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Appalbarry writes:

CBC News reports that the BC Human Rights Tribunal has ruled against parents who insisted that their child needed special protection against radio waves. The parents believed that their son had a condition called electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS), a bundle of non-specific symptoms that they attribute to EMF exposure, and that "...Wi-Fi, cellphones and other electronics ... caused the boy's migraines, nausea, insomnia and night terrors. "

Claims that Wi-Fi causes health problems are not unusual on the West Coast of Canada, but these parents added new twists to the story. His mother believes that the condition was caused by living near a cell phone tower during pregnancy, and that severe headaches and episodes of vomiting were caused by the amplification system his teachers used to help students with hearing impairments.

T's family complained he developed a headache one day after staying inside for recess. In an appeal to the school board, his family said it happened because, "as you know, the RF [radio frequency] does penetrate the room he is in when the children are moving around the school with their cellphones on at recess and lunch."

The student has since moved to a private school specializing in, among other things, working with autistic children. He is now able to develop social skills by joining other students on regular field trips to a local (presumably Wi-Fi and cell free) farm.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Ars Technica:

Racing cars came to Red Hook this past weekend as Formula E held its season four finale, the NYC ePrix. Although the event is only in its second year, the Big Apple is fast feeling like home for these all-electric race cars, and once again we saw championship-deciding races play out against the Manhattan skyline.

But this event also marked a different sort of finale—the end of Formula E's first chapter as the series prepares to retire the cars its been using for these last four seasons. When season five gets underway in Saudi Arabia this December, Formula E will have a new vehicle in the spotlight: one with more power, wild looks, and enough battery to make mid-race vehicle swaps a thing of the past.

The roar of the engines was heard all the way in Park Slope, Brooklyn (the next neighborhood over)...er, no, it wasn't. Does that take all the fun out of it?

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

El Reg:

Five years ago, a collective mania overtook the industry. Nobody could think of a clear reason why consumers needed an expensive "smart" watch when they already had a smartphone in their hand, pocket or bag. What value could it deliver? Even Google didn't seem sure: in its now notorious launch video, a punter used a watch simply to replicate features on their phone. But the industry convinced itself that wearables were another platform, and nobody wanted to be a sad second in this race. So the giants entered the market. Not because they wanted to, but as a hedge. Someone else might take a lead.

As we predicted in 2014, this was a solution looking for a problem. And an expensive one, at that.

Are wearable devices whose OS wakes up only when needed for smart features the answer?

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Tuesday at OSCON, the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has continued the celebration of 20 years of open source. A blog post at the OSI reflects on how Open Source fits in with pre-existing intitiatives.

Open source did not emerge from a void. It was consciously a marketing programme for the already-15-year-old idea of free software and arose in the context of both the GNU Project and the BSD community and their history (stretching back to the late 70s). We chose to reflect this in the agenda for our celebration track at OSCON.

But that doesn't mean its inception is irrelevant. The consensus to define open source at the VA Linux meeting and the subsequent formation of OSI and acceptance of the Open Source Definition changed the phrase from descriptive to a term of art accepted globally. It created a movement and a market and consequently spread software freedom far beyond anyone's expectations. That has to be worth celebrating.

Wikipedia's entry on Open Source provides a great deal of information on its origin and application in multiple fields besides just software.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Google confirms it will appeal $5 billion EU antitrust fine

Google has confirmed the expected, that it will indeed appeal the record $5 billion fine that it was handed today by European antitrust regulators for abusing the dominance of its Android operating system.

The European Commission announced that it is fining the U.S. firm for "three types of restrictions that [it] has imposed on Android device manufacturers and network operators to ensure that traffic on Android devices goes to the Google search engine." [...] In particular, the EC has decided that Google:

• Has required manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and browser app (Chrome), as a condition for licensing Google's app store (the Play Store);
• Made payments to certain large manufacturers and mobile network operators on condition that they exclusively pre-installed the Google Search app on their devices
• And has prevented manufacturers wishing to pre-install Google apps from selling even a single smart mobile device running on alternative versions of Android that were not approved by Google (so-called "Android forks").

The decision also concludes that Google is dominant in the markets for general internet search service, licensable smart mobile operating systems, and app stores for the Android mobile operating system.

In a more detailed blog post, Google doubled down on its position to argue that Android has helped bring choice to the market by enabling 1,300 different companies to develop 24,000 smartphones, and bringing over one million apps to users.

Previously: Report: Feds Investigating if Google's Android Violates Antitrust Rules
EU vs. Google: Android Antitrust
EU's Leaked Plan to Punish Google for Antitrust Violations
Google's Next EU Fine Could be Even Bigger for Android Violations

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Murder suspect due in U.S. court after DNA cracks open 1988 case

A 59-year-old Indiana man will be formally charged on Thursday with the 1988 murder of an eight-year-old girl after the decades-old cold case was cracked open by DNA evidence linked to a genealogical website, authorities said on Tuesday.

