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Submission + - China Conducts 3rd Anti-Satellite Missile Test

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Diplomat reports that the U.S. is accusing China of secretly conducting an anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test last week.

China originally claimed that it had conducted a ballistic missile defense test but the State Department says it was actually a non-destructive ASAT missile test. Both use hit-to-kill technologies but China has previously differentiated between them. Washington also called on Beijing to refrain from further tests.

Submission + - Energy Firm Accused of Silencing Youtube Video with Bogus Copyright Claim (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: One of India's biggest power companies has been accused of attempting to censor a critical YouTube video by an activist group using tactics "almost too dirty to believe".

GetUp!, an Australian online activist group, claim their video which described energy company Adani as having a "record of environmental destruction across the world" was taken down as a result of bogus copyright claims.

The video, entitled Don't trust this company with our Great Barrier Reef, dismisses the company's plans to create a coal mine off the coast of Australia in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

Submission + - Twitter has been blocked an account of famous Twitter in Russia (dailynewscompany.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Twitter has been blocked an account of famous Twitter in Russia as a result of a request from the Government, only a week after the company denied it would suppress accounts of the extremists "in the country. Global Voices Reports, that the account @ boltai, Russian Anonymous type that regularly publishes Government leaks and other confidential State documents, is not accessible to local users.

A check on Twitter of Russia shows the account is indeed blocked in the country — using the function of specific censure of the location of Twitter — in accordance with a request of the Government of Russia, which is recorded in the Chilling Effects website.

A representative for Twitter says The Next Web company "[is not] any comment on individual accounts, for reasons of privacy and security", but the movement appears to have been in response to a demand that is cited in the application documents for the Russian Government censorship.

A Court of Petersburg awarded the block due to a case not specified in connection with "personal data", according to the document, despite Global Voices points out that there is little information about the demand in the public domain.

Users in Russia can have access to the account to change your global settings to a different country, while an account is no mirror (@ b0ltai2) is not blocked.

A representative for the Government of Russia, said last week that Twitter had agreed to block a maximum of 10 accounts, but at this time, Chilling Effects displays only this sole demand.

Submission + - Almost 1 in 10 Android Apps Are Now Malware

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Cheetah Mobile Threat Research Labs analyzed trends in mobile viruses for Q1 and Q2 of 2014. Pulling 24.4 million sample files they found that 2.2 million files had viruses, roughly 9% of the total. Compared to previous years, this is a 153% increase from the number of infected files in 2013. Asia and select parts of Western Europe have undoubtedly had the highest rates of infection during the past six months. This is due in part to the prevalence of third party app stores in these regions, which have very lax checks to ensure that applications do not contain viruses.

Submission + - USA's record-breaking high speed flagship could be saved from the scrapyard (forasach.ie)

Submitted by fiannaFailMan
fiannaFailMan writes: The SS United States is the fastest ocean liner ever built. A far cry from the heyday of these great ships that were made obsolete by jet travel, her gutted hulk has been rusting in Philadelphia since 1996. However, like the majestic Queen Mary that now serves as a floating hotel and museum in Long Beach, there are plans afoot to finally find the "big U" a permanent home in New York as part of a waterfront redevelopment.

Submission + - US Navy sonar causing whale deaths (wired.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: US Navy's sonar is so loud that it is causing whales' brain to hemorrhage and blood vessels bursting, and when that happened, whales go up to the shallow waters and sometimes ended up beaching themselves.That happened in the Bahamas, back in March, 2000

On the morning of March 15, 2000, 17 beaked whales stranded themselves on beaches in the northern Bahamas. It was an terrible and extraordinary event: Beaked whales are the world’s deepest-diving mammals, and these creatures had spent most of their lives in deep undersea canyons. For even one to show up in shallow water would be extremely unusual, for 17 to strand was almost inconceivable

It just so happened that just a few feet away from one of the beaches lived Ken Balcomb, a beaked whale researcher who more than anyone in the world was equipped to find out what happened. Long before Mr. Balcomb started studying whales he had served two tours of duty in the Navy, where he’d done classified work with submarine-detecting sonar. He knew just how loud it could be, and in days following the stranding he photographed Navy destroyers in Bahamian waters

Mr. Balcomb had several of the dead whales’ heads sent for autopsies—and when they returned evidence of hemorrhages, he knew what happened. The whales had fled to shallow water to escape noise so concussively loud it burst blood vessels in their brains.

“I believe the Navy did it,” Balcomb soon announced at a press conference. With that began an epic legal and scientific battle to make the Navy admit what happened, and then to do something about it. Against all odds, it’s a battle in which Balcomb and environmentalists have been largely successful, winning commitments from the Navy to research sonar’s effects on whales and to consider them when planning training exercises

Submission + - New treatment stops type II diabetes (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by multicsfan
multicsfan writes: Injection of protein FGF1 stops weight induced diabetes in its tracks in mice. There appear to be no side effects. The cure lasts 2 days at a time. Future research and human trials are needed to both better understand and create a working drug. There are no signs of hypoglycemia.

Submission + - MIT may have just solved all your data center network lag issues (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: A group of MIT researchers say they’ve invented a new technology that should all but eliminate queue length in data center networking. The technology will be fully described in a paper presented at the annual conference of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication. According to MIT, the paper will detail a system – dubbed Fastpass – that uses a centralized arbiter to analyze network traffic holistically and make routing decisions based on that analysis, in contrast to the more decentralized protocols common today. Experimentation done in Facebook data centers shows that a Fastpass arbiter with just eight cores can be used to manage a network transmitting 2.2 terabits of data per second, according to the researchers.

Submission + - Japan arrests woman for making a printable 3d model of her vagina

Submitted by antifoidulus
antifoidulus writes: The BBC is reporting that a Japanese woman has been arrested for making a 3d model of her vagina that can be printed using a 3d printer. Megumi Igarashi had sent the printable model to people who sent her money to create it. A police spokesman told AFP news agency she had distributed data that could "create an obscene shape". While giant phalluses are a common spectacle at Japanese fertility festivals, apparently vaginas are still considered "taboo". Ms. Igarashi is fighting the charges.

Submission + - FAA-2014-0396: Only a 8 more days to comment. (regulations.gov)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: There's only 8 days left to comment on the FAA's proposed rule — (FAA 2014-0396) "The Interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft" — also known as the "Retribution for we lost the Trappy Case Interpretation" — to prevent the FAA from implementing draconian regulations on owners, flyers, and operators of radio control aircraft.

Submission + - Australia's web censorship law to be scrutinized

Submitted by Bismillah
Bismillah writes: A government inquiry has been launched into whether or not Australian authorities are using Section 313 of the Telecommunications Act inappropriately.

Last year, the Australian securities watchdog used Section 313 powers to force ISPs to block quarter of million web sites — this in order to prevent access to just 1,200 sites the authority deemed harmful.

Submission + - Fossils of Cambrian predator preserved with brain impressions

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Researchers on Wednesday described fossilized remains unearthed in China showing in fine detail the brain structures of a bizarre group of sea creatures that were the top predators more than half a billion years ago. The 520-million-year-old creature, one of the first predators of its day, sported compound eyes, body armor and two spiky claws for grabbing prey. "The animals of the Cambrian are noted for being a collection of oddballs that are sometimes difficult to match up with anything currently living on Earth. But even among these oddities, Anomalocarids stand out (as their name implies). The creatures propelled themselves with a series of oar-like paddles arranged on their flanks, spotted prey with enormous compound eyes, and shoveled them into a disk-like mouth with large arms that resided at the very front of their bodies—although some of them ended up as filter feeders."

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