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tadas writes:

From the press release:

IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Red Hat (NYSE:RHT), the world's leading provider of open source cloud software, announced today that the companies have reached a definitive agreement under which IBM will acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Red Hat for $190.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $34 billion.

Blog posting from Red Hat President and CEO Jim Whitehurst.

takyon writes:

These Americans fled the country to escape their giant student debt

Chad Haag considered living in a cave to escape his student debt. He had a friend doing it. But after some plotting, he settled on what he considered a less risky plan. This year, he relocated to a jungle in India. "I've put America behind me," Haag, 29, said.

He now lives in a concrete house in the village of Uchakkada for $50 a month. His backyard is filled with coconut trees and chickens. "I saw four elephants just yesterday," he said, adding that he hopes to never set foot in a Walmart again.

His debt is currently on its way to default. But more than 9,000 miles away from Colorado, Haag said, his student loans don't feel real anymore. "It's kind of like, if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it really exist?" he said.

[...] Outstanding student debt in the U.S. has tripled over the last decade and is projected to swell to $2 trillion by 2022. Average debt at graduation is currently around $30,000, up from an inflation-adjusted $16,000 in the early 1990s. Meanwhile, salaries for new bachelor degree recipients, also accounting for inflation, have remained almost flat over the last few decades.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Why might reading make myopic?

It is known that myopia develops later when children are more outside before school and are exposed to bright illumination. What exactly makes them myopic when they start reading at school is still not fully understood.

[...] There are cells that respond mostly to brightness in the center of the receptive fields and darkness in the periphery (ON center cells), and cells that respond preferentially when the center is dark and the periphery is bright (OFF center cells). During our normal daily visual experience, both types are similarly stimulated. But what happens during reading of text?

Software was developed to quantify the relative stimulus strength for ON and OFF cells for various visual environments. The software showed that dark text on bright background stimulates mainly OFF cells (Figure 1 A), while bright text on dark background stimulates mainly the ON cells (Figure 1B). It was known from earlier experiments in chickens and mice that stimulation of ON cells tended to inhibit eye growth while stimulation of OFF cells tended to increase eye growth.

[...] Using optical coherence tomography (OCT) it is possible to measure the thickness of tissue layers in the living eye with very high resolution (micrometer range). The layer behind the retina, the choroid, is of particular interest since it has earlier been shown in chickens, various species of monkeys and children that changes in choroidal thickness can predict future changes in eye growth. When the choroid thins, the eye typically starts growing, when it thickens, eye growth is inhibited and no myopia will develop.

Alleman, Wang and Schaeffel asked their subject to read dark text on white background or bright text on dark background. Already after 30 minutes it was found that the thickness of the choroid either decreased (when reading standard text) or increased when reading text with inverted contrast (Figure 2). One would therefore expect that dark text on bright background would stimulate myopia development and bright text on dark background would inhibit myopia. Simply inverting text contrast is therefore strategy to inhibit its development. This is easily achieved on computer screens and tablets but certainly more demanding when it comes to printed books.

Reading and Myopia: Contrast Polarity Matters (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-28904-x)

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

Paul Vixie has written a two-page article about the benefits of running DNS locally. He goes into a brief summary of DNS' history, a description of the current situation, ennumerates four areas of loss resulting from outsourcing DNS resolution, and points the direction out of the trap of outsourcing.

Operating one's own local DNS resolution servers is one of the simplest and lowest-cost things an IT administrator can do to monitor and protect their applications, services, and users from potential risks. These risks — including surveillance capitalism, unmanageable external dependencies, attacks carried via DNS, and attacks that could be detected via DNS — have a much higher potential cost than the mitigation strategy outlined here. Additionally, the DNS resolution service is so central to every other IT-related activity that any and all IT administrators who take the time to investigate and master this technology will amplify their effectiveness and the value they bring to their enterprise.