John Miller of Grabill, Indiana, was arrested in nearby Fort Wayne on Sunday after DNA evidence and records on publicly accessible genealogical websites helped investigators track him down. Investigators followed a pattern similar to that used to track down the "Golden State Killer" in California earlier this year.

Miller on Monday was preliminarily charged with murder, child molestation and confinement of someone under 14 years old, 30 years after eight-year-old April Tinsley was found dead in a ditch. He has been ordered held without bond.

If you don't hand over your DNA, you want child murderers to frolic in freedom.

Related: DNA From Genealogy Site Led to Capture of Golden State Killer Suspect
GEDmatch: "What If It Was Called Police Genealogy?"
DNA Collected from Golden State Killer Suspect's Car, Leading to Arrest
Another Alleged Murderer Shaken Out of the Family Tree
'Martyr of the A10': DNA Leads to France Arrests Over 1987 Murder
DNA Methylation Can Reveal Information About Criminal Suspects

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt has ordered an urgent review of Australia's biggest online doctor booking searching HealthEngine which has given hundreds of user's medical information to lawyers. This is how ambulance chasing works in the 21st century. No need to chase actual ambulances, just scan the medical records of people looking for clients. HealthEngine is partially owned by Telstra, which may explain this behaviour.

Prominent law firm Slater and Gordon confirmed that HealthEngine passed a list of potential clients to them on a daily basis averaging 200 per month which netted them at least $500,000 in legal fees. The app collects data such as whether or not the medical problem was a workplace injury making it easy to target potential clients for the lawyers to chase. The privacy policy for the app makes no mention of sharing the information with third parties for marketing purposes. While there is a collection notice, this information is not readily obvious to users many of whom are unaware that their private data is being sent on to other companies.

[...] HealthEngine and Slater and Gordon both declined interview requests and did not respond directly to questions.

HealthEngine said in a statement the company used advertising to "deliver relevant and timely information from our many different advertising partners to our users."

Original Submission

martyb writes:

[Update 2: Successful mission! Successful separation, clean booster and escape capsule landing.

Mission launch time:  11:11AM EDT (15:11 UTC)
Max ascent velocity:  2,236 mph
max capsule apogee:   389,846ft (119km)
Mission elapsed time: 11m17s

Overheard on the live feed that max G forces for the escape capsule was: 10G.]

[Update 1: there was a brief hold of approximately 10 minutes; countdown has resumed.]

Watch Live: Blue Origin Subjects its Rocket to High-Altitude Escape Test:

As it continues to progress toward human flights, Blue Origin will perform another potentially dangerous, uncrewed test today of its New Shepard rocket and spacecraft. Although it has not yet provided details, the company says it will fly "a high altitude escape motor test—pushing the rocket to its limits." The test is scheduled to begin at 11 am EDT (15:00 UTC) [corrected times] at the company's West Texas launch site.

This is the ninth test of the reusable New Shepard system, and the third in which it has included commercial payloads on it short suborbital flights. This time, the company is also flying a suite of materials from Blue Origin employees as a part of its internal “Fly My Stuff” program. (It's unclear at this point exactly how "abort test" and "payload" fit together in the same mission—presumably the high altitude abort will be followed by the New Shepard spacecraft pressing to orbit, but we're not exactly sure. Blue Origin will have more details about exactly what's going on when its webcast starts.)

This is not the first high-energy test of New Shepard. In October, 2016, the company conducted a lower altitude in-flight escape test when engineers intentionally triggered the spacecraft's launch abort system at about 45 seconds after launch, and an altitude of 16,000 feet. Such systems are designed to fire quickly and separate the crew capsule from the booster during an emergency.

Live feed on YouTube should start approximately 20 minutes before the 11:00 EDT (15:00 UTC) launch.

Note: it appears the launch may have originally been scheduled at 14:00 UTC but now appears to be scheduled for 15:00 UTC.

See also: spaceflightnow and space.com (which still has the original launch time).

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Sulla

The nation's top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had "provided pcAnywhere remote connection software ... to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006," which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the[sic] New York Times in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. "None of the employees, ... including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software," the spokesperson said.

martyb writes:

First the good news. I just received word that janrinok, our Editor-in-Chief, is finally out of the hospital and back in his own home! He is very tired and has severe restrictions on his activities but is otherwise in excellent spirits. He very much appreciated the kind thoughts and wishes expressed by the community in our prior stories. It will still be many weeks or months before he can resume his prior level of activities on SoylentNews, but hopes to pop in once in a while to "second" stories that are in the story queue. Please join me in welcoming him back home!

