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Phoenix666 writes:

ScienceDaily:

Traditional surgery to reshape a nose or ear entails cutting and suturing, sometimes followed by long recovery times and scars. But now, researchers have developed a "molecular surgery" process that uses tiny needles, electric current and 3D-printed molds to quickly reshape living tissue with no incisions, scarring or recovery time. The technique even shows promise as a way to fix immobile joints or as a noninvasive alternative to laser eye surgery

[...]Hill's group discovered that passing current through cartilage electrolyzes water in the tissue, converting the water into oxygen and hydrogen ions, or protons. The positive charge of the protons cancels out the negative charge on the proteins, reducing charge density and making the cartilage more malleable. "Once the tissue is floppy," he says, "you can mold it to whatever shape you want."

The team tested the method on a rabbit whose ears normally stand upright. They used a mold to hold one ear bent over in the desired new shape. If they had then removed the mold without applying a current, the rabbit's ear would have sprung back into its original upright position, just like a human ear would. But by inserting microneedle electrodes into the ear at the bend and pulsing current through them with the mold in place, they briefly softened the cartilage at the bend site without damage. Turning off the current then allowed the cartilage to harden in its new shape, after which the mold was removed.

The discovery could make plastic surgery more commonplace with lower costs and shorter recovery times.

Original Submission

Phoenix666 writes:

Phys.org:

After years of debate, New York state has adopted congestion pricing to deal with traffic problems in New York City. Starting in 2021, fees will be imposed on all vehicles entering a pricing zone that covers lower Manhattan, from 60th Street at the southern edge of Central Park to the southernmost tip of the island.

This approach has succeeded in cities including London, Singapore and Stockholm. For scholars like me who focus on urban issues, New York's decision is welcome news. Properly used, congestion pricing can make crowded cities safer, cleaner and easier for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians to navigate.

The details matter, including the size and timing of charges and the area that they cover. Congestion charges also raises equity issues, since rich people are best able to move closer to work or change their schedules to avoid the steepest costs.

Are congestion pricing plans the wave of the future in American cities?

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upstart writes in with a submission, via IRC, for chromas.

Mozilla Extends WebAssembly Beyond the Browser with WASI:

Mozilla’s WebAssembly started as an experiment, almost a question: is it possible to run arbitrary code in a browser without breaking the browser sandbox? A side benefit would be faster web applications that would outperform current web technologies, allowing developers to bring existing desktop applications to the web.

[...]Since its initial launch, WebAssembly has been adopted by all the major browsers, with support from Mozilla, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, who’ve all contributed code.

Best thought of as a definition of a virtual machine, WebAssembly works with the browser’s JavaScript engine to run code at speeds that compare well with native code. Instead of JavaScript’s byte code approach, it takes code written in familiar languages like C and C#, and converts it first to an assembly language-like bytecode before a final compilation as binary. WebAssembly executables are compiled before being delivered to browsers, making them a compact and efficient way of adding complex functionality to web applications.

[...]Experiments with WebAssembly outside the browser are all very well, but if it’s going to be a tool that supports cross-platform as well as cross-browser development, it needs to have new standards built around it. Mozilla recently announced the start of such an effort, with the first release of WASI: the WebAssembly System Interface.

You can perhaps consider WASI as the boundary between system level code running on the host platform and applications running in user mode.

Where WebAssembly works as an implementation of a virtual processor, WASI goes a step further and offers developers an entire conceptual operating system. With a virtual processor, there’s only one target architecture, and the JavaScript engine can handle translation between its implementation and ARM, Intel, Power, or whatever hardware you have. WASI does the same, offering WebAssembly programs its own low-level implementations of common OS functions, that are then translated into OS calls via the host JavaScript engine. Target WASI in your code, and you’re able to produce applications that run identically on macOS, on Windows, on UNIX, and more, even on mobile operating systems.

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Court Orders 'Jailbroken' PS4 Seller to Pay $16,800 in Damages - TorrentFreak

A California man has been ordered to pay $16,800 in damages to Sony Interactive Entertainment, for selling jailbroken PS4 consoles filled with pirated games. In a default judgment, the Federal Court sided with the gaming company, ruling that the man's activities violated the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions.

Sony’s PlayStation 4 (PS4) console has remained ‘piracy free’ for years, but last year things changed.

Following up on some earlier experiments, the release of a jailbreak version brought PS4 piracy to the masses.

