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canopic jug writes:

YouTube's ContentID system blocks videos alleged to infringe on copyright. Lately it has been coming down on a great many highly visible, legitimate videos. YouTube is apparently taking its time in resolving the problem.

Several popular YouTube accounts, including those belonging to 'MIT OpenCourseWare' and the 'Blender Foundation,' have had all their videos blocked. People who try to access the videos are informed that they are not available in their country, suggesting that YouTube's piracy filters have been triggered. It's unclear, however, who or what is to blame.

Source TorrentFreak : YouTube's Piracy Filter Blocks MIT Courses, Blender Videos, and More (Updated)

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has accused a Tesla employee of "quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations," according to an email obtained by CNBC. In the all-hands email to Tesla staff, Musk wrote that the employee had made "direct code changes" to the company's production systems, as well as exporting "large amounts" of Tesla's data to unknown third parties.

According to Musk's email, the unnamed employee claimed he had become disgruntled after failing to receive a promotion. However, the Tesla CEO also suggested the alleged saboteur could have been working with short sellers, oil and gas companies—whom he described as "sometimes not super nice"—or "the multitude of big gas/diesel car company competitors." Of this last group, Musk reminded his employees that, since the traditional OEMs have been known to cheat emissions tests, "maybe they're willing to cheat in other ways."

[...] Tesla has faced plenty of criticism about its ongoing troubles in ramping up Model 3 production. But that may have been unwarranted if those problems were due to sabotage. We reached out to Tesla regarding CNBC's story, but the company declined to comment at this time.

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canopic jug writes:

The FreeBSD Foundation has announced that the name FreeBSD turns 25 years old on 2018-06-19. The mailing list archives contain a thread about name selection with with a message containing the following suggestion

How about just simply "FreeBSD"? No confusion, no fuss, seems like a good compromise to me. :-)

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canopic jug writes:

Several sites are reporting, without reference to IBM's activities 70 years ago, that Microsoft's contact with ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) is drawing fire online. The Computer Business Review includes a quote from Microsoft now missing from their press release:

"ICE's decision to accelerate IT modernization using Azure Government will help them innovate faster while reducing the burden of legacy IT. The agency is currently implementing transformative technologies for homeland security and public safety, and we're proud to support this work with our mission-critical cloud," he wrote.

KUOW radio writes on their web site that Microsoft is facing outrage their for blog post touting ICE contract:

As outrage grew online, a Microsoft employee quietly removed mention of ICE from the January press release this morning. Social media users noticed that, too. The company has since restored the press release's original language, and called its removal a "mistake."

After a little bit of conference swag gets handed out and a few advertising contracts^W^Wscholarships get handed out, this will all blow over and be forgotten.

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takyon writes:

There's no excuse: All Android phones (even Samsung's) should run stock Android

When [Google's Android One] platform was unveiled at I/O in 2014, it was squarely targeted at emerging markets. With a mission to "bring high-quality smartphones to as many people as possible," Android One was meant to bring a clean, unadulterated KitKit[sic] experience (the current version at the time), to handsets short on specs and storage.

Nokia has taken a different approach with Android One. Earlier this year parent company HMD made the bold decision to switch to Android One for its entire family of phones, from the budget-minded Nokia 3.1 to the Snapdragon 835-powered Nokia 8 Sirocco. That means when you buy a Nokia phone you're getting the peace of mind that you'll get updates, and timely ones at that, for at least two years, and security patches for three years.

Or, as Juho Sarvikas, chief product officer at parent company HMD Global puts it, "pure and secure and up to date." That's something that can't be said for for than 90 percent of Android phones, based on the latest Oreo adoption numbers. And it's time the leading Android phone makers start closing the gap.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

Researchers report in areas with greater numbers of Christian fundamentalists, infant mortality rates are higher than in areas with more mainstream Christians. The study reveals external factors such as lack of social support, birth defects, poverty and lack of insurance, in addition to religious conviction, are the main reasons for the increased mortality rates.

The odds of an infant dying before their first birthday are higher in counties with greater proportions of conservative Protestants, especially fundamentalists, than in counties with more mainline Protestants and Catholics, according to a new Portland State University study The study, published online in May in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, supports the idea that the more insular, anti-institutional culture of fundamentalists can lead to poorer health outcomes.

Ginny Garcia-Alexander, a sociology professor in PSU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the study's lead author, examined the influence of religion on postneonatal infant mortality rates, or the number of deaths from four weeks through the first year, using data from 1990 through 2010. Garcia-Alexander said a leading cause of infant death in the first 28 days is birth defects, which can be heavily influenced by advances in medical knowledge and technology. By contrast, deaths in the next 11 months of life are more often linked to external factors such as poverty, lack of insurance, social support networks and religion.