Do the all-too-common Microsoft shops these days even have DNS these days? Decommoditizing protocols has been one of their tactics for decades against FOSS and everyone else in general.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Microsoft just leaped over Amazon as second most valuable U.S. company

Microsoft overtook Amazon as second most valuable U.S. company on Friday after investors punished Jeff Bezos' e-commerce behemoth for a disappointing quarterly earnings report, wiping $65 billion off the online retailer's market capitalization.

Apple still tops the list at over $1 trillion after crossing that threshold in September. Microsoft's market capitalization was Wall Street's highest in late 1998 through early 2000 before the dot-com bubble burst.

Amazon's shares dropped 7 percent, the most in nearly three years after its holiday season sales outlook missed targets, fanning concerns that Wall Street's tech darlings are finally starting to face stronger competition.

Microsoft fell a more modest 2 percent in a broad technology sell-off that was also driven by a weaker-than-expected report from Google-parent Alphabet.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Low cost, energy-saving radiative cooling system ready for real-world applications (edit: fixed link)

University of Colorado Boulder and University of Wyoming engineers have successfully scaled up an innovative water-cooling system capable of providing continuous day-and-night radiative cooling for structures. The advance could increase the efficiency of power generation plants in summer and lead to more efficient, environmentally-friendly temperature control for homes, businesses, utilities and industries.

The new research demonstrates how the low-cost hybrid organic-inorganic radiative cooling metamaterial, which debuted in 2017, can be scaled into a roughly 140-square-foot array—small enough to fit on most rooftops—and act as a kind of natural air conditioner with almost no consumption of electricity.

"You could place these panels on the roof of a single-family home and satisfy its cooling requirements," said Dongliang Zhao, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in CU Boulder's Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Around 62 percent of all Internet sites will run an unsupported PHP version in 10 weeks[*]:

According to statistics from W3Techs, roughly 78.9 percent of all Internet sites today run on PHP.

But on December 31, 2018, security support for PHP 5.6.x will officially cease, marking the end of all support for any version of the ancient PHP 5.x branch.

This means that starting with next year, around 62 percent of all Internet sites still running a PHP 5.x version will stop receiving security updates for their server and website's underlying technology, exposing hundreds of millions of websites, if not more, to serious security risks.

If a hacker finds a vulnerability in PHP after the New Year, lots of sites and users would be at risk.

"This is a huge problem for the PHP ecosystem," Scott Arciszewski, Chief Development Officer at Paragon Initiative Enterprise, told ZDNet in an interview. "While many feel that they can 'get away with' running PHP 5 in 2019, the simplest way to describe this choice is: Negligent."

"To be totally fair: It's likely that any major, mass-exploitable flaw in PHP 5.6 would also affect the newer versions of PHP," Arciszewski added.

[*] Well, actually, after December 31, 2018.

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for takyon

A new study suggests that many theorized heavy particles, if they exist at all, do not have the properties needed to explain the predominance of matter over antimatter in the universe.

If confirmed, the findings would force significant revisions to several prominent theories posed as alternatives to the Standard Model of particle physics, which was developed in the early 1970s. Researchers from Yale, Harvard, and Northwestern University conducted the study, which was published Oct. 17 in the journal Nature.

The discovery is a window into the mind-bending nature of particles, energy, and forces at infinitesimal scales, specifically in the quantum realm, where even a perfect vacuum is not truly empty. Whether that emptiness is located between stars or between molecules, numerous experiments have shown that any vacuum is filled with every type of subatomic particle — and their antimatter counterparts — constantly popping in and out of existence.

Source: https://news.yale.edu/2018/10/17/new-study-sets-size-limit-undiscovered-subatomic-particles

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

ThreatList: 1 Out of 5 Would Ditch a Business After a Data Breach

About a fifth of Americans would ditch a business in the wake of a major data breach, new research has found.

In a survey of 2,000 adult consumers across the United States by PCI Pal, almost half (44 percent) of them have personally suffered the negative consequences of a security breach or hack. So perhaps it’s unsurprising that 83 percent of the respondents said they would stop spending with a business for several months in the immediate aftermath of an incident; while 21 percent said they would walk away permanently.

