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takyon writes:

Microsoft's corporate vice president of communication Frank X. Shaw has given the company's take on the conviction of Eric Lundgren for allegedly ordering unauthorized copies of Windows:

In the last few days there have been several stories about the sentencing of Eric Lundgren in a case that began in 2012, and we have received a number of questions about this case and our role in it. Although the case was not one that we brought, the questions raised recently have caused us to carefully review the publicly available court documents. All of the information we are sharing in this blog is drawn from those documents. We are sharing this information now and responding publicly because we believe both Microsoft's role in the case and the facts themselves are being misrepresented.

takyon writes:

A driver using Tesla Autopilot improperly was caught on camera by another driver, leading to his arrest:

A driver who moved into the passenger seat after putting his electric car into autopilot while at 40mph on a motorway has been banned from driving.

Bhavesh Patel, 39, of Alfreton Road, Nottingham, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at St Albans Crown Court. A witness in another car filmed him sitting in the passenger seat of his Tesla S 60 on the M1 between junctions 8 and 9 near Hemel Hempstead.

Patel said he was the "unlucky one who got caught", the court was told.

The footage was posted on social media before it was reported to the police.

Also at The Guardian.

As well as the 18-month driving ban he was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work. He was also put on a 10-day rehabilitation programme and will have to pay £1,800 in costs.

[...] Road investigators were told by Tesla engineers that the autopilot function, including traffic-aware cruise control and auto-steer, was only intended to assist a "fully attentive driver".

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

The UK government adopted use of the Open Document Format in 2014. While there are still some barriers to using that open standard, a lot of progress has been made.

The Open Standards team was asked 4 years ago by the Open Standards Board to help government publish documents in a more open, transparent and accessible way. We've since made progress in achieving these objectives but we still have more work to do.

This blog focuses on how far we've come in our mission to make Open Document Format (ODF) the default standard for editable documents. ODF is not intended to replace read-only documents like PDFs, so we have not included PDF usage in our statistics below.

[...] We cannot have important documents published in formats which do not meet open standards. Government documents are for everyone. Whether you're using Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux, Chrome OS, iOS, Android, or any other system - you have the right to read what we have written and we will continue on our journey to make documents open and accessible.

From Technology at GDS : Open Document Format in government: an update

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Steven Saus has written a blog post about why you should never rely on social media. In his latest post on the topic he points out that:

[...] If you don’t personally own your website and data, you don’t have a website or data. Quite simply, you cannot rely on someone else for you to have a website, platform, or social media presence.

[...] I now know, in my gut, how fragile my access to the services Google, Facebook, and Twitter supply are.

Because – and I cannot stress this enough – my ban from G+ was due to something I supposedly posted to G+ when I was unable to post to G+. Hell, I still don’t know what got me in trouble in the first place.

Regardless, my trust is broken, and my role as product has been made painfully clear.

G+ is used as the example, but the same principles apply to the other social control media.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

They probably weren’t inspired by [Jeff Dunham’s] jalapeno on a stick, but Intel have created the Movidius neural compute stick which is in effect a neural network in a USB stick form factor. They don’t rely on the cloud, they require no fan, and you can get one for well under $100.

SiliconAngle has more:

What distinguishes AI systems on a chip from traditional mobile processors is that they come with specialized neural-network processors, such as graphics processing units or GPUs, tensor processing units or TPUs, and field programming gate arrays or FPGAs. These AI-optimized chips offload neural-network processing from the device’s central processing unit chip, enabling more local autonomous AI processing

Are we about to see another computing revolution and what will the technological and sociopolitical landscape look like after this?

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[...] A sip-and-puff can make a world of difference to a quadriplegic, but they’re not exactly cheap. So to help out a friend, [Jfieldcap] designed and built an open source sip-and-puff mouse on the cheap. As is best for such devices, the design is simple and robust. The hollow 3D-printed mouthpiece acts as handle for a joystick module, and a length of tubing connects the mouthpiece to a pressure sensor. An Arduino lets the user move his head to position the cursor; hard sips and puffs are interpreted as left and right clicks, while soft mouth pressure is used for scrolling. In conjunction with some of the accessibility tools in modern OSes and personal assistant software like Siri or Cortana, the sip-and-puff opens up the online world, and for all of $50 in material.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Army researchers have discovered what experienced information security teams already know: actual human interaction isn't a key to success when you already know your role on the team.