Next, the good news. In janrinok's absence, the other editors have stepped up to the challenge. I'd like to call out chromas, fnord666, mrpg, and takyon who have all freely given from their spare time to make sure we have a steady stream of stories appearing here. I even saw CoolHand pop in on occasion to second some stories! teamwork++

Then, I have to bring up the good news that our development and systems staff have kept this whole thing running so smoothly. Besides the site, there is e-mail, the wiki, our IRC server, and a goodly number of other processes and procedures that make this all happen. That they are largely invisible attests to how well they have things set up and running!

Lastly, the good news. This is what's known in the press as the "silly season". Summer in the Northern Hemisphere means most educational institutions are on break, so less research is done and reported. other ventures are closed or running on reduced staffing levels. In short, the amount of news to draw from is greatly diminished. Yet, even in that environment, the vast majority of the time finds us with a selection of stories in the submissions queue to draw from.

We recently hit a low spot where I combed the web for a couple quick stories I could submit, but that has been the exception rather than the rule. Generally, we look for stories that have some kind of tech-related angle to them. The community has spoken loud and clear that there are plenty of other sites to read about celebrities, politics, and religion. We make a slight nod to politics in so much as it affects technical areas or has large scale ramifications (e.g. a story about President Trump having a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin would fit that description). Even then we generally try to keep it down to one story per day.

That said, if you see a story on the 'net that catches your fancy, please send it in! Feel free to draw upon titles listed on our Storybot page, then pop onto IRC (Internet Relay Chat) and simply issue the command ~arthur $code where $code is taken from the second column on the Storybot page.

Community++

Whether you contribute by submitting a story, buying a subscription, writing in one's journal, moderating or making a comment, we continue to provide a place where people can discuss, share knowledge and perspectives, and maybe learn a thing or two, too!

--martyb

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Nest CEO steps down as division is brought under the Google Home team

Nest CEO Marwan Fawaz is stepping down as the smart home gadget maker is reshuffled yet again, now operating under the Google division responsible for the company's Home smart speakers, according to a report from CNET. Just five months ago, Fawaz oversaw Nest's reintegration under Google; for the last three years, Nest operated as an independent entity under Google parent company Alphabet.

The decision to bring Nest back under the Google umbrella was designed to help hardware chief Rick Osterloh better integrate Nest products with Google's own hardware and software, much of it increasingly driven by artificial intelligence advances. Now, Fawaz is taking on an advisory role, and Nest will be overseen by Rishi Chandra, the vice president of product management for Google's home and living room products. CNET reports that many inside the company felt that Fawaz was not an adequate leader of Nest and more of an operations manager, and the change is reportedly a welcome one.

[...] CNET reports that Alphabet even considered selling Nest in 2016 to none other than Amazon, with talks described as "serious discussions" in an effort known internally as Project Amalfi. Though Fadell reportedly scuttled the deal by threatening to leave, which he would go on to do later that year regardless, it seems like Alphabet leadership has struggled to help Nest grow and find its place within its complex corporate structure.

Also at MarketWatch and TechCrunch.

Related: Google Absorbs Nest, Nest Co-Founder Quits
Amazon Plans to Remove Google's Nest Products After Acquisition of Ring

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Netflix shares plunged by more than 14% in after-hours trade on Monday, after the firm reported disappointing subscriber growth.

Netflix said it added 5.2 million subscribers in the three months to the end of June, the same number it did during the period last year.

The streaming service had forecast growth of 6.2 million.

The decline in share price follows a successful run for the stock, which had roughly doubled so far this year.

Is the number of Netflix subscribers reaching a plateau based on its current library of titles, or are competitors eating into its growth?

Original Submission

Gaaark writes:

Amazon Foes Walmart and Microsoft Deepen Tech Partnership

Walmart and Microsoft Join Forces in Battle Against Amazon

At first glance, Walmart's announcement today that it has signed a five-year agreement with Microsoft seems like it's just a major step towards boosting its lagging online growth. But it's really a battle cry against a mutual foe: Amazon (AMZN).

The agreement gives Walmart (WMT) access to Microsoft's 365 and Azure cloud computing systems across all its lines of business, migrating some of its apps and websites to Azure. The retail giant plans to build out a worldwide Internet of Things platform with Microsoft (MSFT), connecting its stores and shipping systems to streamline its supply chain. But it's also likely to break down sales-data silos to better recommend products.

[...] In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the companies' shared rivalry with Amazon "is absolutely core to this." While Walmart is interested in cashierless checkout systems, it is pursuing its own solutions rather than using Microsoft's technology.

Is this really going to bring down Amazon or will they help bring down Walmart (ask Ford and Nokia, etc, how great it is to partner up with Microsoft).

