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Submission + - Google Announces Android, Chromecast To Get HBO Now (digitaltrends.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google's I/O 2015 conference opened with a surprise announcement: that Chromecast, Android TV, and other Android devices will soon be able to offer HBO Now. "The announcement marks the end of a 7 week exclusive that Apple had on HBO's stand-alone streaming and on-demand video service," reports Digital Trends, and it also further weakens the exclusivity of cable TV packages. "Traditional TV subscriptions are slowly starting to slip," one newspaper reports, "as more people watch online video." Other online streaming sites are already confronting the popularity of HBO's "Game of Thrones" series, with Netflix already experiencing a 33% dip in their online traffic during the new season's online premiere and Amazon rushing to discount their "Game of Thrones" graphic novels, and the turmoil seems to be continuing in the online video space. "Shortly after the premier of the new season, HBO Now seems to have taken the top spot when it comes to internet traffic," reports one technology site, "causing a huge dent in Netflix's attempt to make it to the top."

Submission + - Hacking Your Body Through a Nerve in Your Neck (ieee.org) 1

Submitted by agent elevator
agent elevator writes: IEEE Spectrum has a feature (part of it's Hacking the Human OS issue) on the future of vagus nerve stimulation, a device-based therapy with the potential to treat a ridiculously wide variety of ailments: epilepsy, depression, stroke, tinnitus, heart failure, migraines, asthma, the list goes on. One problem is that, because it required an implant (a bit like a pacemaker), it was never anybody's first-choice therapy. But now there's a non-invasive version, a device you just hold to your neck twice a day for a few minutes that's being trialed first for migraines and cluster headaches (which sound horrible). If it works, vagus nerve stimulation could compete directly with drug treatments on cost and convenience and it would let doctors find new ways to hack human physiology.

Submission + - Land Art Park Significantly Reduces Jet Engine Noise Near Airport

Submitted by ClockEndGooner
ClockEndGooner writes: A study conducted by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research [TNO] found that low frequency and long wavelength jet engine droning noise was significantly reduced in the fall after farmers ploughed their fields near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, as the remaining furrows "had multiple ridges to absorb the sound waves, deflected the sound and muted the noise." This lead to the development of the Buitenschot Land Art Park, a buffer park featuring "land art" that has significantly reduced aircraft noise without requiriung cuts in the number of allowed flights in and out of the airport. The land art park has also provided neighbors with additional recreational paths and sports fields in the same space. The impact of the Land Art Park is covered in a recent article from The Smithsonian Magazine.

Submission + - First Ultraviolet Quantum Dots Shine In An LED (acs.org)

Submitted by ckwu
ckwu writes: Researchers in South Korea have made the first quantum dots that emit ultraviolet light and used them to make a flexible, light-emitting diode. Until now, no one had succeeded in making quantum dots that emit wavelengths shorter than about 400 nm, which marks the high end of the UV spectrum. To get quantum dots that emit UV, the researchers figured out how make them with light-emitting cores smaller than 3 nm in diameter. They did it by coating a light-emitting cadmium zinc selenide nanoparticle with a zinc sulfide shell, which caused the core to shrink to 2.5 nm. The quantum dots give off true UV light, at 377 nm. An LED made with the quantum dots could illuminate the anticounterfeiting marks on a paper bill. If their lifetimes can be improved, these potentially low-cost UV LEDs could find uses in counterfeit currency detection, water sterilization, and industrial applications.

Submission + - Alloy Deforms, Springs Back Into Shape Millions Of Times (acs.org)

Submitted by MTorrice
MTorrice writes: By adding a touch of cobalt to an alloy of titanium, nickel, and copper, an international team of researchers has come up with a shape-memory alloy film that can be deformed at least 10 million times and still snap back to its original shape. The finding represents a remarkable improvement on previous shape-memory alloys, which, at best, could withstand only a thousand deformations before succumbing to structural failure.

The current, top-of-class alloy is nickel titanium, which is used in stents to open blood vessels and as orthodontic wires.

Submission + - Florida Hospital Shows Internet Lag Time Won't Affect Remote Robotic Surgeries (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Remote robotic surgery performed hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the physician at the controls is possible and safe, according to the Florida Hospital that recently tested Internet lag times for the technology. Roger Smith, CTO at the Florida Hospital Nicholson Center in Celebration, Fla., said the hospital tested the lag time to a partner facility in Ft. Worth, Texas and found it ranged from 30 to 150 milliseconds, which surgeons could not detect as they moved remote robotic laparoscopic instruments. The tests, performed using a surgical simulator called a Mimic, will now be performed as if operating remotely in Denver and then Loma Linda, Calif. The Mimic Simulator system enables virtual procedures performed by a da Vinci robotic surgical system, the most common equipment in use today; it's used for hundreds of thousands of surgeries every year around the world. With a da Vinci system, surgeons today can perform operations yards away from a patient, even in separate but adjoining rooms to the OR. By stretching that distance to tens, hundreds or thousands of miles, the technology could enable patients to receive operations from top surgeons that would otherwise not be possible, including wounded soldiers near a battlefield. The Mimic Simulator was able to first artificially dial up lag times, starting with 200 milliseconds all the way up to 600 milliseconds.

