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RandomFactor writes:

Not to be left behind on the modern field of cyber warfare, Japan is planning to develop its first-ever defensive computer virus to help ward off cyber attacks.

The Kyodo News revealed that Japan will develop its first-ever computer virus as a defense measure against cyber attacks and that the development will be completed by next March.

The Defense Ministry plans to use the malware as a vaccine that could neutralize the other malicious codes.

The Japanese Government aims at improving its defense capabilities in the fifth domain of warfare and wants to be ready to face threats from the cyberspace.

The island nation is well aware it must invest heavily to attempt closing the extensive gap between its own cyber capabilities and those of the major players in the field.

"Japan lags behind other countries in addressing the threat of cyberattacks. It plans to increase the number of personnel in its cyberspace unit to 220 from 150, compared with 6,200 in the United States, 7,000 in North Korea and 130,000 in China, according to the ministry."

In Japan, anytime any capability is considered which could theoretically be used for offense as well as defense, there is controversy stemming from Article 9 of the country's pacifist constitution, which was adopted on May 3, 1947 (after World War II)

"Some defense experts say the ability to obstruct an enemy's use of cyberspace could exceed the limits of the country's exclusively defense-oriented policy."

Those concerned should be reassured however as the defense ministry has stated that the virus "will not be used for pre-emptive attack or active defense"

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The US Justice Department on Thursday asked for a hearing on Qualcomm's possible punishment if a California judge agrees with the Federal Trade Commission and declares the chipmaker to be a monopoly -- largely because it's worried about competition in 5G.

In a statement of interest filed in US District Court in San Jose, California, the DOJ's antitrust division asked that "in the event that the court finds liability on any of the FTC's claims, the court should order additional briefing and hold a hearing on issues related to a remedy." The DOJ said that the court should carefully consider what remedy to carry out because it's worried about the US' position in the race to 5G.

"There is a plausible prospect that an overly broad remedy in this case could reduce competition and innovation in markets for 5G technology and downstream applications that rely on that technology," the US wrote. "Such an outcome could exceed the appropriate scope of an equitable antitrust remedy. Moreover, it has the distinct potential to harm rather than help competition."

The US stressed, though, that it hasn't taken a position on the merits of the FTC's claims.

Qualcomm declined to comment. The FTC didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

[...] After years of work on 5G networks, hyped as the life-changing foundation for augmented reality, telemedicine and other tech trends, the super-fast wireless technology is being rolled out. Carriers are turning on their networks, and virtually every major Android handset maker has touted plans to launch a 5G device this year. The vast majority of those devices will use 5G modems from Qualcomm.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An end to the Aids epidemic could be in sight after a landmark study found men whose HIV infection was fully suppressed by antiretroviral drugs had no chance of infecting their partner.

The success of the medicine means that if everyone with HIV were fully treated, there would be no further infections.

Among nearly 1,000 male couples across Europe where one partner with HIV was receiving treatment to suppress the virus, there were no cases of transmission of the infection to the HIV-negative partner during sex without a condom. Although 15 men were infected with HIV during the eight-year study, DNA testing proved that was through sex with someone other than their partner who was not on treatment.

“It’s brilliant – fantastic. This very much puts this issue to bed,” said Prof Alison Rodgers from University College London, the co-leader of the paper published in the Lancet medical journal. Earlier studies have also shown the treatment protects heterosexual couples where one partner has HIV.

She added: “Our findings provide conclusive evidence for gay men that the risk of HIV transmission with suppressive ART [antiretroviral therapy] is zero. Our findings support the message of the international U=U campaign that an undetectable viral load makes HIV untransmittable.

“This powerful message can help end the HIV pandemic by preventing HIV transmission, and tackling the stigma and discrimination that many people with HIV face.

Original Submission

An Anonymous Coward writes:

The popularity of e-scooters from billion-dollar companies like Uber, Lyft, Lime and Bird have created a new health scare, according to the Centers for Disease control.

Since electric scooters began populating streets of some of the country's biggest cities last year, there has been a surge in emergency room visits for fractures, dislocations and head trauma, the CDC found in a study that will be released at the Epidemic Intelligence Service conference in Atlanta on Thursday.

The CDC has found that head injuries topped the list of accident-related incidents involving e-scooters at 45%. The study determined that many e-scooter injuries could have been prevented if riders wore helmets and were more careful around cars, according to summary of the study released on Wednesday.

[...]

According to the CDC study, the most common wound after head injuries involved upper extremity fractures at 27%, followed by lower extremity fractures at 12%. The study, which lasted nearly three months, found the e-scooter injury rate was 14.3 per 100,000 trips.