Garcia-Alexander said the findings mirror trends seen in adult mortality rates, where areas with more mainline Protestants and Catholics had better health outcomes than areas with more conservative Protestants.

The study's findings build on previous research that says that Catholicism and mainline Protestantism are civically minded, externally oriented faiths that emphasize community-level care. For example, church-affiliated hospitals and social-service providers such as Catholic Charities can bolster the health infrastructure of local communities.

Source: https://neurosciencenews.com/infant-mortality-fundamentalism-9165/

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c0lo writes:

Australian Broadcast Corporation follows-up on a 3 months old story:

Biohacker Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow who was fined for implanting an Opal Card chip into his hand has had his conviction overturned. [...] Mr Meow-Meow appealed against the conviction in the District Court and today it was quashed. District court judge Dina Yehia took into account his good character, while describing the case as "highly unusual ... involving a unique set of circumstances."

[...] She said that, while there were legal issues of general deterrence, she was of the view that the objective seriousness of the offence fell towards the lower end of the range, if not the bottom.

The previous story offers the context:

Meow-Ludo Disco Gamma Meow-Meow, 33, surgically implanted an Opal Card chip into his hand last year, so that he could swipe on and off without using a card. Transport authorities charged him for using public transport without a valid ticket and for not producing a ticket to transport officers. Mr Meow-Meow pleaded guilty to both offences at Newtown Local Court. He was fined $220 for breaching the Opal Card terms of use and was ordered to pay $1,000 in legal costs.

The lawyer representing Mr Meow Meow argued that transport legislation had advanced to include methods of contactless payment through MasterCard and some smart phones. He said that the law should adapt to all available technologies including implantable tech. But Magistrate Michael Quinn said, while the legislation may catch up with technology in the future, the law of the day must be followed.

Outside court, Mr Meow Meow said he was disappointed both offences were not dismissed and that he was ordered to pay legal costs. Despite the decision, Mr Meow Meow said he would continue to experiment with implanted technology. He said he was planning to push the boundary even further, replacing his Opal chip with one that will hold all of his personal information, including credit cards and memberships.

Why wait until the govt chips you when you can use your freedom and DIY? (large grin)

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takyon writes:

U.S. top court mulls Apple's App Store commissions in antitrust case

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up Apple Inc's bid to escape a lawsuit accusing it of breaking federal antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for iPhone software applications and causing consumers to pay more than they should.

The justices said they would hear Apple's appeal of a lower court's ruling that revived the proposed class-action lawsuit by iPhone buyers over commissions that the Cupertino, California-based technology company receives through its App Store.

The case could expand the threat of antitrust damages against companies in the rapidly growing field of electronic commerce, which generates hundreds of billions of dollars annually in U.S. retail sales.

President Donald Trump's administration backed Apple and urged the justices to take the case.

Also at The Hill and The Register.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

This Apple Update Could Prove To Be A True Lifesaver

With about 80 percent of 911 calls made from mobile devices, it's sometimes difficult for emergency responders to pinpoint the location of those callers.

On Monday, Apple unveiled plans to work with 911 centers to automatically share the exact locations of iPhone users that need to call in an emergency.

Under a collaboration with startup company RapidSOS, Apple's current Hybridized Emergency Location system will integrate with 911 centers' existing software. Apple's system uses technology that estimates a phone's location with data from cell towers, GPS and Wi-Fi access points.

The update is expected to roll out later this year as part of iOS 12, the next version of Apple's mobile operating system. Google is testing a similar system for Android-based phones.

Privacy concerns have been at the center of this sort of location sharing in the past. However, Apple said that with the new feature, "user data cannot be used for any non-emergency purpose and only the responding 911 center will have access to the user's location during an emergency call."

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

[...] A new nationwide study of obituaries has found that people with religious affiliations lived nearly four years longer than those with no ties to religion.

That four-year boost -- found in an analysis of more than 1,000 obits from around the country -- was calculated after taking into account the sex and marital status of those who died, two factors that have strong effects on lifespan.

[...] "We found that volunteerism and involvement in social organizations only accounted for a little less than one year of the longevity boost that religious affiliation provided," Wallace said. "There's still a lot of the benefit of religious affiliation that this can't explain."

So what else explains how religion helps people live longer? It may be related to the rules and norms of many religions that restrict unhealthy practices such as alcohol and drug use and having sex with many partners, Way said.

In addition, "many religions promote stress-reducing practices that may improve health, such as gratitude, prayer or meditation," he said.

[...] Way said there are limitations to the study, including the fact that it could not control for important factors related to longevity such as race and health behaviors. But a potential strength was that, unlike other studies, religious affiliation was not self-reported, but was reported by the obituary writer.

-- submitted from IRC

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Research published in Addiction Biology by scientists at the University of Bath reveals a new potential mechanism for combatting drug addiction relapse.

