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Submission + - Police want to remotely drive your stolen Tesla into custody (thenextweb.com) 4

Submitted by AmiMoJo
AmiMoJo writes: Imagine this: You’re leaving work, walking to your car, and you find an empty parking spot — someone stole your brand new Tesla (or whatever fancy autonomous car you’re driving). When you call the police, they ask your permission for a “takeover,” which you promptly give them. Next thing you know, your car is driving itself to the nearest police station. And here’s the kicker — if the thief is inside he will remain locked inside until police can arrest them.

This futuristic and almost slapstick scenario is closer than we think, says Chief Innovation Officer Hans Schönfeld who works for the Dutch police. Currently, his team has already done several experiments to test the crime-halting possibilities of autonomous cars.

Submission + - Google's Duplex Is Rolling Out To Pixel Owners — Here's How It Works

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Google Duplex-powered calls have finally arrived. Sort of. For some people.

A spokesperson confirmed to VentureBeat that Duplex — Google’s artificially intelligent chat agent that can arrange appointments over the phone — has expanded from a “set of trusted tester users” earlier this year to a “small group” of Google Pixel phone owners, who can now use Duplex via the Google Assistant to secure restaurant reservations in “select cities.”

Submission + - Most Americans Don't Think Social Networks Are Good For the World, Survey Finds (axios.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Silicon Valley has a big and growing problem: Americans have rising concerns with its most popular products and a growing majority wants big social media companies regulated, according to new poll conducted by Survey Monkey for “Axios on HBO.” In the past year, there has been a 15-point spike in the number of people who fear the federal government won’t do enough to regulate big tech companies — with 55% now sharing this concern. In that same period, there was a 14-point increase in those who feel technology has hurt democracy and free speech.
The biggest spike has been among Republicans, presumably because of increased concern about perceived censorship of conservative voices on social media. About 40% of Americans still feel that social media is a net positive for society. Overall, 65% of people say smartphones have made their quality of life better.

Submission + - Some Amazon Employees Bought NYC Condos Before News of HQ2 Location Emerged (thehill.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: At least two Amazon employees reportedly purchased condos in a New York City neighborhood before news emerged that the area had been picked to host the company's second headquarters. The employees decided to buy units in a new 11-story condo building in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens just before the first reports of Amazon’s HQ2 location were released this month, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

While employees of companies are barred from buying or selling stocks based on information that has not yet been made public, lawyers told the Journal that they were unaware of any such ban affecting real estate transactions. There are no exact numbers on how many units have gone into contract in the Long Island City area since the announcement, but the Journal reports that one brokerage firm sold nearly 150 units just last week, 15 times its normal volume.

Submission + - First Ever Plane With No Moving Parts Takes Flight (theguardian.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The first ever “solid state” plane, with no moving parts in its propulsion system, has successfully flown for a distance of 60 meters, proving that heavier-than-air flight is possible without jets or propellers. The flight represents a breakthrough in “ionic wind” technology, which uses a powerful electric field to generate charged nitrogen ions, which are then expelled from the back of the aircraft, generating thrust. Steven Barrett, an aeronautics professor at MIT and the lead author of the study published in the journal Nature, said the inspiration for the project came straight from the science fiction of his childhood. “I was a big fan of Star Trek, and at that point I thought that the future looked like it should be planes that fly silently, with no moving parts – and maybe have a blue glow. But certainly no propellers or turbines or anything like that. So I started looking into what physics might make flight with no moving parts possible, and came across a concept known as the ionic wind, with was first investigated in the 1920s.

In the prototype plane, wires at the leading edge of the wing have 600 watts of electrical power pumped through them at 40,000 volts. This is enough to induce “electron cascades”, ultimately charging air molecules near the wire. Those charged molecules then flow along the electrical field towards a second wire at the back of the wing, bumping into neutral air molecules on the way, and imparting energy to them. Those neutral air molecules then stream out of the back of the plane, providing thrust. The end result is a propulsion system that is entirely electrically powered, almost silent, and with a thrust-to-power ratio comparable to that achieved by conventional systems such as jet engines.