“While security breaches are not new, U.S. consumers’ attitudes towards them seem to be changing significantly – with the vast majority of Americans now reporting that trust in security practices (or lack thereof) influences not just where but also how, and how much they spend,” said James Barham, COO at PCI Pal, which consolidated its findings into the State of Security report.

[...] The good news for businesses is that consumers can be encouraged to forgive a security lapse, if businesses take the right actions post-hack. About 41 percent of consumers want the business to admit responsibility and invest money in improving its security efforts, according to the report. But for some, that isn’t enough: 26 percent want a third party to confirm its ecosystem is safe before spending with them again, and 21 percent go even further to require the company to announce GDPR or other regulatory compliance to earn back trust. In total, 88 percent of consumers require businesses to make additional investments in their security after they are hacked.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

12 Mind-Bending Perceptual Illusions

Everyone loves a good optical illusion. Most people first come across them as kids, and are instantly transfixed. And most of us never quite outgrow them. Even cats seem to enjoy the occasional optical illusion!

The good news, then, for humans and nonhumans alike, is that our illusions seem to be getting better over time. In the age of social media, lots of people are making and sharing them, and the best ones are quickly going viral and setting the new standard. In effect, our illusions are evolving culturally to be more and more powerful.

But although perceptual illusions are fun, they also have important philosophical implications. They show us in a clear and unambiguous way that we don't directly perceive the world around us. Perceptual experience is a simulation—a mental model—that doesn't always correspond to the reality it aims to depict.

The following illusions are some of my favorites. Enjoy!

1. The Power of Top-Down Processing

2. The Skye Blue Café Wall Illusion

3. Confetti

4. The Rice Wave Illusion

5. The Tilted Road Illusion

6. Lightness Illusion

7. The Dynamic Ebbinghaus

8. The Dynamic Müller-Lyer Illusion

9. The Train Illusion

10. Rotating Rings

11. The Spinning Dancer

12. The Starry Night

Steve Stewart-Williams is author of The Ape That Understood the Universe: How the Mind and Culture Evolve (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Adequate Consumption of 'Longevity' Vitamins Could Prolong Healthy Aging, Nutrition Scientist Says

A detailed new review of nutritional science argues that most American diets are deficient in a key class of vitamins and minerals that play previously unrecognized roles in promoting longevity and in staving off chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer and, potentially, neurodegeneration.

In the review, published Oct. 15, 2018, as a "Perspective" article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bruce Ames, PhD, presents the conclusions of more than a decade of research in his laboratory at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), which is affiliated with UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals.

These findings are presented alongside a detailed survey of additional evidence published by other scientists. Ames concludes that healthy aging can be extended by ingesting optimal levels of 30 known vitamins and essential minerals, and he suggests that these, along with 11 additional substances not currently classified as vitamins, should be recognized as essential "longevity vitamins" because of their potential to extend a healthy life.

realDonaldTrump writes:

With the help of more than 400 volunteers, including elementary students and teachers, scientists placed small microphones in bee-pollinated areas along the path of totality in Missouri, Oregon and Idaho. The microphones were "placed as far as possible from foot and vehicle traffic," researchers wrote in the report.

During the majority of the total solar eclipse in August 2017, the bees continued to buzz and work. But then, for a short period of time as totality hit and darkness swept over, the bees stopped."

foxnews.com/science/bees-briefly-ceased-to-buzz-during-total-solar-eclipse-study-finds

Original Submission

martyb writes:

A Dog's Colour Could Impact Longevity, Increase Health Problems:

Recessive colour genes could indicate health problems.

New research led by the University of Sydney has revealed the life expectancy of chocolate Labradors is significantly lower than their black and yellow counterparts.

The study of more than 33,000 United Kingdom-based Labrador retrievers of all colours shows chocolate Labradors also have a higher incidence of ear infections and skin disease. Its findings were published in the open access journal Canine Genetics and Epidemiology today.

