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Submission + - New eyeglasses translate languages on restaurant menus, street signs (networkworld.com)

Submitted by colinneagle
colinneagle writes: NTT Docomo introduced a new head-worn device that overlays the user's native language onto foreign-language text as the user looks at it during the recent Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies show in Japan.

The glasses will be the most useful when travelers are navigating a foreign country or trying to read text in a foreign language. Examples given in a statement provided to AFP include reading restaurant menus, although the ability to read foreign-language street signs may prove quite valuable as well. The report also mentions that "the glasses are likely to be ready for visitors attending the 2020 Tokyo Olympics," which explains why NTT Docomo developed the technology to begin with. Such a massive, international event is a great opportunity to introduce a product that bridges the langauge gap. It's similar to Twitter's presence at the 2007 South by Southwest conference, where the company mounted massive televisions that streamed attendees' Tweets and allowed them to communicate en masse.

Submission + - Scientists Discover Source of Imagination in Human Brain (scienceworldreport.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Science World Report reports, "Do you remember playing pretend when you were a child? ... This ability to use your imagination doesn't disappear after childhood, though; it persists when people create art, invent tools and think scientifically. Now, scientists have discovered the source of human imagination. In the past, researchers have theorized that the human imagination requires a widespread neural network in the brain. ... In their study, the researchers asked 15 participants to imagine specific abstract visual shapes and to mentally combine them into more complex figures or to mentally dismantle them into their separate parts. The scientists then measured the participants' brain activity with functional MRI. ... It turns out that a cortical and subcortical network over a large part of the brain was responsible for the imagery manipulations. This network closely resembled the "mental workspace" that scientists theorized might be responsible for imagination." Paywalled academic paper

Submission + - Boeing:Less than 30 days to design and fly DARPA competition drone (suasnews.com)

Submitted by garymortimer
garymortimer writes: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is looking for a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft that can fly fast, hover efficiently and carry a lot of cargo. Thanks to rapid prototyping, a team of Boeing Phantom Works engineers in Philadelphia designed and built a flying subscale model of the innovative Phantom Swift in time to be part of Boeing’s proposal for DARPA’s vertical takeoff and landing X-Plane competition.

The scaled model of the Phantom Swift went from being an idea to a flying prototype in less than a month. It will serve the team as a flying laboratory.

Submission + - Depletion of 'traitor' immune cells slows cancer growth in mice (washington.edu)

Submitted by vinces99
vinces99 writes: When someone has cancer, some of the body's cells have changed and are growing uncontrollably. Most cancer drugs try to treat the disease by killing those fast-growing cells, but another approach called immunotherapy tries to stimulate a person’s immune system to attack the cancer itself. Now, scientists at the University of Washington have developed a strategy to slow tumor growth and prolong survival in mice with cancer by targeting and destroying a type of cell that dampens the body’s immune response to cancer. The researchers published their findings this week (Sept. 16) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Our immune system normally patrols for and eliminates abnormal cells. Macrophages are a type of helpful immune cell that can be converted to the “dark side” by signals they receive from a tumor. When inside a tumor, macrophages can switch from helping the immune system to suppressing the body’s immune response to cancer. Several studies show a correlation between the number of macrophages in tumor biopsies and poor prognosis for patients, the researchers say. The UW team developed a method to target and eliminate the cancer-supporting macrophages in mouse tumors. This strategy, the researchers predict, could be used along with current treatments such as chemotherapy for cancer patients.

Submission + - Tor usage more than doubles in August (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: The Tor (The Onion Router) network has witnessed over 100 per cent rise in the number of users connecting to it for the month of August and has reached record levels for the first time since the project has been collecting usage statistics. The privacy-enhancing network is known for providing anonymous browsing experience through the use of a series of encrypted relays and had as many has 500k users throughout this year so far. But if we check the latest statistics available through Tor Metrics Portal there has been a whopping 100 per cent increase in number of Tor clients and as many as 1,200,000 users are connecting to the network. The previous peak for the network was in January 2012 when it saw as many as 950,000 users.

Submission + - Carbyne: A Form of Carbon Even Stronger Than Graphene 1

Submitted by Dialecticus
Dialecticus writes: Sebastian Anthony at ExtremeTech has written an article about research into the physical properties of carbyne, an elusive form of carbon. A new mathematical analysis by Mingjie Liu and others at Rice University suggests that carbyne may achieve double the strength of graphene, stealing its crown and becoming the strongest material known to man.

