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Submission + - ESA: No conclusive evidence of Big Bang gravitational waves (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed based on joint analysis of data gathered by ground based BICEP2 and Keck Array experiments and its own Planck satellite that previous reports of BICEP2’s primordial gravitational waves detection are untrue and they haven’t found any conclusive evidence that they were detected.

Submission + - Chemists find way to unboil egg; pave way for reduced cost of cancer treatment (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: Chemists over at University of California, Irvine and those from South Australia’s Flinders University have found a way to unboil a hen egg — the process and technique they claim will dramatically reduce not only costs cancer treatment but also food production and all areas of biotechnology related to proteins. Using a urea substance, Weiss and his colleagues re-created a clear protein lysozyme by liquefying the boiled egg white. The protein bits are still balled up into unusable masses and to get them in proper order scientists used a vortex fluid device designed by Professor Colin Raston's laboratory at South Australia's Flinders University. Using the device, shear stress within thin, microfluidic films is applied to the balled up proteins forcing them back into untangled, proper form. Pharmaceutical companies currently create cancer antibodies in expensive hamster ovary cells that do not often misfold proteins. The ability to quickly and cheaply re-form common proteins from yeast or E coli bacteria could potentially streamline protein manufacturing and make cancer treatments more affordable, researchers said.

Submission + - SpaceX, US Air Force settle spy sat dispute (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: The US Air Force and private space flight company SpaceX have settled their dispute involving military’s expendable rocket program thereby paving way for the latter to join the spy satellite launch programme under Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). The settlement opens doors for SpaceX to compete with United Launch Alliance (ULA) for launch of spy satellites. ULA is a joint Boeing-Lockheed venture – the only private player to have received clearance for launching black ops satellites.

Submission + - Rare astronomical event will see triple moon shadows on Jupiter (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: Stargazers are in for a treat as they will be able to witness a rare astronomical event early tomorrow morning (January 24, 2015) where shadows of three of Jupiter’s largest moons — Io, Europa, and Callisto — will fall upon Jupiter simultaneously. Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles will provide a live online broadcast on its Livestream channel. The event is slated to being on January 24, 2015 at 4:30 AM GMT and should end by 7:00 am GMT. For those in the PST, the event will happen today from 8:30 pm to 11:00 pm.

Submission + - US Air Force declassifies nearly 130,000 pages of UFO investigations (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: The US Air Force has declassified nearly 130,000 pages of UFO investigations and sighting making them available online for anyone to download and read. The files were already available on microfilm in the National Archives in Washington, but this is for the first time they have been available online. The Air Force's response to Project Bluebook is simple albeit, it has found "no evidence indicating that sightings categorized as ‘unidentified’ are extraterrestrial vehicles." Diving into the files reveals that out of the 12,600 reported sightings, only 701 remain "unidentified".

Submission + - The Anthropocene Epoch began with 1945 atomic bomb test, scientists say (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: Human behaviour has had a great impact on the Earth and owing to the advancements and human activities since mid-19th century, Scientists have proposed July 16, 1945 as the beginning of the Anthropocene Epoch. According to scientists, ‘the Great Acceleration’ – the period when human activities started having a significant and enormous impact on Earth – can be dubbed as the beginning of the new epoch. Since the ‘Great Acceleration’ there has been a significant increase in population, environmental upheaval on land and oceans and global connectivity. Dr Jan Zalasiewicz and Professor Mark Williams of the Department of Geology, University of Leicester say that human activities are changing the geology “creating new and distinctive strata that will persist far into the future.” The Anthropocene was first proposed by the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen just 15 years ago and it means the epoch dominated by influence of humans and their activities or the human epoch in short.

Submission + - AI experts sign open letter pledging to protect mankind from machines (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: Artificial intelligence (AI) experts from all across the globe are signing an open letter urging that AI research should not only be done to make it more capable, but should also proceed in a direction that makes it more robust and beneficial all the while protecting mankind from machines. Future of Life Institute, a volunteer-only research organization, has put out an open letter to ensure that the progress in the field of AI does not grow out of control – an early attempt to draw everyone’s mind towards the probable dangers of a machine that could enslave humankind. The letter’s concluding remarks read: “Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity, and it is therefore worthwhile to research how to maximize these benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls.”

