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MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for FatPhil

French inventor Franky Zapata has made the first-ever successful Channel crossing on a jet-powered flyboard. Mr Zapata, 40, took off from Sangatte, near Calais, at 06:17 GMT on Sunday [04 Aug] and landed in St Margaret's Bay in Dover.

The board's five turbines, powered by kerosene, propel him to speeds of up to 118 mph (190km/h).

Mr Zapata, a former jet-ski champion, had failed in his first attempt to cross the Channel on 25 July after complications with refuelling.

English Channel.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-49225001

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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

An elderly woman suffering from late-stage Alzheimer’s disease had neither talked to nor reacted to any of her family members for years. Then, one day, she suddenly started chatting with her granddaughter, asking for news of other family members and even giving her granddaughter advice. “It was like talking to Rip van Winkle,” the granddaughter told University of Virginia researchers of her astonishment. Unfortunately, the reawakening did not last—the grandmother died the next week.

That event got written up as what the case study authors called terminal lucidity—a surprising, coherent episode of meaningful communication just before death in someone presumed incapable of social interaction. Yet it was by no means unique. Physician Basil Eldadah, who heads the geriatric branch at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), had heard such stories and filed them away as intriguing accounts. But in 2018, spurred by the need to make progress combatting Alzheimer’s, Eldadah began to think it was time to do more and organized a workshop for interested scientists. After all, if the grandmother was able to tap into mysterious neural reserves, cases such as hers might help scientists explore how cognition could possibly be restored—even briefly—in patients with the most advanced neurodegenerative disease.

This summer Eldadah and the scientists he assembled have taken the first steps toward systematic and rigorous study of what they are now calling paradoxical lucidity, a broader label intended to capture the dramatic, unexpected and puzzling nature of the phenomenon.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The law firm Tycko & Zavareei LLP filed the lawsuit on Thursday, arguing that GitHub and Capital One demonstrated negligence in their response to the breach.

The firm filed the class-action complaint on behalf of those impacted by the breach, alleging that both companies failed to protect customer data.

Personal information for tens of millions of customers was exposed after a firewall misconfiguration in an Amazon cloud storage service used by Capital One was exploited.

[...] “As a result of GitHub’s failure to monitor, remove, or otherwise recognize and act upon obviously-hacked data that was displayed, disclosed, and used on or by GitHub and its website, the Personal Information sat on GitHub.com for nearly three months,” the law firm alleged in its complaint against GitHub and Capital One.

The firm also alleged that computer logs “demonstrate that Capital One knew or should have known” about the data breach when it occurred in March, and criticized Capital One for not taking action to respond to the breach until last month.

Previously:
Capital One Target of Massive Data Breach
The Technical Side of the Capital One AWS Security Breach

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Novel catalysis approach reduces carbon dioxide to methane

A growing number of scientists are looking for fast, cost-effective ways to convert carbon dioxide gas into valuable chemicals and fuels.

Now, an international team of researchers has revealed a new approach that utilizes a series of catalytic reactions to electrochemically reduce carbon dioxide to methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, eliminating an intermediate step usually needed in the reduction process.

"We want to supply renewable electricity and take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to something else in one step," said Bingjun Xu , a University of Delaware assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering. "This is a key contribution to this vision."

The team's results were published in the journal Nature Communications on July 26, 2019. Two of the study authors are based at UD: Xu and postdoctoral associate Xiaoxia Chang. Another study author, Qi Lu of Tsinghua University in China, was formerly a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UD.

The paper's authors also include Haochen Zhen from Tsinghua University, Jingguang Chen from Columbia University, William Goddard III from the California Institute of Technology and Mu-Jeng Cheng from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan.

More information: Haochen Zhang et al. Computational and experimental demonstrations of one-pot tandem catalysis for electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction to methane, Nature Communications (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11292-9

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

http://diy.smallbearelec.com/HowTos/BreadboardBareAss/BreadboardBareAss.htm

This article explains some basics of how a JFET (Junction Field Effect Transistor) works and how to measure the parameters that make it work as an amplifier. I will walk you through breadboarding a two-stage "Bare-Ass" clean boost with tone control, an extremely useful utility for stage or recording studio. There are other sources for much of the material that I present here, but I sometimes found their language and level of detail hard-to-follow. I will focus on useful basics and practicalities, and I'll do my best to make the theory accessible to other non-engineers.

If you have never used a solderless breadboard, please refer to the intro article on breadboarding before you continue. That How-To covers a lot of basic information and techniques; I presume that you have been through it, have done the demos, understand how the tool works and have started learning to use your multimeter. If you are already familiar with breadboarding, note that the level of detail in this article is meant to guide complete beginners, so please be a little patient.

