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Submission + - Obama Administration Studies Impact Of Big Data On Privacy (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: It's somewhat ironic, given the revelations about NSA spying, but the Obama Administration is making a big push to study how the emerging practices around big data analytics affect citizens' privacy, in both the public and private sector. Among the questions being considered: whether the Administration's Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, introduced in 2012, is already outdated, and how the Fourth Amendment's requirements for probably cause on law enforcement search and seizures can be reconciled with modern abilities of predicative analysis.

Submission + - NASA Forgets How to Talk to ICE/ISEE-3 Spacecraft 1

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Randall Munroe's XKCD cartoon on the ICE/ISEE-3 spacecraft inspired me to do a little research on why Nasa can no long communicate with the International Cometary Explorer. Launched in 1978 ISEE-3 was the first spacecraft to be placed in a halo orbit at one of Earth-Sun Lagrangian points (L1). It was later (as ICE) sent to visit Comet Giacobini-Zinner and became the first spacecraft to do so by flying through a comet's tail passing the nucleus at a distance of approximately 7800 km. ICE has been in a heliocentric orbit since then, traveling just slightly faster than Earth and it's finally catching up to us from behind, and will return to Earth in August. According to Emily Lakdawalla, it's still functioning, broadcasting a carrier signal that the Deep Space Network successfully detected in 2008 and twelve of its 13 instruments were working when we last checked on its condition, sometime prior to 1999. Can we tell the spacecraft to turn back on its thrusters and science instruments after decades of silence and perform the intricate ballet needed to send it back to where it can again monitor the Sun? Unfortunately the answer to that question appears to be no. "The transmitters of the Deep Space Network, the hardware to send signals out to the fleet of NASA spacecraft in deep space, no longer includes the equipment needed to talk to ISEE-3. These old-fashioned transmitters were removed in 1999." Could new transmitters be built? Yes, but it would be at a price no one is willing to spend. "So ISEE-3 will pass by us, ready to talk with us, but in the 30 years since it departed Earth we've lost the ability to speak its language," concludes Lakdawalla. "I wonder if ham radio operators will be able to pick up its carrier signal — it's meaningless, I guess, but it feels like an honorable thing to do, a kind of salute to the venerable ship as it passes by."

Submission + - How the Next Keurig Will Make Your Coffee: with a Dash of DRM (techdirt.com)

Submitted by FuzzNugget
FuzzNugget writes: Apparently seeking to lock competitors out of the burgeoning single-serve coffee market, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, maker of the popular Keurig coffee machines, is jumping on the DRM bandwagon. GMCR's CEO confirmed this in a statement, heaping piles of marketing doublespeak about providing "game-changing functionality and performance" by using "interactive technology" to "ensure quality". The obvious goal, of course, is to prevent "unlicensed" third parties from selling compatible refills and reusable pods. Want to bet on quickly the DRM will be subverted? Loser buys coffee.

Submission + - Supreme Court Ruling Expands Police Authority In Home Searches (latimes.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: The LA Times reports, "Police officers may enter and search a home without a warrant as long as one occupant consents, even if another resident has previously objected, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday ... The 6-3 ruling ... gives authorities more leeway to search homes without obtaining a warrant, even when there is no emergency. The majority ... said police need not take the time to get a magistrate's approval before entering a home in such cases. But dissenters ... warned that the decision would erode protections against warrantless home searches. ... The case began when LAPD officers responded to reports of a street robbery ... They pursued a suspect to an apartment building, heard shouting inside a unit and knocked on the door. Roxanne Rojas opened the door, but her boyfriend, Walter Fernandez, told officers they could not enter without a warrant. ... Fernandez was arrested in connection with the street robbery and taken away. An hour later, police returned and searched his apartment, this time with Rojas' consent. They found a shotgun and gang-related material."

Submission + - Find Along Chilean Highway Suggests Ancient Mass Stranding of Whales (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: In 2010, workers widening a remote stretch of highway near the northwestern coast of Chile uncovered a trove of fossils, including the skeletons of at least 30 large baleen whales. The fossils—which may be up to 9 million years old—are the first definitive examples of ancient mass strandings of whales, according to a new study. The work also fingers a possible culprit.

Submission + - Why the Rush To 64-bit Mobile Processors? (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett
itwbennett writes: Apple started it with the A7 processor. Qualcomm and Intel have followed. But why? 'Jumping to 64-bits in no real way makes a processor any faster or more efficient or draw less power,' writes blogger Andy Patrizio. 'There might be some instances where performance improves due to longer registers, but you won't see that on a smartphone.'