[...]In a case filed at a federal court in California last October, Sony accused a local resident of offering jailbroken PS4s for sale, filled with pirated games. According to the complaint, defendant Eric Scales used the handle "Blackcloak13" to sell the consoles preloaded with pirated games on eBay.

The man was further accused of running a separate website (now offline) where he advertised his services and products. The website stated that he'd been jailbreaking and modding consoles for more than a decade, and encouraged people to "stop buying games."

Despite the allegations and possible damages, Scales did not respond to the complaint. This left Sony with no other option than to file for a default judgment, which United States District Judge Jesus Bernal signed last week.

[...]The PS4 consoles were modded in such a way that they could circumvent anti-piracy measures. This is a classic case of a circumvention product. In addition, Judge Bernal also agreed with Sony that the pirated games can be seen as circumvention products.

[...]In addition to the damages, the court also issued a permanent injunction which prohibits Scales from developing, marketing, and selling any infringing PS4 games or code. Nor is he allowed to offer any jailbreaking or modding services and products related to the PS4.

[...]All in all, however, the judgment is definitely a setback for Scales. In addition to the injunction and the $16,800 in statutory damages, he must also pay $1,608 in attorneys' fees, and $1,250 in costs.

A copy of the default judgment issued by United States District Judge Jesus Bernal is available here (pdf).

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for chromas

Junked Teslas still held unencrypted video recordings

An experiment conducted by white hat hackers and reported by CNBC show that Tesla vehicles store more information than you might think -- and they even keep your data unencrypted. It's normal for cars to keep some information from the cellphones you pair with them via Bluetooth, such as contact numbers. But a Tesla computer can also store videos, locations and navigational data, since the company's vehicles have built-in dashcams, data recorders and other features meant to gather information. In the event of a crash, the video could even include exactly what happened leading to the accident.

One of the researchers who uses the pseudonym GreenTheOnly told CNBC that he managed to extract all sorts of data from salvaged Model X, Model S and Model 3 cars in the past. To take a closer look at what Tesla computers can reveal, he teamed up with another white hat hacker named Theo and purchased a totaled Model 3 late last year for research purposes.

The result? They found unencrypted information from at least 17 different devices, including the number of times they were paired to the vehicle, as well as 11 phonebooks' worth of contact information. The researchers also found calendar entries with descriptions of planned appointments, along with the e-mail addresses of those invited. In addition, they unearthed the 73 last locations (and navigation information) the car went to and even successfully extracted the video of the crash itself.

The fact that the automaker doesn't automatically delete such information could be a double-edged sword. Yes, it could be helpful for investigators, but someone with the technical knowledge can hack into a salvaged or a reconditioned Tesla's computer and extract data. They don't even have to worry about having to break any kind of encryption.

[...] The Chief Security Officer at BugCrowd, which manages Tesla's bug bounty program, explained to the publication that the company can't just wipe cars automatically. There "could be a forensic need to contain and retain the data," he said. "But I would think that what they will want to work on is a way to have all that stored data encrypted, as it would be on your cell phone," he added.

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for takyon

Shipwreck on Nile vindicates Greek historian's account after 2,500 years

Nearly 2,500 years ago, Herodotus described an unusual type of river boat he saw along the Nile while visiting Egypt. Many archaeologists doubted the veracity of the description, because there wasn't any evidence such a ship ever existed. But Herodotus is getting some posthumous revenge, as the discovery of just such a ship has vindicated his account. The details appear in a new published monograph, Ship 17: a Baris from Thonis-Heracleion, by archaeologist and shipwreck specialist Alexander Belov.

[...] "It wasn't until we discovered this wreck that we realized Herodotus was right," director of Oxford University's Centre for Maritime Archaeology Damian Robinson told the Guardian. "Herodotus describes the boats as having long internal ribs. Nobody really knew what that meant... That structure's never been seen archaeologically before. Then we discovered this form of construction on this particular boat and it absolutely is what Herodotus has been saying. Here we have a completely unique form of construction, which is not seen anywhere else."

DOI: International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 2013. 10.1111/1095-9270.12030

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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed a new spending cap on the FCC's Universal Service programs that deploy broadband to poor people and to rural and other underserved areas.

