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Submission + - Small Genetic Change Responsible for Blond Hair (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: For all those brunettes wishing they were naturally blond, a small genetic change could have made all the difference. Scientists have found that replacing one of DNA’s four letters at a key spot in the genome shifts a particular gene’s activity and leads to fairer hair. Not only does the work provide a molecular basis for flaxen locks, but it also demonstrates how changes in segments of DNA that control genes, not just changes in genes themselves, are important to what an organism looks like.

Submission + - Popular shuttered torrent site Demonoid returns

Submitted by AudioEfex
AudioEfex writes: Demonoid has emailed all registered users that it is back online — at it's original site — in a new "cloud based" back-end. There have been various attempts in the past (including one accused of simply being malware,), but so far this appears to be the original site admins and a legitimate resurrection. User registrations are also open at this time, but as a semi-private tracker, it's unknown how long that will continue.

Submission + - Kleargear.com found in Europe, will fight default judgement

Submitted by portforward
portforward writes: Remember Kleargear.com, that company who bills unhappy customers $3,500 for publicly expressing they are unhappy? Kleargear.com claimed they were owed a substantial amount of money after a couple posted their negative experience on RipoffReport.com and then attempted to collect, severly damaging the the family's credit rating. The unlucky couple sued, and got a default judgement against Kleargear in part because no one could actually find the owners of the company. Apparently now the owners have surfaced in Paris — vowing to fight and saying:

"Our sales contract is enforceable under the laws of the United States because business transactions are exempt from First Amendment rights ... If a customer disagrees with any merchant of policies, they are free to shop elsewhere."

Especially, of course, when the company adds conditions to the bill of sale after the sale is complete.

Submission + - SSD breakthrough means 300% speed boost, 60% less power usage.even on old drives 1

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: A breakthrough has been made in SSD technology that could mean drastic performance increases due to the overcoming of one of the major issues in the memory type. Currently, data cannot be directly overwritten onto the NAND chips used in the devices. Files must be written to a clean area of the drive whilst the old area is formatted. This eventually causes fragmented data and lowers the drive's life and performance over time. However, a Japanese team at Chuo University have finally overcome the issue that is as old as the technology itself. Officially unveiled at the 2014 IEEE International Memory Workshop in Taipei, the researchers have written a brand new middleware for the drives that controls how the data is written to and stored on the device. Their new version utilizes what they call a 'logical block address scrambler' which effectively prevents data being written to a new 'page' on the device unless it is absolutely required. Instead, it is placed in a block to be erased and consolidated in the next sweep. This means significantly less behind-the-scenes file copying that results in increased performance from idle.

Submission + - Questionable Patents From MakerBot (openbeamusa.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: OpenBeam USA is a Kickstarted company that builds open source aluminum construction systems (think erector sets). One of the main uses for the system is building 3D printers, and creator Terence Tam is heavily involved in the 3D-printing community. He's now put up a blog post about some disturbing patents filed by MakerBot. In particular, he notes a patent for auto-levelling on a 3D printer. Not only is this an important upcoming technology for 3D printers, the restriction of which would be a huge blow to progress, it seems the patent was filed just a few short weeks after Steve Graber posted a video demonstrating such auto-levelling. There had also been a Kickstarter campaign for similar tech a few months earlier. Tam gives this warning: 'Considering the Stratasys — Afinia lawsuit, and the fact that Makerbot is now a subsidiary of Stratasys, it's not a stretch to imagine Makerbot coming after other open source 3D manufacturers that threaten their sales. After all, nobody acquires a patent warchest just to invite their competitors to sit around the campfire to sing Kumbaya. It is therefore vitally important that community developed improvements do not fall under Makerbot's (or any other company's) patent portfolio to be used at a later date to clobber the little guys.'

Submission + - Anti Virus Is Dead (But Still Makes Money) Says Symantec (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Symantec says anti virus is dead but the company — the world's largest IT security firm — still makes 40 percent of its revenue there. AV now lets through around 55 percent of attacks, the company's senior vice president of information security told the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, other security firms including FireEye, RedSocks and Imperva are casting doubt on AV, suggesting a focus on data loss prevention might be better.

Submission + - Polio Declared Emergency as Conflicts Fuel Virus Spread (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "The spread of polio to countries previously considered free of the crippling disease is a global health emergency, the World Health Organization said, as the virus once driven to the brink of extinction mounts a comeback.

Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria pose the greatest risk of exporting the virus to other countries, and should ensure that residents have been vaccinated before they travel, the Geneva-based WHO said in a statement today after a meeting of its emergency committee. It’s only the second time the United Nations agency has declared a public health emergency of international concern, after the 2009 influenza pandemic

Polio has resurged as military conflicts from Sudan to Pakistan disrupt vaccination campaigns, giving the virus a toehold. The number of cases reached a record low of 223 globally in 2012 and jumped to 417 last year, according to the WHO. There have been 74 cases this year, including 59 in Pakistan, during what is usually polio’s “low season,” the WHO said. "

Submission + - DoJ closing porn stars bank accounts.

