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Submission + - Hulu Blocks VPN Users (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by electronic convict
electronic convict writes: Hulu, apparently worried that too many non-U.S. residents are using cheap VPN services to watch its U.S. programming, has started blocking IP address ranges belonging to known VPN services. Hulu didn't announce the ban, but users of the affected VPNs are getting this message:

Based on your IP-address, we noticed that you are trying to access Hulu through an anonymous proxy tool. Hulu is not currently available outside the U.S. If you’re in the U.S. you’ll need to disable your anonymizer to access videos on Hulu.

Hulu may make Hollywood happy by temporarily locking out foreign users—at least until they find new VPN providers. But in so doing it's now forcing its U.S. customers to sacrifice their privacy and even to risk insecure connections. Hulu hasn't even implemented SSL on its site.

Submission + - Why Speed-Reading Apps Don't Work (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Does reading faster mean reading better? That’s what speed-reading apps claim, promising to boost not just the number of words you read per minute, but also how well you understand a text. There’s just one problem: The same thing that speeds up reading actually gets in the way of comprehension, according to a new study. Apps like Spritz or the aptly named Speed Read are built around the idea that these eye movements, called saccades, are a redundant waste of time. It’s more efficient, their designers claim, to present words one at a time in a fixed spot on a screen, discouraging saccades and helping you get through a text more quickly. But that's not what researchers have found.

Submission + - The Mirror that Shows Your Insides (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: You stand in the dark facing a mirror; before you appears a digitized reflection. As you move, the reflection moves with you. It is you, but as you have never been seen before. Skin removed, the image shows the organs, muscles, and bone structures that lie beneath. It’s an experience that leaves you feeling utterly exposed and redefines what it means to be naked: You are seeing yourself inside-out for the very first time. This was the reality presented to participants at the trial of an interactive artwork called Primary Intimacy of Being. Developed by Xavier Maître, a medical imaging researcher at the University of Paris South, the mirror makes use of the university's latest technology in imaging and processing. It combines information from a series of PET/ MRI scans and x-rays with Microsoft Kinect motion capture technology to produce a mirror that seems to reflect the individual without skin. It moves with them and appears to be a true reflection.

Submission + - This Chip Can Tell If You've Been Poisoned (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: When you are dealing with a deadly poison that can be found in food and is a potential terrorist weapon, you want the best detection tools you can get. Now, researchers in France have demonstrated an improved method to detect the most deadly variant of the botulinum neurotoxin, which causes botulism. Their test--essentially, a lab on a tiny chip--provides results faster than the standard method and accurately detects even low concentrations of the toxin.

Submission + - Colin Powell, Hans Blix, and how the IAEA went from lapdog to watchdog in Iraq (thebulletin.org) 1

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: This is an excellent book review and summary of the new book 'Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme: The Inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1991-1998,' which tells the story of the transformation of the International Atomic Energy Agency from an ineffective inspection agency to a solid and assertive watchdog whose work In Iraq helped reduce Saddam Hussein's nuclear program to nothing. 'The story of the nuclear inspections in Iraq and the resulting transformation of the IAEA is not merely of historical interest. The debate over Iran today bears an uncanny resemblance to the Iraq debate of the 1990s...Without a full accounting of Iran’s nuclear activities past and present, the prospects of a durable diplomatic settlement are nil.' Great read.

Submission + - Space Hackers preparing to recover a 36 year old historic Spacecraft from Deep S

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A band of engineers, space hackers, has picked up the carrier signal and is now trying to do something hard and never done before — recover a 36 year old NASA spacecraft (http://makezine.com/2014/04/24/crowdfunding-the-recovery-of-a-lost-spacecraft/) from the grips of deep space and time. ISEE-3, later rechristened ICE, the International Cometary Explorer, is returning to Earth. With old NASA original documents and with Rockethub crowdfunding (http://www.rockethub.com/42228), a team led by Dennis Wingo and Keith Cowing is attempting to steer the spacecraft back into a Earth orbit and return it to scientific operations. Dennis says, "ISEE-3 can become a great teaching tool for future engineers and scientists that will design and travel to Mars". Only 40 days remain before the spacecraft will be out of range for recovery. A radio telescope is available, command and telemetry, propulsion design are in hand but things have to come together (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/space/nasa/how-to-resurrect-a-35-year-old-spacecraft-16724874?src=spr_TWITTER&spr_id=1457_54583169) and the team is hoping for public support to provide the small amount needed to accomplish a very unique milestone in space exploration.
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Dear Slashdot. My user account is staffinfection but I have not used it for some time. I do not have the linked email to recover the password. Can you send me the password to telluric@hotmail.com or tim.reyes@yahoo.com? I am a nasa engineer (http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/profile/treyes/).

Submission + - When it comes to security at nuclear facilities, danger likely lurks from within (stanford.edu)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "Insider threats are the most serious challenge confronting nuclear facilities in today's world, a Stanford political scientist says.

In every case of theft of nuclear materials where the circumstances of the theft are known, the perpetrators were either insiders or had help from insiders, according to Scott Sagan and his co-author, Matthew Bunn of Harvard University, in a research paper published this month by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

"Given that the other cases involve bulk material stolen covertly without anyone being aware the material was missing, there is every reason to believe that they were perpetrated by insiders as well," they wrote.