At the National Cyberwatch Center's Mid-Atlantic Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition [MACCDC] in March and April 2017, the team of researchers decided to conduct a study observing the competing teams. The CyberDawgs of the University of Maryland Baltimore County won the MACCDC before going on to win the Nationals a few weeks later. And like the other top-performing teams in the event, researchers discovered the CyberDawgs were able to coordinate and collaborate most effectively without leaving their keyboards.

"Successful cyber teams don't need to discuss every detail when defending a network," said Dr. Norbou Buchler, Networked Systems Branch team leader at the US Army Research Laboratory, in a press release. "They already know what to do."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Vox reports

We all have a preferred time for sleeping — a body clock. There are “morning people,” “evening people [aka 'night owls'],” and those in between. Our preferences for when to sleep are called chronotypes. And, increasingly, researchers have been investigating what happens to people whose body clocks are out of sync with the rest of society.

[...] Those who reported having a later chronotype (people who are night owls) had a 10 percent increased likelihood of dying compared to people who had an earlier chronotype. And this was true for people of all ages in the study, and for both men and women.

[...] It’s hard to know how all these risks interplay with one another, and there’s no clear answer as to why there may be health risks to being a late sleeper.

But here’s a compelling hypothesis: When our biological clock is out of sync with society’s, our whole biology gets thrown off, and many aspects of our lives grow more stressful. Having a very late chronotype is like living in a constant state of jet lag, which takes a toll on the body.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Bees just got a helping hand from the European Union who banned outdoor use of harmful pesticides.

With several types of bees and bumblebees on the endangered-species list, some governments are starting to do their part to protect the lives of these essential pollinators. 

The European Union voted Friday to ban outdoor use of pesticides that harms bees. Specifically, there's now a complete ban on three substances referred to as neonicotinoids -- imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam. Scientific studies have shown that these substances can harm bees when used outside.

Also at EU Times.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[...] The research team studied the medical records of 40,770 patients aged over 65 diagnosed with dementia, and compared them to the records of 283,933 people without dementia. More than 27 million prescriptions were analysed.

[...] They found that there was a greater incidence of dementia among patients prescribed greater quantities of anticholinergic antidepressants, and anticholinergic medication for bladder conditions and Parkinson's.

[...] "We studied patients with a new dementia diagnosis and looked at what anticholinergic medication they were prescribed between four and 20 years prior to being diagnosed.

"We found that people who had been diagnosed with dementia were up to 30 per cent more likely to have been prescribed specific classes of anticholinergic medications. And the association with dementia increases with greater exposure to these types of medication.

"What we don't know for sure is whether the medication is the cause. It could be that these medications are being prescribed for very early symptoms indicating the onset of dementia.

"But because our research shows that the link goes back up to 15 or 20 years before someone is eventually diagnosed with dementia, it suggests that reverse causation, or confounding with early dementia symptoms, probably isn't the case.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Intel on Thursday announced that it would delay mass production of its 10 nm processors from 2018 to 2019 due to yield issues. The company has claimed to be shipping some of its 10 nm chips in small volumes right now, but due to cost reasons the firm does not intend to initiate their high-volume manufacturing (HVM) at this time. Intel executives also stated that they are confident of their product roadmap and intend to launch Whiskey Lake and Cascade Lake products later this year.

[...] Intel blames a very high transistor density and consequent heavy use of multipatterning for low yields. Brian Krzanich has said that in certain cases the company needs to use quad (4x), penta (5x), or hexa (6x) patterning for select features as they need to expose the wafer up to six times to "draw" one feature. This not only lengthens Intel's manufacturing cycle (which by definition rises costs) and the number of masks it uses, but also has an effect on yields.

Intel's 10 nm fabrication technology relies solely on deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography with lasers operating on a 193 nm wavelength at this time. The company's 7 nm manufacturing process will use extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography with laser wavelength of 13.5 nm for select layers, eliminating use of extreme multipatterning for certain metal layers. As it appears, right now Intel executives do not consider EUV technology ready for prime time in 2019, so the company's engineers have to polish off the last DUV-only process (again) rather than jump straight to 7 nm.