Submitted by MouseTheLuckyDog
MouseTheLuckyDog writes: In a recent story on reason.com it was reported that the DoJ is closing down the bank accounts of porn stars.
Not knowing the site I googled around and found another site, the Guardian.

The story does not end there. It turns out that this is part of a larger scheme ( ironically ) called Operation Choke Point. Also reported in a Washington Post article that downplays the practice.

According to Cryptocoin news. There are thirty industries the DoJ is now targeteting:
        *Ammunition Sales *Cable Box De-scramblers *Coin Dealers *Credit Card Schemes
        *Credit Repair Services *Dating Services *Debt Consolidation Scams *Drug Paraphernalia
        *Escort Services *Firearms Sales *Fireworks Sales *Get Rich Products *Government Grants
        *Home-Based Charities *Life-Time Guarantees *Life-Time Memberships *Lottery Sales
        *Mailing Lists/Personal Info *Money Transfer Networks *On-line Gambling *PayDay Loans
        *Pharmaceutical Sales *Ponzi Schemes *Pornography *Pyramid-Type Sales *Racist Materials
        *Surveillance Equipment *Telemarketing *Tobacco Sales *Travel Clubs

But more can be added. ( I notice alcohol sales is not on the list).
The Media

DreamWorks Animation CEO: Movie Downloads Will Move To Pay-By-Screen-Size 347

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the uh-huh dept.
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of Dreamworks Animation, speaking at the Milken Global Conference in California, opined that the future pricing model for movie downloads will revolve around screen size. In his view, larger screens will incur larger download prices. As he says, 'It will reinvent the enterprise of movies.' Unclear is how physical dimensions, rather than just resolution matrix, will be determined. Will we soon be saying 'hello' to screen spoofing?" Can you fake the physical dimensions reported in the EDID block when the connection is using HDCP? Aside from the implication that this would mean more DRM (and seems pretty unworkable, but with the rise of locked bootloaders on even x86 hardware...), the prices he predicts seem alright: "A movie screen will be $15. A 75-inch TV will be $4. A smartphone will be $1.99."

Submission + - Australian NBN targets users which already have fibre

Submitted by aberglas
aberglas writes: The taxpayer funded NBN has announced that it will prioritize people that already have fibre provided by rival TPG instead of the poor sods that have no broadband at all or are stuck on ADSL 1. To date they have mainly provided service to those that already have fast ADSL2 or cable. That is because the NBN bureaucrats are more interested in stifling competition and fattening their own portfolio than they are at helping those without internet. The NBN lobby group hopes to help shift that crazy priority. The article discusses the issue in some depth.

Submission + - Android Smartphone Activation in the U.S. Triumphs Over iOS in Q1 (awaissoft.com)

Submitted by awaissoft
awaissoft writes: Google’s Android platform dominated the smartphone market in the U.S. yet again with majority smartphone activations during the first quarter, while Apple’s iOS came in second place.

The dominance of the Android platform in the U.S. smartphone market continued as it again took the top spot during the first quarter of 2014. According to new data from research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, CIRP, Android smartphone activations accounted for 53 percent of the entire market share in the U.S., but Apple’s iOS platform witnessed a significant drop from the previous quarter, nabbing 42 percent of all activations during the CIRP’s survey period.

The results were based on a survey of 500 U.S. residents who activated their devices from January through March. CIRP’s data only shows the number of new activations and not the total number of devices running Android or iOS.

Since Android and iOS took the majority share, with 95 percent of all activations in the U.S., other competing platforms were left with a mere 5 percent. Based on the findings, Microsoft’s Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS took one percent each and the remaining three percent was mustered by basic phones.

The results show a significant drop in the non-smartphone activations, down 20 percent from the beginning of Q1, CIRP shows. As for Android, the market share grew significantly from 43 percent at the beginning of the quarter to 53 percent by the end of the period. The growth was seen for iOS platform as well, which was weighed at 30 percent at the beginning to 42 percent during the quarter’s end.

“On a percentage bases during the quarter, iOS grew a little faster than Android, from a smaller base, even though in absolute terms Android had a larger share,” Mike Levin, Partner and Co-Founder of CIRP, said in a press release, Friday. “The long term issue is where Android and iOS growth will come from when there are no more basic phones being retired. First time smartphone buyers are key to that equation.”

Another recent survey from a market intelligence firm, IDC, revealed in February that Android accounted for nearly 80 percent of all smartphones in 2013. The survey was conducted on a global level and showed the total number of devices powered by different mobile operating systems and not just activations.

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