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Submission + - Secure Smartphone Developed (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by Shooter28
Shooter28 writes: From the source: Just more than a month before the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spanish handset maker Geeksphone, in partnership with encrypted communications firm Silent Circle, announced a smartphone that takes mobile security seriously. It's called Blackphone, and it runs PrivatOS, a security-focused version of Android.

This is supposed to a unlocked phone that can be used on any carrier and was developed with the help of the creator of PGP. Just how secure this actually is yet to be determined.

Submission + - Comedians Found To Have Higher Levels Of Four Psychotic Personality Traits (yahoo.com)

Submitted by cold fjord
cold fjord writes: Yahoo has a story from Reuters, "Having an unusual personality structure could be the secret to making other people laugh, scientists said ... In a study in the British Journal of Psychiatry, researchers analyzed comedians from Australia, Britain and the United States and found they scored significantly higher on four types of psychotic characteristics compared to a control group of people who had non-creative jobs. The traits included a tendency towards impulsive or anti-social behavior, and a tendency to avoid intimacy. "The creative elements needed to produce humor are strikingly similar to those characterizing the cognitive style of people with psychosis — both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," said Gordon Claridge of the University of Oxford's department of experimental psychology, who led the study."

Submission + - Heat Waves in Australia are Getting More Frequent - and Hotter (climatecouncil.org.au)

Submitted by vikingpower
vikingpower writes: In a landmark report on bushfires and climate change, the Australian Climate Council concludes that heat waves in Australia, as driven by climate change, are becoming more frequent — and that they get hotter. "It is crucial that communities, emergency services, health services and other authorities prepare for the increasing severity and frequency of extreme fire conditions.", says the Council in the report. Sarah Perkins, one of the report's co-authors, was interviewed by The Guardian Australia. "“While we can’t blame climate change for any one event, we can certainly see its fingerprint. This is another link in the chain.” Perkins said her latest work had analysed heatwave trends up to 2013. She said the trend “just gets worse – it’s a bit scary really”." Already back in 2009, the United Nations World Meteorological Organization signaled that a Southeast Australian heatwave was the hottest in 100 years.

Submission + - NSA Collects 200 Million Text Messages Per Day (theguardian.com)

Submitted by ilikenwf
ilikenwf writes: A new release from the files obtained by Edward Snowden have revealed that the NSA collects millions of text messages per day. These are used to gain travel plans, financial data, and social network data. The majority of these texts and data belong to people who are not being investigated for any crime or association. Supposedly, "non-US" data is removed, but we all know that means it is sent to a partner country for analysis, which is then sent back to the NSA.

Submission + - There's a huge energy scandal happening right underneath your feet (medium.com)

Submitted by gallifreyan99
gallifreyan99 writes: Researchers from Duke revealed today that they had discovered nearly 5,900 gas leaks under the streets of Washington DC, including 12 that posed a serious risk of explosion. And it's not just Washington: a gas industry whistleblower who is part of the team showed this was happening in cities all over America. Why is that a big deal? Leaky pipes cause death, destruction —and the data means natural gas could actually be one of the worst fuels around.

Submission + - Revolutionary Scuba Mask Creates Breathable Oxygen Underwater On Its Own (themindunleashed.org) 3

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: With the Triton Oxygen Respirator, it might be possible to breathe beneath the surface of the water as if you were a fish. Requiring no bulky tank to keep your lungs pumping properly, this invention of scuba diving equipment is much more ergonomic and organic in design.

The regulator comprises a plastic mouthpiece that requires you to simply bite down. There are two arms that branch out to the sides of the scuba mask that have been developed to function like the efficient gills of a marine creature. The scaly texture conceals small holes in the material where water is sucked into Jeabyun Yeon's Triton. Chambers inside separate the oxygen and release the liquid so that you can breath comfortably in the ocean.

Submission + - How the Historical Apollo 8 Earthrise Pic Was Captured by Luck

Submitted by Tablizer
Tablizer writes: On Dec. 24, 1968--45 years ago this week--by what is essentially coincidence and fast thinking, one of the most iconic photographs in human history was taken: Earthrise over the Moon. It occurred during Apollo 8 as astronauts Jim Lovell, Bill Anders, and Frank Borman were orbiting the Moon--the first humans in history to do so. Their orbital motion brought the Earth into view over the Moon’s horizon, moving slowly upward into the black sky...The good folks at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center’s Scientific Visualization Studio...recreate the events that led to the history-changing moment.