The delay means another generation of "14nm" products:

An Anonymous Coward writes:

According to a new analysis,

[...] In this paper, simple one-dimensional dynamical models are uniquely applied to study in detail the fatal shot and the motion of the President's head observed in the film. Using known parameters from the crime scene, explicit force calculations are carried out for determining the projectile's retardation during tissue passage along with the resulting transfer of momentum and kinetic energy (KE). The computed instantaneous KE transfer within the soft tissue is found to be consistent with the formation of a temporary cavity associated with the observed explosion of the head, and subsequent quantitative examination of this phenomenon reveals two delayed forces at play in the backward motion of the President following impact. It is therefore found that the observed motions of President Kennedy in the film are physically consistent with a high-speed projectile impact from the rear of the motorcade, these resulting from an instantaneous forward impulse force, followed by delayed rearward recoil and neuromuscular forces.

janrinok: Be prepared for some detailed mathematical proofs, but well within the abilities of our community, and some interesting deductions.

Original Submission

aristarchus writes:

From CNN reporting:

The National Rifle Association is setting aside years of documents related to its interactions with a Kremlin-linked banker, as the gun-rights group appears to be bracing for a possible investigation, according to sources familiar with the situation.

The NRA has faced fresh scrutiny from congressional investigators about its finances and ties to Alexander Torshin, one of the 17 prominent Russian government officials the US Treasury Department recently slapped with sanctions. The gun-rights group has said it is reexamining its relationship with Torshin, who is a lifetime NRA member, in the wake of the sanctions.

The renewed attention has highlighted the close-knit if sometimes uneasy alliance between top NRA officials and Torshin -- a relationship that ensnared members of Trump's team during the presidential campaign, inviting further congressional scrutiny.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Early childhood caries, a form of severe tooth decay affecting toddlers and preschoolers, can set children up for a lifetime of dental and health problems. The problem can be significant enough that surgery is the only effective way to treat it.

Recently researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine discovered that, in many cases, early childhood caries result from dental plaque that contains both bacteria and fungus working together to make the biofilm on the teeth more pathogenic and difficult to remove. Now they have shown that these two types of microorganisms synergize to enhance drug resistance, enabling the fungal cells to avoid being killed by antifungal therapies. Yet simultaneously targeting the matrix produced by the bacteria along with the fungus offers a way around this protection.

"The current antimicrobial modalities for treating early childhood caries have limited efficacy," says Hyun (Michel) Koo, a professor in the Department of Orthodontics and divisions of Pediatric Dentistry & Community Oral Health in Penn's School of Dental Medicine. "Available evidence shows that biofilm-associated diseases are polymicrobial in nature, including a mix of bacterial and fungal species; therefore a treatment aimed at just one type of microorganism may not be effective. I think this work gives us a glimpse into alternative ways to disrupt cross-kingdom biofilm, a combinatorial approach that considers the fungal and bacterial components."

An Anonymous Coward writes:

IFLScience reports

The wreck of a Nazi submarine linked to rumors about the secret smuggling of the Nazi elite to South America at the end of WWII has been discovered off the Danish coast.

The submarine, called U-3523, was recently discovered by the Sea War Museum Jutland over 16 kilometers (10 miles) from the coast of Skagerrak, Denmark's most northern town. This class of submarine, a Type XXI U-boat, was one of Germany's most formidable pieces of naval technology during the war. Unlike most submarines at the time, it was able to operate for long periods submerged underwater at speeds of up to 31.9 kilometers (19.8 miles) per hour.

Multibeam imaging scans of the wreck revealed that submarine was laying on the floor of the sea at a depth around 123 meters (400 feet). Unusually, it was resting with its nose pointed diagonally into the seabed, with its stern remaining some 20 meters (65 feet) above the seafloor.

[...] According to the Sea War Museum Jutland, many have argued the U-3523 was the first real submarine that could have sailed all the way across the Atlantic in one stretch at deep depths.

Original Submission