Submission + - NASA's New Horizons to arrive at Pluto with Clyde Tombaugh's ashes (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: NASA’s New Horizons is bringing with it the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh – its discoverer – as it cruises towards the now dwarf-planet or ‘plutoid’. The probe will be close enough on January 15 to start observing Pluto. Clyde Tombaugh discovered the ice and rock-laden Pluto in 1930 and one of his final requests was that his ashes be sent into space. Tombaugh died on January 17, 1997. Fulfilling that wish NASA has fitted the upper deck of New Horizons probe with a small container containing Tombaugh’s ashes alongside a total of 7 scientific instruments. “Interned herein are remains of American Clyde W. Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and the solar system’s ‘third zone'”, reads the inscription on the container.

Submission + - Massive Sony breach sheds light on murky hacker universe (aljazeera.com)

Daniel_Stuckey writes: Who is really behind the cyber attack on Sony Pictures? The FBI has placed the blame for the attack, which caused the entertainment giant to temporarily halt its Dec. 25 release of its film "The Interview," squarely on North Korea, but some security experts are not convinced.

They suggest several other possibilities, not all of them involving North Korea. Based on available evidence, they say that the Sony data breach could have been accomplished by North Koreans inside North Korea; expatriates in China loyal to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un; international hackers abroad sponsored by Pyongyang; or simply bored hackers from another continent doing it for the lulz.

Submission + - Court bans sale of Xiaomi smartphones in India (thenewsreports.com)

hypnosec writes: The Delhi High Court has restrained Xiaomi and India online retailer Flipkart from selling any handsets manufactured by the former that are violating Ericsson patents through an interim order. The court has also asked Xiaomi and its agents to refrain from making, assembling, importing or selling any devices which infringe upon mobile phone technology patented by Ericsson.

Submission + - G.fast receives ITU approval; paves way for 500Mbps to 1Gbps speeds over copper (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has formally approved the G.fast standard that intends to deliver broadband speeds between 500Mbps to 1Gbps over traditional copper cables found between fibre-equipped street cabinets and homes / businesses. Cheaper than fibre to the premises (FTTP), the G.fast standard provides the means to use existing infrastructure to deliver greater broadband speeds. One of the major drawbacks of the technology is that as the distance increases the download and upload speeds decrease just as ADSL and VDSL. Despite the decline in speeds, the technology does offer far greater speeds as compared to its counterparts. ITU said in a statement that G.fast will enable implementation of bandwidth-intensive applications and services including IPTV, 4K video streaming, advanced cloud-based storage solution, HD video conference among others.

Submission + - Bristol University researchers develop touchable holograms (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: Researchers at the University of Bristol have developed new technology that lets people touch and feel holograms with their bare hands. The research, led by Dr Ben Long and colleagues Professor Sriram Subramanian, Sue Ann Seah and Tom Carter from the University of Bristol, has led to the creation of a system that lets people see and feel 3-D shapes made out of air by using focused ultrasound. The technology makes use of ultrasound to project 3-D haptic holograms. By focusing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances can be seen as floating 3D shapes. These shapes when added to 3D displays create something that can be seen and felt. The shapes can be viewed by directing the ultrasound at an oil film on water.

Submission + - Denuvo DRM cracked by Chinese hackers (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: A Chinese hacker group has claimed that they have managed to crack Denuvo DRM — the latest anti-piracy measure to protect PC games from piracy. Introduced for the first time in FIFA 15 for PC, the Denuvo anti-piracy solution managed to keep the FIFA 15 uncracked for 2 months and Dragon Age Inquisition for a month. However, Chinese hackers claim that they have managed to rip open the DRM after fifteen days of work. The hackers have uploaded a video to prove their accomplishment.

A couple of things need to be pointed out here. First,the Chinese team has merely cracked the DRM and this doesn't necessarily mean that there are working cracks out there. Also, the crack only works with Windows 7 64-bit systems and won't work on Windows 8 or Windows 7 32-bit systems for now. The team is currently working to collect hardware data on processor identification codes.

Submission + - Microsoft's age-old image library 'Clip Art' is no more (techienews.co.uk)

hypnosec writes: Microsoft has finally bid a goodbye to the age-old Clip Art image library found in its Office products as its usage has been declining over the years. Redmond replaced the Clip Art’s online image library with Bing Image Search. This means that people searching for online images inside an Office app will now be directed to a gallery powered by Bing Images that will bring in results from around the web. Bing's copyright filter based on the Creative Commons licensing system will let users get royalty-free images which they can use, share, or modify for either personal or commercial use.

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