Submission + - Disappeared Kdenlive Developer Has Been Found

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A month ago there was worry about Kdenlive main developer being missing. Good news guys, Jean-Baptiste Mardelle has been finally reached and is doing fine. In a new mailing list post by Vincent Pinon, he says he managed to find Mardelle's phone number and contacted the longtime KDE developer. It was found out that Mardelle took a break over the summer but then lost motivation in Kdenlive under the burden of the ongoing refactoring of the code. Pinon agreed that there are 'so many things to redo almost from scratch just to get the 'old' functionalities'. The full story can be read from the kdenlive-devel mailing list. After talking with Jean-Baptiste, Vincent has called upon individual developers interested in Kdenlive to come forward. Among the actions called for is putting the Git master code-base back in order, ensuring the code is in good quality, provide new communication about the project, integrate new features like GPU-powered effects and a Qt5 port, and progressively integrate the new Kdenlive design.

Submission + - Scientists Crack Major Aids Mystery

Submitted by mrspoonsi
mrspoonsi writes: Business Insider Reports: The difference between HIV infection and full-blown AIDS is, in large part, the massive die-off of the immune system's CD4 T-cells. But researchers have only observed the virus killing a small portion of those cells, leading to a longstanding question: What makes the other cells disappear? New research shows that the body is killing its own cells in a little-known process. What's more, an existing, safe drug could interrupt that self-destruction, thereby offering a way to treat AIDS. The destructive process has caught scientists by surprise. "We thought HIV infects a cell, sets up a virus production factory and then the cell dies as a consequence of being overwhelmed by virus. But there are not enough factories to explain the massive losses," says Warner Greene, director of virology and immunology at the Gladstone Institutes, whose team published two papers today in Science and Nature describing the work. Greene estimates 95 percent of the cells that die in HIV infections are killed through pyroptosis, so the findings raise hope for a new type of treatment that could prevent HIV from progressing into AIDS. "Inhibiting activation of the immune system is not a new concept, but this gives us a new pathway to target," says Robert Gallo. And in fact, a drug already exists that can block pyroptosis. Known as VX-765, it was tested years ago by Vertex Pharmaceuticals as a treatment for chronic seizure disorder. A trial showed that it wasn't effective enough against seizures, but it was safe for humans. "Now it's just sitting on a shelf waiting for a disease to cure," says Greene, who is trying to arrange a phase II trial to test the drug in HIV patients."

Submission + - Microsoft Security Essentials misses 39% of malware (pcpro.co.uk)

Submitted by Barence
Barence writes: The latest tests from Dennis Publishing's security labs saw Microsoft Security Essentials fail to detect 39% of the real-world malware thrown at it. Dennis Technology Labs (DTL) tested nine home security products on a Windows 7 PC, including Security Essentials, which is distributed free to Windows users and built into Windows 8 in the form of Windows Defender. While the other eight packages all achieved protection scores of 87% or higher — with five scoring 98% or 99% — Microsoft's free antivirus software protected against only 61% of the malware samples used in the test. Microsoft conceded last year that its security software was intended to offer only "baseline" performance".

Submission + - NSA Shuts down critics under guise of copyright violations (infowars.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: “Can a government agency block criticism by claiming copyright infringement? Sounds a bit ridiculous but it is happening. The NSA is effectively stopping one small business owner from criticism, claiming that by using its name he has infringed on their copyright,” according to a report by Infowars guest and investigative journalist Ben Swann.

Submission + - Boyfriend tracker app pulled from Google App store on privacy concerns (ibtimes.com) 1

Submitted by twitnutttt
twitnutttt writes: The NSA may be monitoring your phone and email, and retailers may be striving to automatically recognize you in their stores, but your girlfriend may be your biggest privacy threat right now. After 50,000 downloads since launch, the Brazilian "Boyfriend Tracker" app has been pulled from Google Play. It allows suspicious girlfriends to "obtain a call history, receive any incoming or outgoing text messages, identify a partner’s location on a map using GPS, and can [sic] turn on the phone to listen in to the surrounding environment. The app also lets users know when a phone is turned off or set to Airplane Mode." The various options are controlled via text message codes. If you have to track him, you probably should dump him.

Submission + - Bionic Skin: The Killer App for Flexible Electronics (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: Most of the researchers who work on flexible electronics imagine putting their materials to use in flexible displays, like a rollable, foldable iPad that you could cram in your pocket. And I'm not saying that wouldn't be cool. But researcher Takao Someya of the University of Tokyo has a different idea: He wants his ultra-thin, ultra-flexible electronics to be used as bionic skin.

Someya and other researchers have created circuits that stick to your skin, and that can stretch and bend as you move your body. These materials are still in the labs, but the scientists imagine many uses for them. For example, if a synthetic skin is studded with pressure and heat sensors, it could be used as a lifelike covering for prosthetic limbs. There are also potential biomedical applications: The e-skin could discreetly monitor an outpatient's vital signs, and send the data to a nearby computer.

The article includes a short vid showing Someya's material in action.

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