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An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-08-02/cassette-tapes-are-back-but-it-s-not-about-the-music

One can explain the recent boom in vinyl record sales in terms that make sense to an audiophile; a vinyl record will often sound more nuanced than music in a compressed digital format. But the growing audio cassette sales don't lend themselves to such technical explanations: They're about culture and psychology rather than sound.

The hissing cassette was never music lovers' first choice. The only reason these things were popular throughout my childhood and adolescence in the 1970s and '80s was their portability: You could play them on a boom box, in a car, on a Walkman when these appeared 40 years ago. The CD killed them off more ruthlessly than it did vinyl records: There was simply no reason to compromise so deeply on sound quality anymore.

And yet the cassette is back. In the U.K., sales were up 112% year on year in the first half of 2019, even if that means only 36,000 cassettes were sold. Sales in the U.S. are growing, too.

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takyon writes:

The Impossible Whopper is coming to every Burger King in America next week

Burger King will start selling its meatless Whopper across the United States on August 8, the biggest rollout for Impossible's plant-based product.

The burger chain has been selling the Impossible Whopper, featuring a meatless patty made by Impossible Foods, in a few markets in the United States since April. It first tested the product in St. Louis before announcing in May that it would offer the Impossible Whopper nationally this year.

Interest in plant-based protein has surged as many people try to reduce their meat intake for health or environmental reasons. US retail sales of plant-based foods have grown 11% in the past year, according to a July report from trade group Plant Based Foods Association and the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that supports plant-based businesses.

Previously: Meatless "Beyond Burgers" Come to Fast Food Restaurants
Burger King Adds Impossible Vegan Burger To Menu

Related: Impossible Foods Just Raised $75 Million for Its Plant-based Burgers
Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat that 'Bleeds'
FDA Approves Impossible Burger "Heme" Ingredient; Still Wants to Regulate "Cultured Meat"
Following IPO of Beyond Meat, Tyson Foods Plans Launch of its Own Meatless Products

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takyon writes:

The Mosquitoes Are Coming for Us

Mosquitoes are our apex predator, the deadliest hunter of human beings on the planet. A swarming army of 100 trillion or more mosquitoes patrols nearly every inch of the globe, killing about 700,000 people annually. Researchers suggest that mosquitoes may have killed nearly half of the 108 billion humans who have ever lived across our 200,000-year or more existence.

Flying solo, the mosquito does not directly harm anyone. It is the diseases she transmits that cause an endless barrage of death. Yet without her, these pathogens could not be vectored to humans. Without her, human history would be completely unrecognizable.

The mosquito and her diseases have accompanied traders, travelers, soldiers and settlers (and their captive African slaves) around the world and have been far more lethal than any manufactured weapons or inventions.

Malarious mosquitoes patrolling the Pontine Marshes facilitated both the rise and the fall of the Roman Empire. Initially shielding the Eternal City from the Visigoths, Huns and Vandals, they eventually pointed their proboscises inward on Rome itself. Mosquitoes defended the Holy Land during the Crusades by laying waste to armies of cross-adorned Christian soldiers. By infecting European soldiers with malaria and yellow fever, they reinforced numerous successful rebellions in the Americas during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, including the British surrender at Yorktown during the American Revolution.

[Editor's Comment: I was unable to access the source in my browser using private mode. JR]

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takyon writes:

Sony Unveils Wearable Air Conditioner That Sits in a Shirt Pocket

[Tech] giant Sony has come up with a futuristic solution to the problem of staying cool: a tiny personal air conditioner that fits in a shirt pocket.

Sony calls its personal air conditioner the Reon Pocket, and it's worn just below a person's neck in the pocket of a special undershirt. Once the device is in place, the person can control it using a smartphone app.

According to Sony, the Reon Pocket can decrease a person's body surface temperature by 13 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit). It can also raise it by 8 degrees Celsius (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit) if you wanted to use the device in the winter months to stay warm.

Also at The Verge and Trusted Reviews.

Related: A Device to Obsolesce the Air Conditioner

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takyon writes:

E3 organization leaks data for over 2,000 journalists and analysts

If you attended the Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show this year with a media badge, it's possible that some of your sensitive data is now public. Each year, the Entertainment Software Association hands out hundreds of "press badges" to certain members of the press. To get one of these badges, I have given the organization my name, phone number, home address, and more each year for the last half-decade. That info goes onto a spreadsheet that the ESA hands out to its member companies. This makes it easier for those companies to invite press to E3 events and meetings.

Up until yesterday, however, that list was accessible anyone who clicked on a button on the ESA website, as first spotted by YouTube creator Sophia Narwitz. Since then, The ESA has removed the spreadsheet from its site. But it did not do that before other people were able to download it. At this point, it's impossible to tell who has the list.

This failure to adequately secure sensitive data doesn't just expose games journalists. I've confirmed with someone who has access to the list (with the ESA's permission) that it contains info for YouTube creators, Wall Street financial analysts at firms like Wedbush and Goldman Sachs, and Tencent employees.