Submitted by stupid tablet.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Astronomers have found a new crop of moons around Jupiter, and one of them is a weirdo

Ten more moons have been confirmed to orbit around Jupiter, bringing the planet's total known satellite count to 79. That's the highest number of moons of any planet in the Solar System. And these newly discovered space rocks are giving astronomers insight as to why the Jupiter system looks like it does today.

Astronomers at Carnegie Institution for Science first found these moons in March 2017, along with two others that were already confirmed in June of last year. The team initially found all 12 moons using the Blanco 4-meter telescope in Chile, though finding these objects wasn't their main goal. Instead, they were searching for incredibly distant small objects — or even planets — that might be lurking in our Solar System beyond Pluto. But as they searched for these fringe space rocks, they decided to take a peek at what might be lurking around Jupiter at the same time. Now, the moons they found have been observed multiple times, and their exact orbits have been submitted for approval from the International Astronomical Union, which officially recognizes celestial bodies.

These moons are all pretty tiny, ranging between less than a mile and nearly two miles wide. And they break down into three different types. Two orbit closer to Jupiter, moving in the same direction that the planet spins. Farther out from those, about 15.5 million miles from the planet, there are nine that rotate in the opposite direction, moving against Jupiter's rotation. But in this same distant region, one strange moon that astronomers are calling Valetudo is moving with Jupiter's spin, like the two inner moons.

Moons of Jupiter.

Also at NPR and CNN.

Previously: Two Tiny New Moons Found Around Jupiter

Related: Retrograde Jupiter Co-Orbital Asteroid May Have an Interstellar Origin
Another Trans-Neptunian Object With a High Orbital Inclination Points to Planet Nine
CU Boulder Researchers Say Collective Gravity, Not Planet Nine, Explains Orbits of Detached Objects

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Sound waves reveal diamond cache deep in Earth's interior

There may be more than a quadrillion tons of diamond hidden in the Earth's interior, according to a new study from MIT and other universities. But the new results are unlikely to set off a diamond rush. The scientists estimate the precious minerals are buried more than 100 miles below the surface, far deeper than any drilling expedition has ever reached.

The ultradeep cache may be scattered within cratonic roots — the oldest and most immovable sections of rock that lie beneath the center of most continental tectonic plates. Shaped like inverted mountains, cratons can stretch as deep as 200 miles through the Earth's crust and into its mantle; geologists refer to their deepest sections as "roots."

In the new study, scientists estimate that cratonic roots may contain 1 to 2 percent diamond. Considering the total volume of cratonic roots in the Earth, the team figures that about a quadrillion (10¹⁶) tons of diamond are scattered within these ancient rocks, 90 to 150 miles below the surface.

"This shows that diamond is not perhaps this exotic mineral, but on the [geological] scale of things, it's relatively common," says Ulrich Faul, a research scientist in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences. "We can't get at them, but still, there is much more diamond there than we have ever thought before."

Also at National Geographic and Discover Magazine.

Multidisciplinary Constraints on the Abundance of Diamond and Eclogite in the Cratonic Lithosphere (DOI: 10.1029/2018GC007534) (DX)

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Chinese space official seems unimpressed with NASA's lunar gateway

This week, the European and Chinese space agencies held a workshop in Amsterdam to discuss cooperation between Europe and China on lunar science missions. The meeting comes as Europe seems increasingly content to work with China on spaceflight programs.

Although the meeting is not being streamed online, space systems designer and lunar exploration enthusiast Angeliki Kapoglou has been providing some coverage of the meeting via Twitter. Among the most interesting things she has shared are slides from a presentation by Pei Zhaoyu, who is deputy director of the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration.

[...] Overall, Pei does not appear to be a fan of NASA's plan to build a deep space gateway, formally known as the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, at a near-rectilinear halo orbit. Whereas NASA will focus its activities on this gateway away from the Moon, Pei said China will focus on a "lunar scientific research station."

[...] So far, NASA has yet to finalize commitments with Europe, Russia, or other International Space Station partners on contributions to the gateway. While European officials are interested, it seems like they may also be willing to go along with China if that country has a more direct plan to land humans on the Moon.

Related: NASA Could Scale Down First Manned Flight of the SLS
2020s to Become the Decade of Lunar Re-Exploration
This Week in Space Pessimism: SLS, Mars, and Lunar Gateway

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Ars Technica:

Coming over the summer, Microsoft is going to add integrated call recording (something that previously required third-party applications and a deprecated API), read receipts to show when a message recipient has read a message, and end-to-end encryption of text and audio chat using the Signal protocol.

Microsoft is also making Skype audio and video calls easier to integrate into streams such as those used on Mixer and Twitch. Support for the NDI API means that streaming applications such as Xsplit and OBS can use a Skype call as an audio/video source. That means they can be overlaid on games or other content, just as is already done with webcam input.

Will the changes come in time to save Skype's userbase?

Original Submission