And theft is not the only danger facing facility operators; sabotage is a risk as well, said Sagan, who is a senior fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor in Political Science.

While there have been sabotage attempts in the United States and elsewhere against nuclear facilities conducted by insiders, the truth may be hard to decipher in an industry shrouded in security, he said.

"We usually lack good and unclassified information about the details of such nuclear incidents," Sagan said.

The most recent known example occurred in 2012 – an apparent insider sabotage of a diesel generator at the San Onofre nuclear facility in California. Arguably the most spectacular incident happened at South Africa's Koeberg nuclear power plant (then under construction) in South Africa in 1982 when someone detonated explosives directly on a nuclear reactor."

Submission + - The rise, fall, and rehabilitation of Internet Explorer (citeworld.com)

Submitted by mattydread23
mattydread23 writes: Why did Microsoft miss so many opportunities with the web? Why did IE drop the ball, what made Microsoft wake up to the potential of the Web — and will IE be able to stay modern in the world of living standards that never stop changing? Veteran Microsoft writer Mary Branscombe has penned the definitive history of Internet Explorer, from its genesis in the early 1990s all the way up to IE11 today. It's a long read, but fascinating for anybody interested in the future of the web and the standards that drive it.

Submission + - Blood of world's oldest woman hints at limits of life (newscientist.com) 1

Submitted by porkchop_d_clown
porkchop_d_clown writes: When Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper died in 2005, she was the oldest woman in the world. Today New Scientist is reporting that, at the end of her life, most of her white blood cells had been produced by just two stem cells — implying the rest of her blood stem cells had already died, and hinting at a possible limit to the human life span.

Submission + - Making graphene work for real-world devices (nsf.gov)

Submitted by aarondubrow
aarondubrow writes: Graphene, a one-atom-thick form of the carbon material graphite, is strong, light, nearly transparent and an excellent conductor of electricity and heat, but a number of practical challenges must be overcome before it can emerge as a replacement for silicon in electronics or energy devices. One particular challenge concerns the question of how graphene diffuses heat, in the form of phonons. Thermal conductivity is critical in electronics, especially as components shrink to the nanoscale. Using the Stampede supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center, Professor Li Shi simulated how phonons (heat-carrying vibrations in solids) scatter as a function of the thickness of the graphene layers. He also investigated how graphene interacts with substrate materials and how phonon scattering can be controlled. The results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Applied Physical Letters and Energy and Environmental Science.

Submission + - New Shape Born From Rubber Bands (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: Physicists playing with rubber bands have discovered a new shape. In an attempt to create a spring that replicates the light-bending properties of cuttlefish ink sacs, a team of researchers suspended two rubber strips of different lengths. Connecting the bottoms of the two strips to a cup of water, the shorter band stretched to the same length as the longer one. After gluing the two stretched strips together, the researchers gradually drained the water from the cup. As the bands retracted and twisted from the reduced strain, the researchers were shocked to see the formation of a hemihelix with multiple rainbow-shaped boundaries called perversions. The team hopes their work inspires nanodevices and molecules that twist and transform from flat strips into predetermined 3D shapes on demand.

Submission + - Georgia Law Allows Guns in Bars and School Zones

Submitted by wjcofkc
wjcofkc writes: CNN reports Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed into law a vast bill that will allow guns in some bars, churches, school zones, government buildings and certain parts of airports. GeorgiaCarry, which lobbied for the bill, calls it "meaningful pro-gun legislation," while the main opposing group, Americans for Responsible Solutions, calls the bill "extremism in action."

Submission + - Superintelligent AI Could Wipe Out Humanity, If We're Not Ready for It (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Today, it's the looming advancements in artificial intelligence that promise to create programs with superhuman intelligence—the infamous singularity—that are starting to weigh on the public consciousness, as blockbuster ‘netsploitation flick Transcendence illustrates. There’s a danger that sci-fi pulp like Transcendence is watering down the real risks of artificial intelligence in public discourse. But these threats are being taken very seriously by researchers who are studying the existential threat of AI on the human race. Dismissing hyper-intelligent machines as mere science fiction “would be a mistake, and potentially our worst mistake ever,” wrote Stephen Hawking in an article he recently penned for the Huffington Post alongside some other leading physicists. They claim we need to seriously research the existential risks and ethical concerns surrounding the future of AI, because the survival of the human species could depend on it.

Submission + - Nine Patterns Make Up 92% Of Security Incidents

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon security researchers have found that 92 percent of the 100,000 security incidents analyzed over the past ten years can be traced to nine basic attack patterns that vary from industry to industry. On average, just three threat patterns cover 72 percent of the security incidents in any industry. For example, in the financial services sector, 75 percent of the incidents come from Web application attacks, DDoS and card skimming, while 54 percent of all manufacturing attacks are attributed to cyber espionage and DDoS.

Submission + - Aereo has its (first) day before Supreme Court

Submitted by v3rgEz
v3rgEz writes: Aereo, which streams broadcast TV over the Internet, devised a somewhat extreme hack to get around public performance and copyright law: Give each user their own antenna, creating thousands of individual "remote DVRs" for the masses. Predictably, broadcaster have freaked out, and now the Supreme Court has heard initial arguments to determine whether Aereo's model has any legal weight. Here's the full transcript (Warning: Big PDF). The court is expected to rule by the end of June.

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