Submission + - Augmented Reality Treatment Alleviates Phantom Limb Pain (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Studies have shown that a large percentage of amputees feel pain in their missing limbs. This condition, known as phantom limb pain (PLP), is caused by the part of brain responsible for a limb's movement becoming idle once that limb is lost. The ailment has so far proven difficult to treat, but a new study suggests therapy involving augmented reality and gaming could stimulate these unused areas of the brain, resulting in a significant reduction in discomfort.

Submission + - Verizon CEO says heavy broadband users should pay more for their service (bgr.com)

Submitted by zacharye
zacharye writes: Are you constantly streaming high-definition video, downloading tons of Xbox One games and sending massive files to friends and family? You should pay more for Internet access than your neighbor, who only uses a 10-year-old PC in his living room to read email and occasionally browse the Internet for cat GIFs. This is the position of Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, who said this week that heavy broadband users should have to pay more for home Internet access than those who don’t take full advantage of the service for which they already pay top dollar...

Submission + - Is Bitcoin the Key to Digital Copyright? (reason.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: Bitcoin’s technology could help solve one of the gnarliest problems of 21st Century copyright. If you buy a book at Barnes and Noble, you are free to give it away to a friend after you’ve read it, or sell it to a used book store. But you can’t if you buy that same book for your Kindle or iPad. To lend, sell, or give away a digital copy of a digital book or song is copyright infringement.

The Bitcoin network allows one to transfer tokens called bitcoins, and to date these tokens have been used to represent money. But there’s no reason they could not represent a particular instance of a song or a book or a movie.

Particular music files could be associated with a particular user’s public Bitcoin addresses and encrypted in such a way that the user’s corresponding private key is needed to play the songs. Selling, lending, or giving away a song or a book would be as simple as sending it to someone else’s public address. At that point, only recipient’s private keys can unlock the file. And this would all be cryptographically provable, without requiring trust.

An astute reader will have noticed that this would essentially be a kind of universal digital rights management (DRM) scheme, and that’s certainly the case. But unlike traditional DRM, the system would not rely on central corporate authority, but on a decentralized network that is quickly emerging as a new standard Internet protocol. Alternatively, no DRM can be employed and the blockchain can simply serve as registry to legitimate transfers.

Submission + - YouTube Ordered to Remove "Illegal" Copyright Blocking Notices (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Music collecting society and anti-piracy group GEMA has scored a big victory in its long-running battle with Google-owned YouTube. A court has ordered the video giant to remove blocking messages which claim GEMA is to blame for thousands of videos being unavailable in Germany on copyright grounds.

Simply searching for the terms “unavailable in Germany” reveals the scale of the problem. Thousands of complaints, from the man in the street right up to record label bosses, show that the licensing dispute with collecting society/anti-piracy group GEMA has hit in every corner.

Submission + - Court Rules Off-The-Grid Living Is Illegal (offthegridnews.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: Living off the grid is illegal in Cape Coral, Florida, according to a court ruling Thursday.

Special Magistrate Harold S. Eskin ruled that the city’s codes allow Robin Speronis to live without utility power but she is still required to hook her home to the city’s water system. Her alternative source of power must be approved by the city, Eskin said.

At the hearing, Eskin noted that city officials have not actually been in Speronis’s home to make that determination.

The International Property Maintenance Code is used in communities throughout the United States and Canada. The code states that properties are unsafe to live in if they do not have electricity and running water. Speronis has electricity and water. She gets running water by collecting rainwater and electricity from solar panels.

Submission + - Terrafugia Steers In Direction of Autonomous Flying Cars (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Terrafugia, a company that has been working on flying car prototypes for years, said it is now leaning toward an autonomous vehicle for safety reasons. Carl Dietrich, co-founder, CEO and CTO at Terrafugia, said at MIT last weekend that the company wants to build something that is statistically safer than driving a car. "It needs to be faster than driving a car. It needs to be simpler to operate than a plane. It needs to be more convenient than driving a car today. It needs to be sustainable in the long run," he said. The company's flyable car is designed with foldable wings and falls into the light sport aircraft category. It's expected to take off and land at small, local airports and to drive on virtually any road. Dietrich said the next-generation flying car is a four-seat, plug-in hybrid that doesn't require the operator to be a full-fledged pilot. A spokeswoman said today that the company is probably two years away from production.

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