Pai reportedly circulated the proposal to fellow commissioners on Tuesday, meaning it will be voted upon behind closed doors instead of in an open meeting. Pai has not released the proposal publicly, but it was described in a Politico report Wednesday, and an FCC official confirmed the proposal's details to Ars. Democratic FCC commissioners and consumer advocacy groups have criticized Pai's plan, saying it could harm the FCC's efforts to expand broadband access.

The FCC's Universal Service system's purpose is to bring communications service access to all Americans and consists of four programs: The Connect America Fund, which gives ISPs money to deploy broadband in rural areas; Lifeline, which provides discounts on phone and broadband service to low-income consumers; the E-Rate broadband program for schools and libraries; and a telecom access program for rural health care providers.

Pai's plan suggests an $11.4 billion annual cap on the total cost of the four programs, which is more than current spending but would put an upper bound on what the program could spend in the future. The cap would be indexed for inflation, FCC Commissioner Michael O'Rielly wrote on Twitter.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/ajit-pai-wants-to-cap-spending-on-broadband-for-poor-people-and-rural-areas/

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

First bacterial genome created entirely with a computer

C. ethensis-2.0 is based on the genome of a well-studied and harmless freshwater bacterium, Caulobacter crescentus, which is a naturally occurring bacterium found in spring water, rivers and lakes around the globe. It does not cause any diseases. C. crescentus is also a model organism commonly used in research laboratories to study the life of bacteria. The genome of this bacterium contains 4,000 genes. Scientists previously demonstrated that only about 680 of these genes are crucial to the survival of the species in the lab. Bacteria with this minimal genome are viable under laboratory conditions.

Beat Christen, Professor of Experimental Systems Biology at ETH Zurich, and his brother, Matthias Christen, a chemist at ETH Zurich, took the minimal genome of C. crescentus as a starting point. They set out to chemically synthesise this genome from scratch, as a continuous ring-shaped chromosome.

[...] To create a DNA molecule as large as a bacterial genome, [...] the scientists at ETH Zurich synthesised 236 genome segments, which they subsequently pieced together.

[...] To synthesise the genome segments in the simplest possible way, and then piece together all segments in the most streamlined manner, the scientists radically simplified the genome sequence without modifying the actual genetic information (at the protein level). There is ample latitude for the simplification of genomes, because biology has built-in redundancies for storing genetic information. For example, for many protein components (amino acids), there are two, four or even more possibilities to write their information into DNA.

The algorithm developed by the scientists at ETH Zurich makes optimal use of this redundancy of the genetic code. Using this algorithm, the researchers computed the ideal DNA sequence for the synthesis and construction of the genome, which they ultimately utilised for their work.

As a result, the scientists seeded many small modifications into the minimal genome, which in their entirety are, however, impressive: more than a sixth of all of the 800,000 DNA letters in the artificial genome were replaced, compared to the "natural" minimal genome. "Through our algorithm, we have completely rewritten our genome into a new sequence of DNA letters that no longer resembles the original sequence. However, the biological function at the protein level remains the same," says Beat Christen.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Cloudflare Announces Free VPN Service for Faster, More Private Internet

On the footsteps of the company's launch of the private DNS service with the 1.1.1.1 IP address, Cloudflare today announced the launch of the free Warp VPN service that it claimed will not only keep your data private, but also make your internet connections faster.

Warp is Cloudflare's first attempt at building a VPN service that anyone, even non-technical people, can use through the company's 1.1.1.1 mobile application, launched in November, last year.

Warp promises not just an easy-to-use interface free of the clunkiness of most other VPN clients, but also a level of performance and security that the vast majority of VPN services don't have.

For starters, Warp uses the much more modern Wireguard protocol, not OpenVPN. [...] Cloudflare [...] is in a good spot to offer fast connectivity to many websites whose content Cloudflare may already be caching near you.

[...] Cloudflare [...] aims to pay for the free service via its premium "Warp+" subscription plan that users can buy to gain access to an even faster private Cloudflare infrastructure, plus other features.

[...] The Warp VPN service is not yet available for use but should be soon, Cloudflare said.

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canopic jug writes:

The One Free Press Coalition, formed last month, is a group of publishers using their global reach to highlight the cases of specific journalists under attack around the world. A list of the 10 'most urgent' global press freedom cases for April 2019 has just been published. These journalists are often isolated and not necessarily as visible internationally as their cases might warrant.