The median age for people injured was 29. The majority of injuries occurred on the street, with 29% connected to first-time riders and 18% involving motor vehicles.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/01/cdc-study-says-e-scooter-injuries-are-largely-preventable-with-helmets.html

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Google Street View has become a surprisingly useful way to learn about the world without stepping into it. People use it to plan journeys, to explore holiday destinations, and to virtually stalk friends and enemies alike.

But researchers have found more insidious uses. In 2017 a team of researchers used the images to study the distribution of car types in the US and then used that data to determine the demographic makeup of the country. It turns out that the car you drive is a surprisingly reliable proxy for your income level, your education, your occupation, and even the way you vote in elections.

Now a different group has gone even further. Łukasz Kidziński at Stanford University in California and Kinga Kita-Wojciechowska at the University of Warsaw in Poland have used Street View images of people's houses to determine how likely they are to be involved in a car accident. That's valuable information that an insurance company could use to set premiums.

The result raises important questions about the way personal information can leak from seemingly innocent data sets and whether organizations should be able to use it for commercial purposes.

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613432/how-a-google-street-view-image-of-your-house-predicts-your-risk-of-a-car-accident/

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

A single, moderate workout may immediately change how our brains function and how well we recognize common names and similar information, according to a promising new study of exercise, memory and aging. The study adds to growing evidence that exercise can have rapid effects on brain function and also that these effects could accumulate and lead to long-term improvements in how our brains operate and we remember.

Until recently, scientists thought that by adulthood, human brains were relatively fixed in their structure and function, especially compared to malleable tissues, like muscle, that continually grow and shrivel in direct response to how we live our lives. But multiple, newer experiments have shown that adult brains, in fact, can be quite plastic, rewiring and reshaping themselves in various ways, depending on our lifestyles.

Exercise, for instance, is known to affect our brains. In animal experiments, exercise increases the production of neurochemicals and the numbers of newborn neurons in mature brains and improves the animals’ thinking abilities. Similarly, in people, studies show that regular exercise over time increases the volume of the hippocampus, a key part of the brain’s memory networks. It also improves many aspects of people’s thinking.

But substantial questions remain about exercise and the brain, including the time course of any changes and whether they are short-term or, with continued training, become lasting.

That particular issue intrigued scientists at the University of Maryland. They already had published a study in 2013 with older adults looking at the long-term effects of exercise on portions of the brain involved in semantic-memory processing.

Original Submission

canopic jug writes:

GNU Guix 1.0.0 has been released. The big 1.0 is an important milestone for most Free Software. In this case it is the result of seven years of development. GNU Guix is a general toolbox for software deployment, also known as a package manager, but with advancements over RPM and APT, which it can co-exist with. However it can also be used as a complete distro.

In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and garbage collection. When used as a standalone GNU/Linux distribution, Guix offers a declarative, stateless approach to operating system configuration management. Guix is highly customizable and hackable through Guile programming interfaces and extensions to the Scheme language.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Boeing Co. limited the role of its own pilots in the final stages of developing the 737 MAX flight-control system implicated in two fatal crashes, departing from a longstanding practice of seeking their detailed input, people familiar with the matter said.

As a result, Boeing test pilots and senior pilots involved in the MAX' development didn't receive detailed briefings about how fast or steeply the automated system known as MCAS could push down a plane' nose, these people said. Nor were they informed that the system relied on a single sensor, rather than two, to verify the accuracy of incoming data about the angle of a plane's nose, they added.

See also: https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeings-own-test-pilots-lacked-key-details-of-737-max-flight-control-system-11556877600

Original Submission

realDonaldTrump writes:

foxnews.com/tech/facebook-dark-web-activity

Over two billion people use Facebook to buy and sell goods, chat with each other, and post vacation pictures. Now, according to a new report by Talos Intelligence, the social network is being harnessed by Dark Web cybercriminals as a place to sell credit card information, illegal contraband, and much more.

What's even more surprising, according to experts, is that this Dark Web activity isn't that dark or hard to find -- criminals sell credit cards right out in the open. One quick search for a term like "carding" (a criminal term for selling credit cards) reveals dozens of Facebook Groups.

Original Submission

janrinok writes:

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Permafrost in some areas of the Canadian Arctic is thawing so fast that it's gulping up the equipment left there to study it.

"The ground thaws and swallows it," said Merritt Turetsky, a University of Guelph biologist whose new research warns the rapid thaw could dramatically increase the amounts of greenhouse gases released from ancient plants and animals frozen within the tundra.

"We've put cameras in the ground, we've put temperature equipment in the ground, and it gets flooded. It often happens so fast we can't get out there and rescue it.