Submission + - Ajit Pai Isn't Saying Whether ISPs Deliver the Broadband Speeds You Pay For (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nearly two years have passed since the Federal Communications Commission reported on whether broadband customers are getting the Internet speeds they pay for. In 2011, the Obama-era FCC began measuring broadband speeds in nearly 7,000 consumer homes as part of the then-new Measuring Broadband America program. Each year from 2011 to 2016, the FCC released an annual report comparing the actual speeds customers received to the advertised speeds customers were promised by Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Verizon, AT&T, and other large ISPs. But the FCC hasn't released any new Measuring Broadband America reports since Republican Ajit Pai became the commission chairman in January 2017. Pai's first year as chair was the first time the FCC failed to issue a new Measuring Broadband America report since the program started—though the FCC could release a new report before his second year as chair is complete.

For more than three months, Ars has been trying to find out whether the FCC is still analyzing Measuring Broadband America data and whether the FCC plans to release any more measurement reports. SamKnows, the measurement company used by the FCC for this program, told Ars that Measuring Broadband America is still active and that a new report is forthcoming, hopefully next month. But whether the report is released is up to the FCC, and Chairman Pai's public relations office has ignored our questions about the program. Because of Pai's office's silence, we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) request on August 13 for internal emails about the Measuring Broadband America program and for broadband speed measurement data since January 2017. By law, the FCC and other federal agencies have 20 business days to respond to public records requests.

Submission + - Nearby star is Sun's long-lost sibling

Submitted by The Bad Astronomer
The Bad Astronomer writes: A nearby star, HD 186302, was almost certainly born from the same cloud of gas the Sun was 4.6 billion years ago. Astronomers have found it has an almost identical chemical composition as the Sun, is on a similar orbit around the Milky Way, and has the same age (within uncertainties). Interestingly, it's only 184 light years away, implying statistically many more such stars are waiting to be discovered.

Submission + - Trump's Tariffs Are Bad for the Audio Business (audioholics.com) 1

Submitted by Audiofan
Audiofan writes: The president’s escalating tariff war is wreaking havoc on American businesses that rely on Chinese manufacturing and supply chains. The results are higher prices for consumers, and real risk to small audio businesses, which may not be able to survive in the current climate. Makers of consumer loudspeakers, wireless headphones, high-end audiophile electronics, and professional recording gear are beginning to speak out about how these tariffs are affecting their businesses. Could this spell the end of the American-made loudspeaker manufacturing business that may have no choice but to produce MORE not less of their products overseas to offset the costs on tariffs for globally sourced parts?

Submission + - Ajit Pai Wants To Raise Rural Broadband Speeds From 10Mbps To 25Mbps (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Communications Commission is planning to raise the rural broadband standard from 10Mbps to 25Mbps in a move that would require faster Internet speeds in certain government-subsidized networks. The FCC's Connect America Fund (CAF) distributes more than $1.5 billion a year to AT&T, CenturyLink, and other carriers to bring broadband to sparsely populated areas. Carriers that use CAF money to build networks must provide speeds of at least 10Mbps for downloads and 1Mbps for uploads. The minimum speed requirement was last raised in December 2014.

Today, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said he's proposing raising that standard from 10Mbps/1Mbps to 25Mbps/3Mbps. "[W]'re recognizing that rural Americans need and deserve high-quality services by increasing the target speeds for subsidized deployments from 10/1 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps," Pai wrote in a blog post that describes agenda items for the FCC's December 12 meeting. "[T]he program should support high-quality services; rural Americans deserve services that are comparable to those in urban areas," Pai also wrote.

Submission + - The Slow Death of 'Do Not Track' (nytimes.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: FOUR years ago, the Federal Trade Commission announced, with fanfare, a plan to let American consumers decide whether to let companies track their online browsing and buying habits. The plan would let users opt out of the collection of data about their habits through a setting in their web browsers, without having to decide on a site-by-site basis.

The idea, known as “Do Not Track,” and modeled on the popular “Do Not Call” rule that protects consumers from unwanted telemarketing calls, is simple. But the details are anything but.

Although many digital advertising companies agreed to the idea in principle, the debate over the definition, scope and application of “Do Not Track” has been raging for several years.

Now, finally, an industry working group is expected to propose detailed rules governing how the privacy switch should work. The group includes experts but is dominated by Internet giants like Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google and Yahoo. It is poised to recommend a carve-out that would effectively free them from honoring “Do Not Track” requests.