"it's impossible to tell who has the list" - The full spreadsheet is currently available on the Internet Archive and elsewhere, so anyone on the list can consider themselves "doxed".

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shortscreen writes:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/woodstock-50-canceled-2-834313/

Less than a month from when it was supposed to kick off, Woodstock 50 is officially canceled once and for all. Michael Lang, a cofounder of the original three-day concert, pulled the plug after attempting to move the event to Maryland. In recent months, he and his fellow organizers had attempted to stage the concert in Watkins Glen, New York and Vernon, New York. Lang said in a statement that he is now supporting the efforts of the 50th anniversary tribute to Woodstock that's set to take place in Bethel, New York, near the original 1969 festival's site.

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Dark energy vs. modified gravity: Which one will prevail?

Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts the existence of dark energy—a mysterious form of energy that permeates space and accelerates the expansion of the Universe. But what if Einstein was wrong and there was no such thing as dark energy? The GalaxyDance project has been investigating this scenario.

As accurate as it has proven to be so far, general relativity is not the only theory that can account for gravitation. In fact, there are various alternative theories out there. Scientists are just not sure how these can resist observation and simulations.

To close this gap, the GalaxyDance project, undertaken with the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie program, has been using information encoded in peculiar velocity statistics of galaxies in the Local Universe as well as observed redshift space distortions (RSD) of distant galaxies.

Dr. Wojciech Hellwing, coordinator of the project and Research Fellow at the Centre for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences, discusses the project's findings so far.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser

The Technical Side of the Capital One AWS Security Breach

On July 19th, 2019 Capital One got the red flag that every modern company hopes to avoid - their data had been breached. Over 106 million people affected. 140,000 Social Security numbers. 80,000 bank account numbers. 1,000,000 Social Insurance Numbers. Pretty messy right?

Unfortunately, the 19th wasn't when the breach occurred. It turns out that Paige Thompson, aka Erratic, had done the deed between March 22nd and March 23rd 2019. So almost 4 months earlier. In fact, it took an external tip for Capital One to realize something had happened.

Though the former Amazon employee has been arrested and is facing $250k in fines and 5 years in prison...it's left a lot of residual negativity. Why? Because of many of the companies who've suffered data breaches try to brush off the responsibility of hardening their infrastructures and applications to the increased cyber crime.

ANYHOW. You can read more about the case by just asking Google. We won't go into that anymore. We're here to talk about the TECHNICAL side of things.

Original Submission

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Apple suspends Siri response grading in response to privacy concerns – TechCrunch

In response to concerns raised by a Guardian story last week over how recordings of Siri queries are used for quality control, Apple is suspending the program world wide. Apple says it will review the process that it uses, called grading, to determine whether Siri is hearing queries correctly, or being invoked by mistake.

In addition, it will be issuing a software update in the future that will let Siri users choose whether they participate in the grading process or not.

The Guardian story from Alex Hern quoted extensively from a contractor at a firm hired by Apple to perform part of a Siri quality control process it calls grading. This takes snippets of audio, which are not connected to names or IDs of individuals, and has contractors listen to them to judge whether Siri is accurately hearing them — and whether Siri may have been invoked by mistake.

"We are committed to delivering a great Siri experience while protecting user privacy," Apple said in a statement to TechCrunch. "While we conduct a thorough review, we are suspending Siri grading globally. Additionally, as part of a future software update, users will have the ability to choose to participate in grading."

Previously: Siri Records Fights, Doctor's Appointments, and Sex (and Contractors Hear It)

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upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

The SLS rocket may have curbed development of on-orbit refueling for a decade

Nearly a decade ago, when Congress directed NASA to build a large rocket based upon space shuttle-era technology called the Space Launch System, the agency also quietly put on the back burner its work to develop in-space refueling technology.

It has long been rumored within aerospace circles that funding for NASA's efforts to develop so-called propellant depots, and the capability to store and transfer cryogenic rocket fuels in orbit, was curbed due to the threat it posed to the SLS rocket and its prime contractor, Boeing.

After all, if smaller, cheaper rockets could launch rocket fuel and stash it in low-Earth orbit for staged missions to the Moon or beyond, why should NASA spend $2 billion a year annually to develop the SLS rocket? Why not just use that money to buy commercial launches, starting with the Delta IV Heavy and later the Falcon Heavy, and build an exploration program around existing capabilities? It would likely be quicker and cheaper.

Now, thanks to comments on Twitter by George Sowers, a physicist in the middle of this controversy, we have confirmation of sorts. In the early and mid-2010s, Sowers was leading the advanced programs group at United Launch Alliance (ULA), the rocket company co-owned by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Propellant depots were among the technologies he was working on. Sowers is now a professor at the Colorado School of Mines.

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