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Submission + - UK Government seeks to extend snooping on public (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Martin Spamer
Martin Spamer writes: Theresa May the current UK Home Secretary (the cabinet minister responsible for policing) is attempting to force through a new law that will require ISPs to record the identity of users of each IP address and hand those details over to police on demand.

It is claimed this is necessary for national security, despite the fact the vast majority of the 570,000 data requests made last year did not involve any national security issues.

Stake your claim for internet freedom now

Submission + - NASA offering contracts to encourage Asteroid Mining

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Two private companies, Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources, have received contracts from NASA to study asteroid redirection and will pursue their plans of asteroid mining. From the article: "Deep Space Industries is planning to build a number of dense spacecrafts called FireFlies, and they plan on sending the satellites on one way missions to gather information about the density, shape, composition and size of an asteroid. They also have plans to build a spacecraft called Dragonfly, which has the purpose of catching asteroids. The asteroid material will be collected and returned to Earth by 'Harvesters'. Planetary Resources, on the other hand, plans to build a number of middle sized and small telescopes that will be capable of examining asteroids near the planet Earth for economic potential. They already have the telescopes Arkyd 300, Arkyd 200 and the Arkyd 100, each having its own specific systems."

Submission + - Open source and Internet of Things can save public sector millions (cio.co.uk)

Submitted by Qedward
Qedward writes: Open source software and the Internet of Things are two of the disruptive approaches which can save the public sector during the UK government's austerity measures and lay the ground to deliver next generation digital services, Camden Council CIO John Jackson believes.

Local government organisations are approaching a critical tipping point which could save the public sector and the taxpayer billions, Jackson said.

Camden has to save £150 million between 2012 and 2018 from its bottom line while at the same time delivering fundamental transformation to tackle inequality, foster economic growth and deliver citizen centric services, Jackson explained as he outlined the council's challenges.

"But there's lots of cynicism around open source and the art of the possible, particularly in the CIO community who want to buy things off the shelf and are too worried about security, Jackson said."

"We need to harness the potential of open source. Don't outsource IT, crowdsource it."

Submission + - EU considers splitting up Google to stop search abuse (v3.co.uk)

Submitted by DW100
DW100 writes: MEPs in Europe want to split Google up to curb its apparent abuse of the search market, although they have no real authority to force Google into any such measures. The move seems to really be a case of putting pressure on the new competition chief to find a way to, in turn, put pressure on Google to come up with search concessions that actually meet its concerns.

Submission + - Robot makes people feel like a ghost is nearby (sciencemag.org) 1

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: In 2006, cognitive neuroscientist Olaf Blanke of the University of Geneva in Switzerland was testing a patient’s brain functions before her epilepsy surgery when he noticed something strange. Every time he electrically stimulated the region of her brain responsible for integrating different sensory signals from the body, the patient would look back behind her back as if a person was there, even when she knew full well that no one was actually present. Now, with the help of robots, Blanke and colleagues have not only found a neurological explanation for this illusion, but also tricked healthy people into sensing “ghosts,” they report online today in Current Biology. The study could help explain why schizophrenia patients sometimes hallucinate that aliens control their movements.

Submission + - Wind Power Generated 126% of Scotland's Household Energy Needs Last Month (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Taffykay
Taffykay writes: According to new statistics released by the World Wildlife Fund Scotland, Scottish renewable energy had a “bumper month” in October, 2014, with wind power alone generating an estimated 982,842 MWh of electricity. This is enough clean energy to power around 3,045,000 homes, and equates to 126 percent of the electricity needs of Scottish households. Solar power and hot water generation also performed well, despite the country’s reputation for grey and misty weather.

Submission + - 'Star Wars: Episode VII' has a title: 'The Force Awakens' (ew.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: If you feel a disturbance in the Force, it’s millions of voices suddenly crying out the new title of Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens. The reveal comes as the movie finishes its final day of shooting (with many more months of post-production to come.)

Although there were still a few days left of shooting, the cast of the J.J. Abrams film already celebrated their wrap party last weekend, following a bumpy few months of principal photography thrown into crisis when Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, broke his leg on set in an accident involving a falling door on the Millennium Falcon.

Submission + - This app can solve differential equations, just by taking a photo of them (geektime.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Croatian startup MicroBlink built an an app that solves differential equations, just by taking a photo of the equation. If there was concern in higher education about smartphones being used to cheat in exams, now that fear has become even more justified.
The app, called PhotoMath operates in the most intuitive and easy to use manner: You just need to use your smartphone’s camera. After running the app, you aim the camera at the equation or exercise, and within seconds, without even pressing one button, the solution will appear on the screen. Just like that. To reach this level of simplicity, the application uses an advanced and fast OCR algorithm that identifies the characters and digits in front of you instantaneously. But the application does not stop there. If you want, with one click you can see all the steps taken to get to your final answer. The solution can be broken down into the step-by-step actions, and the user can simply browse back and forth between the different steps. The app currently supports arithmetic functions like addition, subtraction, division and multiplication; fractions and decimals; roots and powers; and simple linear equations with one or two unknown variables. Application developers are promising that additional, more complicated functions will be introduced in the near future to solve calculus and combinatorics equations.

Submission + - How the Big Bang's alternatives died

Submitted by StartsWithABang
StartsWithABang writes: It’s such a part of our cosmic and scientific history, that it’s difficult to remember that it’s only been for the past 50 years that the Big Bang has been the leading theory-and-model that describes our Universe. Ever since the 1920s, when Edwin Hubble discovered the apparent expansion of our Universe, we’ve recognized that it’s a much bigger place than simply what’s in the Milky Way. But the Big Bang was hardly the only game in town. Yet the discovery of not only the Cosmic Microwave Background, but the detailed measurement of its temperature and spectrum, was able to rule out every single alternative as a non-viable model.

Submission + - The Inevitable Death of the Internet Troll 4

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: James Swearingen writes at The Atlantic that the Internet can be a mean, hateful, and frightening place — especially for young women but human behavior and the limits placed on it by both law and society can change. In a Pew Research Center survey of 2,849 Internet users, one out of every four women between 18 years old and 24 years old reports having been stalked or sexually harassed online. "Like banner ads and spam bots, online harassment is still routinely treated as part of the landscape of being online," writes Swearingen adding that "we are in the early days of online harassment being taken as a serious problem, and not simply a quirk of online life." Law professor Danielle Citron draws a parallel between how sexual harassment was treated in the workplace decades ago and our current standard. "Think about in the 1960s and 1970s, what we said to women in the workplace," says Citron. "'This is just flirting.' That a sexually hostile environment was just a perk for men to enjoy, it's just what the environment is like. If you don't like it, leave and get a new job." It took years of activism, court cases, and Title VII protection to change that. "Here we are today, and sexual harassment in the workplace is not normal," said Citron. "Our norms and how we understand it are different now."

According to Swearingen, the likely solution to internet trolls will be a combination of things. The expansion of laws like the one currently on the books in California, which expands what constitutes online harassment, could help put the pressure on harassers. The upcoming Supreme Court case, Elonis v. The United States, looks to test the limits of free speech versus threatening comments on Facebook. "Can a combination of legal action, market pressure, and societal taboo work together to curb harassment?" asks Swearingen. "Too many people do too much online for things to stay the way they are."

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