Submission + - Emulator Now Runs x86 Apps on All Raspberry Pi Models (linuxgizmos.com)

Submitted by __aajbyc7391
__aajbyc7391 writes: Russia-based Eltechs announced its ExaGear Desktop virtual machine last August [Slashdot], enabling Linux/ARMv7 SBCs and mini-PCs to run x86 software. That meant that users of the quad-core, Cortex-A7-based Raspberry Pi 2 Model B, could use it as well, although the software was not yet optimized for it. Now Eltechs has extended extended ExaGear to support earlier ARMv6 versions of the Raspberry Pi. The company also optimized the emulator for the Pi 2 allowing, for example, Pi 2 users to use automatically forwarding startup scripts.

Submission + - MIT Trains Robots to Jump (mit.edu)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: MIT just announced that its researchers have programmed a robotic cheetah that can leap over obstacles without a prompt from a human controller. The machine’s onboard sensors rely on reflected laser-light to judge obstacles’ distance and height, and use that data to fuel the algorithm for a safe jump. The robot’s controlling algorithm takes into account such factors as the speed needed to launch its mass over the obstacle, the best position for a jump, and the amount of energy required from the onboard electric motor. As of this writing, the robot can clear 90 percent of obstacles on an open track. “A running jump is a truly dynamic behavior,” Sangbae Kim, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, is quoted as saying in a university press release. “You have to manage balance and energy, and be able to handle impact after landing. Our robot is specifically designed for those highly dynamic behaviors.” For years, some tech pundits have worried that robots and software will gradually replace human workers in key industries such as manufacturing and IT administration. Now they have something else to fret over: Robots replacing the world’s hurdlers.

Submission + - Uber Revises Privacy Policy, Wants More Data From Users

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Uber Technologies is revising its privacy policy to allow it to access a rider’s location when its smartphone app is running in the background, and to send special offers to users’ friends and family. Writing about the policy update in a blog post Thursday, Katherine Tassi, managing counsel of data privacy at Uber, noted that users will be in control in either case, and will be able to choose whether to share that data. The company has faced criticism in the past over how it handles sensitive information, particularly over its so-called ”God view” tool that apparently lets some Uber employees track the location of customers that have requested car service.

Submission + - Russian internet trolls? Who'd have guessed?

Submitted by baegucb
baegucb writes: I rarely submit a story, but this might have some lively debate "The trolls are employed by Internet Research, which Russian news reports say is financed by a holding company headed by Putin's friend and personal chef. Those who have worked there say they have little doubt that the operation is run from the Kremlin."

According to http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech...

Submission + - Feds Bust a Dark-Web Counterfeit Coupon Kingpin (wired.com)

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: The dark web has become the go-to corner of the Internet to buy drugs, stolen financial data, guns...and counterfeit coupons for Clif bars and condoms?

On Thursday, the FBI indicted 30-year old Beauregard Wattigney, a Louisiana-based technician for ITT Technical Institute, on charges of wire fraud and trademark counterfeiting on the Dark Web marketplaces Silk Road and Silk Road 2. Wattigney is accused of being the online coupon kingpin known as ThePurpleLotus or TheGoldenLotus, who sold packages of coupons for virtually every consumer product imaginable including alcohol, cigarettes, cleaning supplies, beauty products, video games, and consumer electronics. The spoofed coupons—in most cases offering discounts just as effective as the real thing—were offered in packages that cost customers around $25 in bitcoin, but offered hundreds of dollars in total fraudulent discounts. Eventually he even sold a counterfeit coupon-making guide and access to a custom coupon-making fraud service.

The FBI accuses Wattigney of being responsible for more than $1 million total damages to the affected companies, which range from Sony to Crest to Kraft. But one fraud consultant who tracked Purple Lotus on the dark web for more than a year says the damage is likely far higher, in the tens of millions of dollars.

Submission + - A Gigabit Fiber Startup Will Compete With Comcast in Detroit

Submitted by Jason Koebler
Jason Koebler writes: Detroit's residents and many of its businesses are served by Comcast, whose fastest internet speeds in the city max out at 105 Mb/s. Rocket Fiber, which is set to start serving businesses and residents this fall, is planning on offering gigabit internet speeds similar to those of Google Fiber for $70 per month (for home service), which is $45 cheaper than what Comcast charges for its fastest residential service.
The hope is that fiber internet service will attract new companies as it has in places like Kansas City, which is served by Google Fiber, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has built out its own fiber internet service.
"The broadband situation here is bad, and we're all extremely passionate about Detroit—we've been here for years now" Rocket Fiber cofounder Edi Demaj said. "We think that money follows money. We need to build the things we know make a great city if we actually want to have a great city."

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