This month's cases cover Mexico, The Philipines, Vietnam, Kyrgyzstan, India, Nicaragua, South Suda, Mozamique, Colombia, and Sudan. In 2018, the number of journalists murdered jumped 88% as compared to 2017. The One Free Press Coalition was at a meeting of the International Media Council at the World Economic Forum.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

NASA chief says a Falcon Heavy rocket could fly humans to the Moon

[...] Until now, it was thought that only NASA's Space Launch System could directly inject the Orion spacecraft into a lunar orbit, which made it the preferred option for getting astronauts to the Moon for any potential landing by 2024. However, [NASA Administrator Jim] Bridenstine said there was another option: a Falcon Heavy rocket with an Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage built by United Launch Alliance.

[...] This plan has the ability to put humans on the Moon by 2024, Bridenstine said. He then emphasized—twice—that NASA's chief of human spaceflight, William Gerstenmaier, has yet to bless this approach due to a number of technical details. His reservations include the challenge of integrating the Falcon Heavy rocket in a horizontal position and then loading Orion with fuel in a vertical configuration on the launchpad. The Falcon Heavy would also require a larger payload fairing than it normally flies with. This would place uncertain stress on the rocket's side-mounted boosters.

"It would require time [and] cost, and there is risk involved," Bridenstine said. "But guess what—if we're going to land boots on the Moon in 2024, we have time, and we have the ability to accept some risk and make some modifications. All of that is on the table. There is nothing sacred here that is off the table. And that is a potential capability that could help us land boots on the Moon in 2024."

Original Submission

realDonaldTrump writes:

mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/huge-sharks-severed-head-found-14203315

A fisherman has caught a huge shark's head off .... Australia, leading to fears an even bigger creature attacked it.

The severed head weighed a huge 100kg, meaning the shark it came from could have been up to 12ft long.

It appears the Mako shark's head was bitten off and discarded by a predator - potentially an even bigger shark.

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

Facebook is launching(*) a button called "Why am I seeing this post?" to start giving people information on why certain posts appear in their feeds.

Clicking on it will show information about the various pieces of data that help Facebook decide what should show above something else. So it might indicate that you tend to engage with posts that include videos, for instance, or that many of your friends have liked a certain post.

The firm is also updating the already existing "Why am I seeing this ad?" button to show how advertisers use customer lists to show ads to people.

Writing on the company's blog, Facebook product manager Ramya Sethuraman said: "Both of these updates are part of our ongoing investment in giving people more context and control across Facebook. We will continue to listen to your feedback and evolve these features over time."

Ramya goes on

During our research on "Why am I seeing this post?", people told us that transparency into News Feed algorithms wasn't enough without corresponding controls. People wanted to be able to take action, so we've made it easy to manage what you see in News Feed right from this feature.

The announcement follows Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's call for increased government regulation of social media.

"Privacy is dead" applying just a little bit to one of the social media giants is certainly a good thing. Hopefully others will follow suit.

* - As of story submission, the feature is not yet available on my Facebook feed.

Original Submission

RandomFactor writes:

New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is currently unhampered by the constraints of two party rule, has announced details of the state's new budget plan.

Some highlights include:

• Drivers into busy sections of Manhattan will pay a 'congestion charge'
• Single use plastic bags banned across the state
• Closure of up to three state prisons
• Eliminating cash bail for misdemeanor and nonviolent felony arrests
• A permanent 2% cap on local property taxes
• Increase in Public Education funding by 1bn
• A new 'Mansion Tax' on homes over $25 million
• A new internet sales tax on market providers

The Internet Sales Tax will affect companies that are marketplace providers no matter where they are located that have more than 100 sales and over $300k in total sales in the past year to New Yorkers.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Sharp Grossmont Hospital used hidden cameras in their women's health center, ostensibly due to concerns of potential theft of an anesthesia drug by employees. But the cameras also recorded video of countless patients undergoing examinations and medical procedures. The hospital is now facing a lawsuit filed by 81 women who claim to have been secretly recorded.

In 2016, the situation was exposed in a public letter written by Dr. Patrick Sullivan, who stated that he had discovered the cameras originally in 2013 and raised objections. After medical staff began to cover the cameras with tape, they were eventually removed. However, in 2016 he discovered more hidden cameras. Afterward, Dr. Sullivan claimed to have been the target of retaliation for his whistleblowing, which became the subject of a 2017 lawsuit.

The video recordings were allegedly stored on hospital computers and reviewed by a male security employee.

https://www.rt.com/usa/455248-hospital-secret-film-women-operation/

Also at 10News San Diego.

Original Submission