"We've lost dozens of field sites. We were collecting data on a forest and all of a sudden it's a lake."

Turetsky's research, published this week in the journal Nature, looks at the rate of permafrost thaw across the Arctic and what its impact could be on attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

There is often pressure inside Software development for Software developers to code outside of work hours. Coding is considered a passion for some, but others don’t think this way. They are more than happy to not code in their spare time. This is OK.

Meetup groups, side-projects, coding quizzes, side-hustles, developing websites for friends and family. Improving your coding skills takes time, effort, discipline and sacrifice. But is it really necessary? That is for you to decide.

There is no doubt that there is importance to setting goals. It helps to see where you are going and to have something you are working towards. Being the best coder isn’t everyone’s goal.

People often feel peer pressure to code outside of hours, to stay competitive and to be the best. If someone is making you feel this way, you can remind yourself that it is perfectly OK to only code at work. Some people might even argue that doing too much can have diminishing returns…

[...] In short, it is perfectly OK to have a life outside of work. Many people hack their schedules according to their own goals and interests, which may or may not include coding. If you think this post could help someone out there, please share it around!

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

It’s no secret that Google tracks a lot of data about you, from the websites you visit to the videos you watch, the things you’ve searched for, and the places you have visited. Scrubbing this data from your Google account has required you to manually dig into your settings each time. That’s changing soon.

In the next few weeks, Google will be rolling out a feature to users around the world that will let them set this information to be deleted automatically every three or 18 months.

"We work to keep your data private and secure, and we’ve heard your feedback that we need to provide simpler ways for you to manage or delete it," Google said in a blog post published Wednesday.

For now, these controls are only coming to your location history and web and app activity, but it’s likely that they’ll come to more of your data history at some point.

Original Submission

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The future of medicine is biological – and scientists hope we will soon be using 3-D-printed biologically functional tissue to replace irreparably damaged tissue in the body. A team of researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB has been working with the University of Stuttgart for a number of years on a project to develop and optimize suitable bioinks for additive manufacturing. By varying the composition of the biomaterial, the researchers have already succeeded in expanding their portfolio to include bone and vascularization inks. That has laid the foundations for manufacturing bone-like tissue structures featuring capillary networks.

3-D printing is not only gaining ground in manufacturing – it is also taking on increasing importance in the realm of regenerative medicine. Scientists are now hoping to use this tissue scaffolds that will replace irreparably damaged tissue. A team of researchers at Fraunhofer IGB in Stuttgart is also working on biobased inks for manufacturing biological implants in the laboratory using 3-D printing techniques. To create a 3-D object in the desired pre-programmed shape, the team utilizes a layer-by-layer approach to print a liquid mixture comprising biopolymers such as gelatin or hyaluronic acid, aqueous medium and living cells. These bio-inks remain in a viscous state during printing and are then exposed to UV light to crosslink them into water-containing polymer networks called hydrogels.

Original Submission

James Orme writes:

For the digital enterprise making use of the best-in-breed applications is non-negotiable, and the number they are relying on is increasing. Workforces on average rely on 162 applications to stay productive, according to cloud identity and access management platform Okta's recent "Businesses @ Work" report. This is a departure from the traditional enterprise approach of stack simplicity; purchasing one integrated system from a big vendor like Microsoft, Oracle or SAP.

[...] To discuss the changing landscape, senior leaders from three of the most successful enterprise applications – communications platform Slack, cloud content management platform Box, and Okta itself – hosted a breakfast roundtable. They cautioned that while increased application volumes are improving enterprise productivity, they are also bringing fresh complexities.

[Source: https://techerati.com/features-hub/opinions/how-can-enterprises-avoid-app-overflow]

Original Submission

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for AndyTheAbsurd

Amazon.com Inc dismissed the idea of running a fully automated warehouse in the near future, citing the superior cognitive ability of humans and limitations of current technology.

Scott Anderson, director of Amazon Robotics Fulfillment, said technology is at least 10 years away from fully automating the processing of a single order picked by a worker inside a warehouse.

There is a misperception that Amazon will run fully automated warehouses soon, Anderson said during a tour of Amazon's Baltimore warehouse for reporters on Tuesday.

The technology for a robot to pick a single product from a bin without damaging other products or picking multiple products at the same time in a way that could benefit the e-commerce retailer is years away.

Amazon is exploring a variety of technologies to automate the various steps needed to get a package to shoppers, Anderson said.

"In the current form, the technology is very limited. The technology is very far from the fully automated workstation that we would need," Anderson said.

Your job is safe...for now.

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-warehouse/amazon-dismisses-idea-automation-will-eliminate-all-its-warehouse-jobs-soon-idUSKCN1S74B9

Original Submission