If regulators go along, the rules would allow the largest Internet giants to continue scooping up data about users on their own sites and on other sites that include their plug-ins, such as Facebook’s “Like” button or an embedded YouTube video. This giant loophole would make “Do Not Track” meaningless.

How did we get into this mess? For starters, the Federal Trade Commission doesn’t seem to fully understand the nature of the Internet.

Submission + - Real Virtual and Augmented Reality Apps, Coming Soon From Facebook (hacked.com)

Submitted by giulioprisco
giulioprisco writes: Oculus VR, the Virtual Reality (VR) technology company acquired by Facebook earlier this year, announced recently that they are acquiring two small start-up companies, Nimble VR and 13th Lab, to fill gaps in their virtual reality capabilities. The acquisitions may indicate that, besides VR games and social worlds, Facebook may target Augmented Reality (AR) applications, like Google is doing with Google Glass.

Submission + - New Paper Claims Neutrino Is Likely A Faster-Than-Light Particle 1

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Phys.org reports that in a new paper accepted by the journal Astroparticle Physics, Robert Ehrlich, a recently retired physicist from George Mason University, claims that the neutrino is very likely a tachyon or faster-than-light particle. Ehrlich's new claim of faster-than-light neutrinos is based on a much more sensitive method than measuring their speed, namely by finding their mass. The result relies on tachyons having an imaginary mass, or a negative mass squared. Imaginary mass particles have the weird property that they speed up as they lose energy – the value of their imaginary mass being defined by the rate at which this occurs. According to Ehrlich, the magnitude of the neutrino's imaginary mass is 0.33 electronvolts, or 2/3 of a millionth that of an electron. He deduces this value by showing that six different observations from cosmic rays, cosmology, and particle physics all yield this same value within their margin of error. One check on Ehrlich's claim could come from the experiment known as KATRIN, which should start taking data in 2015. In this experiment the mass of the neutrino could be revealed by looking at the shape of the spectrum in the beta decay of tritium, the heaviest isotope of hydrogen.p

But be careful. There have been many such claims, the last being in 2011 when the "OPERA" experiment measured the speed of neutrinos and claimed they travelled a tiny amount faster than light. When their speed was measured again the original result was found to be in error – the result of a loose cable no less. "Before you try designing a "tachyon telephone" to send messages back in time to your earlier self it might be prudent to see if Ehrlich's claim is corroborated by others."

Submission + - All your onions are belong to us...Lizard Squad Targets Tor

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: “Lizard Squad,” the notorious hacker collective is now reportedly after the anonymous communication service, the Tor Project. Tor's service keeps users anonymous by bouncing communications around a large network of computers known as "volunteer nodes." But as Gizmodo points out, if one group can control most of the nodes — which is exactly what Lizard Squad is attempting to do here — it may “be able to eavesdrop on a substantial number of vulnerable users.” Computer programmer Nadim Kobeissi says Lizard Squad has claimed nearly half of Tor’s ~8,000 relays. As for the Tor project, the group has not released any statements.

Submission + - The Open Bay Helps Launch 372 'Copies' Of The Pirate Bay In A Week

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: isoHunt, the group now best known for launching The Old Pirate Bay, has shared an update a week after debuting The Open Bay. The Pirate Bay, the most popular file sharing website on the planet, still isn’t back following police raids on its data center in Sweden, but its “cause” is very much alive. So far, 372 “copies” of The Pirate Bay have been created thanks to the project. The torrent database dump, which combines content from isoHunt, KickassTorrents (via its public API), and The Old Pirate Bay, has seen 1,256 downloads to date.

Submission + - India Faces its First Major Net Neutrality Issue

Submitted by Siddharth Srinivas
Siddharth Srinivas writes: Bharti Airtel Ltd, India's largest telecommunications carrier by subscribers, will soon start charging users extra money for using services such as Skype as Indian operators look to boost their data network and revenues.

The Telecom Regulation Authority of India (TRAI) is no stranger to Net Neutrality having sent a note to the ISPs in 2006 suggesting a position for Net Neutrality. TRAI had also recently rejected a proposal by Airtel and other operators the right to charge for free services such as Whatsapp.. Consumers await TRAI's response to Airtel's new pricing.

With no laws enforcing net neutrality in India. India's Net Neutrality discussions have just begun, with proponents rapidly trying to increase awareness.

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