly disappeared. $4 million or so richer.

This one won't be caught.

tl;dr for anyone who doesn't get it: The point of having a secret password, secret passphrase, or secret key is that it's secret. Which means that you don't have it generated for you by a public web service.

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takyon writes:

A judge has ordered that anonymous peer reviewers for an article in a science journal be unmasked on behalf of the exercise regimen company CrossFit, Inc.. The journal is published by a competitor of CrossFit:

In what appears to be a first, a U.S. court is forcing a journal publisher to breach its confidentiality policy and identify an article's anonymous peer reviewers.

The novel order, issued last month by a state judge in California, has alarmed some publishers, who fear it could deter scientists from agreeing to review draft manuscripts. Legal experts say the case, involving two warring fitness enterprises, isn't likely to unleash widespread unmasking. But some scientists are watching closely.

The dispute revolves around a 2013 paper, since retracted, that appeared in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. In the study, researchers at The Ohio State University in Columbus evaluated physical and physiological changes in several dozen volunteers who participated for 10 weeks in a training regimen developed by CrossFit Inc. of Washington, D.C. Among other results, they reported that 16% of participants dropped out because of injury.

In public and in court, CrossFit has alleged that the injury statistic is false. CrossFit also claims that the journal's publisher, the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) of Colorado Springs, Colorado—which is a competitor in the fitness business—intentionally skewed the study to damage CrossFit. NSCA in turn has countersued, accusing CrossFit executives of defamation. Amid the legal crossfire, the journal first corrected the paper to reduce the number of injuries associated with CrossFit, then retracted it last year, citing changes to a study protocol that were not first approved by a university review board.

CrossFit suspects the paper's reviewers and editors worked to play up injuries associated with its regimen, and it has asked both federal and state judges to force the publisher to unmask the reviewers. In 2014, a federal judge refused that request. But last month, Judge Joel Wohlfeil of the San Diego Superior Court in California, who is overseeing NSCA's defamation suit against CrossFit, ordered the association to provide the names.

Original Submission