Relapsing into drug taking is a big problem in treating addiction, where the majority of addicts return to drug-taking within 12 months of quitting. This is brought into focus by the burgeoning 'opioid epidemic' of prescription as well as recreational opioid drugs, such as morphine and heroin. Addiction relapse is associated with drug-related cues such as places, drug paraphernalia, the drug itself, or stress, highlighting that memories play a key role in addiction relapse.

In this study researchers at Bath, working with colleagues from the University of Surrey and RenaSci, used an animal model to study relapse to morphine seeking behaviour. Rats or mice learned to associate particular environmental cues with morphine. After removal of the drugs, relapse back to drug-seeking behaviour occurred in response to getting the cues again.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google is training machines to predict when a patient will die

A woman with late-stage breast cancer went to a hospital, fluids flooding her lungs. She saw two doctors and got a radiology scan. The hospital's computers read her vital signs and estimated a 9.3% chance she would die during her stay.

Then came Google's turn. An new type of algorithm created by the company read up on the woman — 175,639 data points — and rendered its assessment of her death risk: 19.9%. She died in a matter of days.

The harrowing account of the unidentified woman's death was published by Google in May in research highlighting the healthcare potential of neural networks, a form of artificial intelligence software that is particularly good at using data to automatically learn and improve. Google had created a tool that could forecast a host of patient outcomes, including how long people may stay in hospitals, their odds of readmission and chances they will soon die.

What impressed medical experts most was Google's ability to sift through data previously out of reach: notes buried in PDFs or scribbled on old charts. The neural net gobbled up all this unruly information then spat out predictions. And it did so far faster and more accurately than existing techniques. Google's system even showed which records led it to conclusions.

Scalable and accurate deep learning with electronic health records (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41746-018-0029-1) (DX)

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

We’ve long known that processed sugar is bad for kids. And yet new data presented this week (June 10) at the American Society for Nutrition’s annual meeting show that American infants are consuming excessive amounts of added sugar in their diets, much more than the amounts currently recommended by the American Heart Association (AHA) and other medical organizations.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, looked at added sugar consumption—sugars in your diet that are not naturally occurring, like those found in fruit and milk, but rather added into foods during preparation or processing. Researchers used data collected from a nationally representative sample of more than 800 kids between six and 23 months old who participated in the 2011 to 2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Parents were asked to record every item their child ate or drank during a 24-hour period, and the researchers calculated a mean sugar intake based on these testimonies.

The study found that toddlers 12 to 18 months consumed 5.5 teaspoons per day, and that toddlers 19 to 23 months consumed 7.1 teaspoons. This is close to, or more than, the amount of sugar recommended by AHA for adult women (six teaspoons) and men (nine teaspoons). Parents of more than 80% of kids aged six to 23 months reported their children consumed at least some added sugar on a given day.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Agricultural activity by humans more than 2,000 years ago had a more significant and lasting impact on the environment than previously thought. The finding -- discovered by a team of international researchers led by the University of British Columbia -- is reported in a new study published today in the journal Science Advances.

The researchers found that an increase in deforestation and agricultural activity during the Bronze Age in Ireland reached a tipping point that affected Earth's nitrogen cycle -- the process that keeps nitrogen, a critical element necessary for life, circulating between the atmosphere, land and oceans.

"Scientists are increasingly recognizing that humans have always impacted their ecosystems, but finding early evidence of significant and lasting changes is rare," said Eric Guiry, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow in UBC's department of anthropology. "By looking at when and how ancient societies began to change soil nutrients at a molecular level, we now have a deeper understanding of the turning point at which humans first began to cause environmental change."

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Trump orders creation of space-focused U.S. military branch

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he was ordering the creation of a sixth branch of the military to focus on space, a move critics said could harm the Air Force.

"It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance in space," Trump said before a meeting of his National Space Council. "We are going to have the Air Force and we're going to have the 'Space Force.' Separate but equal. It is going to be something," he said later.

The United States is a member of the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bars the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in space and only allows for the use of the moon and other celestial bodies for peaceful purposes.

The idea of a Space Force has been raised before, by Trump and previous administrations, with proponents saying it would make the Pentagon more efficient. It has also faced criticism from senior military officials. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein told a 2017 congressional hearing that creating a new space branch would "move us in the wrong direction." The Air Force oversees most of the nation's space-related military activity.

The move would require the budgetary approval of the U.S. Congress, which has been divided on the idea.

President Trump orders the creation of new Starship Troopers/Space Marines memes.

We should have a separate "Space" topic on SoylentNews at this point. We are all going to be drafted to fight aliens eventually.

Also at BBC (#winning image).

Previously: The United States Space Corps Wants You...
Congressional Panel Puts Plans for a US Space Corps in 2018 Defense Budget
The Case for a U.S. Space Force

Original Submission