Submission + - Moto X's Moto Maker: Designing the next two years of your life (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: There’s no question about it — we have reached a point where smartphones are as much a part of our lives as any device can be. One need only scroll down to the comments section on any tech news site or blog to see how passionate people can be when it comes to their smartphone of choice. But when buying such an important device, why should vendors have all the say when it comes to design? Unless you plan to swallow a penalty or pay a premium tied to a crafty new accelerated upgrade scheme, your smartphone is going to be a huge part of your life for the next two years. Giving users the ability to customize their handsets to speak to their individual styles seems like a big advantage, albeit a complicated and pricey endeavor — but that’s exactly what Motorola and Google have done with the Moto X...

Submission + - Amazon Selects Their Favorite Fake Customer Reviews (beyond-black-friday.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon's just created a new web page where they're officially acknowledging fake reviews posted by their customers — and they've even selected their own favorites. ("I was very disappointed to have my uranium confiscated at the airport. It was a gift for my son for his birthday. Also, I’m in prison now, so that’s not good either...") On the front page of Amazon, in big orange letters, Amazon posted "You guys are really funny." And then — next to a funny picture of a rubber horse head mask — Amazon's linked to a list of some of the very best satirical reviews their customers have submitted over the years, noting fondly that "occasionally customer creativity goes off the charts in the best possible way..."

Submission + - US Horse Registry Forced to Accept Cloned Horses by Judge (reuters.com)

Submitted by kdryer39
kdryer39 writes: U.S. District Court Judge Mary Lou Robinson said she will sign an order requiring the American Quarter Horse Association to begin allowing cloned animals to be placed on its registry, according to the organization. A jury last month ruled that the horse association violated anti-monopoly laws by banning cloned animals. The quarter horse association issues and maintains a pedigree registry of American quarter horses, a popular breed associated with cowboys riding on the range in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Submission + - EFF Slams Google Fiber for Banning Servers On Its Network (hothardware.com) 3

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Anyone who has tried to host their own website from home likely knows all-too-well the hassles that ISPs can cause. Simply put, ISPs generally don't want you to do that, preferring you to move up to a business package (aka: more expensive). Not surprisingly, the EFF doesn't like these rules, which seem to exist only to upsell you a product. The problem, though, is that all ISPs are deliberately vague about what qualifies as a "server". Admittedly, when I hear the word "server", I think of a Web server, one that delivers a webpage when accessed. The issue is that servers exist in many different forms, so to target specific servers "just because" is ridiculous (and really, it is). Torrent clients, for example, act as servers (and clients), sometimes resulting in a hundred or more connections being established between you and available peers. With a large number of connections like that being allowed, why would a Web server be classified any different? Those who torrent a lot are very likely to be using more ISP resources than those running websites from their home — yet for some reason, ISPs force you into a bigger package when that's the kind of server you want to run. We'll have to wait and see if EFF's movement will cause any ISP to change. Of all of them, you'd think it would have been Google to finally shake things up.

Submission + - The First "Practical" Jetpack May Be on Sale in Two Years (vice.com) 1

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: This week, New Zealand-based company Martin Aircraft became certified to take what it calls "the world's first practical jetpack" out for a series of manned test flights. If all goes well, the company plans to start selling a consumer version of the jetpack in 2015, starting at $150,000 to $200,000 and eventually dropping to $100,000. "For us it's a very important step because it moves it out of what I call a dream into something which I believe we're now in a position to commercialize and take forward very quickly," CEO Peter Coker told Agence France Presse .

Submission + - Behind the story of the iPhone's default text tone (tuaw.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a fascinating post from Kelly Jacklin, the long time Apple software engineer details how he helped create the default text alert sound on the iPhone — a sound otherwise known as "Tri-tone".

The history of the the pleasant text alert sound that we've all come to know and love stretches all the way back to 1998, nearly 10 years before the iPhone ever hit store shelves.

Submission + - Deutsche Telekom Moves Email Traffic In-Country in Wake of PRISM (reuters.com)

Submitted by kdryer39
kdryer39 writes: Germany's leading telecom provider has announced on Friday that it will only being using German servers to handle any email traffic over it's systems, citing privacy concerns arising from the recent PRISM leak and it's 'public outrage over U.S. spy programs accessing citizens' private messages.' In a related move, DT has also announced that they will be providing email services over SSL to further secure their customers' communications.

Sandro Gaycken, a professor of cyber security at Berlin's Free University, said 'This will make a big difference...Of course the NSA could still break in if they wanted to, but the mass encryption of emails would make it harder and more expensive for them to do so.'

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