[...] In the UK, the median longevity of non-chocolate Labradors is 12.1 years, more than 10 percent longer than those with chocolate coats. The prevalence of ear inflammation (otitis externa) was twice as high in chocolate Labradors, who were four times more likely to have suffered from pyo-traumatic dermatitis (also known as hot-spot).

[...] "The relationships between coat colour and disease may reflect an inadvertent consequence of breeding certain pigmentations," he said. "Because chocolate colour is recessive in dogs, the gene for this colour must be present in both parents for their puppies to be chocolate. Breeders targeting this colour may therefore be more likely to breed only Labradors carrying the chocolate coat gene. It may be that the resulting reduced gene pool includes a higher proportion of genes conducive to ear and skin conditions."

Journal Reference:
Paul D. McGreevy, Bethany J. Wilson, Caroline S. Mansfield, Dave C. Brodbelt, David B. Church, Navneet Dhand, Ricardo J. Soares Magalhães, and Dan G. O'Neill Labrador retrievers under primary veterinary care in the UK: demography, mortality and disorders. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40575-018-0064-x.

Original Submission

takyon writes:

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket seems to be a hit with satellite companies

When the Falcon Heavy rocket launched for the first time in February, some critics of the company wondered what exactly the rocket's purpose was. After all, the company's Falcon 9 rocket had become powerful enough that it could satisfy the needs of most commercial customers. One such critic even told me, "The Falcon Heavy is just a vanity project for Elon Musk."

[...] Last week, the Swedish satellite company Ovzon signed a deal for a Falcon Heavy launch as early as late 2020 for a geostationary satellite mission. And just on Thursday, ViaSat announced that it, too, had chosen the Falcon Heavy to launch one of its future ViaSat-3 satellite missions in the 2020 to 2022 timeframe.

[...] In explaining their rocket choice, both Ovzon and ViaSat cited the ability of the Falcon Heavy to deliver heavy payloads "direct"—or almost directly—to geostationary orbit, an altitude nearly 36,000km above the Earth's surface. Typically, rockets launching payloads bound for geostationary orbit drop their satellites into a "transfer" orbit, from which the satellite itself must spend time and propellant to reach the higher orbit. (More on these orbits can be found here).

[...] The demonstration flight of the Falcon Heavy apparently convinced not only the military of the rocket's direct-to-geo capability but satellite fleet operators as well. The Falcon Heavy rocket now seems nicely positioned to offer satellite companies relatively low-cost access to orbits they desire, with a minimum of time spent getting there in space.

See also: SpaceX heading to two to four Falcon Heavy paid launches per year

Related: How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently
Falcon Heavy Maiden Launch Successful (Mostly)
SpaceX Confirms it Lost the Center Core of the Falcon Heavy
After the Falcon Heavy Launch, Time to Defund the Space Launch System?
NASA's Chief of Human Spaceflight Rules Out Use of Falcon Heavy for Lunar Station
SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Could Launch Japanese and European Payloads to Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway

Original Submission

takyon writes:

Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 packs up to 10GB of RAM and a stunning 93% screen-to-body ratio

Following a tease by the company's president back in August, Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi has now officially announced its next all-screen monster handset, the Mi Mix 3.

Boasting a FHD+ AMOLED display with a stunning 93% screen-to-body ratio, the Mi Mix 3 also packs a powerful 2.8GHz Snapdragon 845 processor into its unique frame, along with the option of 6GB, 8GB or a whopping 10GB of RAM.

Those after the 10GB model will have to track down the 'Forbidden City' limited edition, which sports traditional Chinese styling, a 10W wireless Qi charger and a collectible statue.

All of the Mi Mix 3 phones will be exclusive to the Chinese market for now. The 10 GB version is priced at RMB 4,999 ($720).

Xiaomi also announced a gaming phone with up to 10 GB of RAM, the Black Shark Helo.

Also at Ars Technica and The Register.

Previously: Oppo Likely to Release the First Smartphone With 10 GB of RAM

Original Submission