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Submission + - Australian physicists build reversible tractor beam (anu.edu.au)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Physicists at Australian National University have developed a tiny tractor beam that improves in several ways upon previous attempts. First, it operates on scales which, while still tiny, are higher than in earlier experiments. The beam can move particles up to 200 microns in diameter, and it can do so over a distance of 20 cm. "Unlike previous techniques, which used photon momentum to impart motion, the ANU tractor beam relies on the energy of the laser heating up the particles and the air around them. The ANU team demonstrated the effect on gold-coated hollow glass particles. The particles are trapped in the dark center of the beam. Energy from the laser hits the particle and travels across its surface, where it is absorbed creating hotspots on the surface. Air particles colliding with the hotspots heat up and shoot away from the surface, which causes the particle to recoil, in the opposite direction. To manipulate the particle, the team move the position of the hotspot by carefully controlling the polarization of the laser beam.

Submission + - Facebook to DEA: Stop Using Phony Profiles to Nab Criminals

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: CNNMoney reports that Facebook has sent a letter to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration demanding that agents stop impersonating users on the social network. "The DEA's deceptive actions... threaten the integrity of our community," Facebook chief security officer Joe Sullivan wrote to DEA head Michele Leonhart. "Using Facebook to impersonate others abuses that trust and makes people feel less safe and secure when using our service." Facebook's letter comes on the heels of reports that the DEA impersonated a young woman on Facebook to communicate with suspected criminals, and the Department of Justice argued that they had the right to do so. Facebook contends that their terms and Community Standards — which the DEA agent had to acknowledge and agree to when registering for a Faceook account — expressly prohibit the creation and use of fake accounts. "Isn't this the definition of identity theft?" says Privacy researcher Runa Sandvik. The DEA has declined to comment and referred all questions to the Justice Department, which has not returned CNNMoney's calls.

Submission + - Dr.Who to teach kids to code (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by DCFC
DCFC writes: The BBC is releasing a game to help ten 8-11 year olds get into coding. Based on Dr.Who, it alternates between standard platform game and programming puzzles that introduce the ideas of sequence, loops, if..then, variables and a touch of event driven programming...and you get to program a Dalek to make him more powerful, apparently the BBC thinks upgrading psychopathic racist death machines is a good idea.

Submission + - First Demonstration Of Artificial Intelligence On A Quantum Computer

Submitted by KentuckyFC
KentuckyFC writes: Machine learning algorithms use a training dataset to learn how to recognise features in images and use this 'knowledge' to spot the same features in new images. The computational complexity of this task is such that the time required to solve it increases in polynomial time with the number of images in the training set and the complexity of the "learned" feature. So it's no surprise that quantum computers ought to be able to rapidly speed up this process. Indeed, a group of theoretical physicists last year designed a quantum algorithm that solves this problem in logarithmic time rather than polynomial, a significant improvement. Now, a Chinese team has successfully implemented this artificial intelligence algorithm on a working quantum computer, for the first time. The information processor is a standard nuclear magnetic resonance quantum computer capable of handling 4 qubits. The team trained it to recognise the difference between the characters '6' and '9' and then asked it to classify a set of handwritten 6s and 9s accordingly, which it did successfully. The team say this is the first time that this kind of artificial intelligence has ever been demonstrated on a quantum computer and opens the way to the more rapid processing of other big data sets--provided, of course, that physicists can build more powerful quantum computers.

Submission + - Annals of sleazy domain name squatting

Submitted by lpress
lpress writes: The domain name ebola.com is for sale. In the meantime, the folks who own it are redirecting to ebola.org, where you can read frightening articles and purchase BHT, a nutritional supplement that could help with ebola. I don't know which is more depressing — the fact that someone would try to exploit the ebola epidemic this way or that there are enough people who would pay for BHT to fend off ebola to make squatting on disease domain names a profitable business.

Submission + - Supposed Battery Breakthrough. 70% charge in 2mins, 20yr life. (ntu.edu.sg)

Submitted by chaosdivine69
chaosdivine69 writes: According to Scientists at Nanyang Technology University (NTU), they have developed ultra-fast charging batteries that can be recharged up to 70 per cent in only two minutes and have a 20 yr lifespan (10,000 charges). The impact of this is potentially a game changer for a lot of industries reliant on lithium ion batteries.

In the car industry for example, consumers will save huge on costs for battery replacement and manufacturers will save on material construction since they're using a nanotube structure of Titanium dioxide which is an abundant, cheap and safe material found in soil. Titanium dioxide is commonly used as a food additive or in sunscreen lotions to absorb harmful ultraviolet rays. It is believed that charging an electric car can be achieved in as little as 5 minutes making it comparable to filling up a gasoline based automobile.

Submission + - Analysis of Linux backdoor used in freenode hack

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A detailed analysis has been done of the Linux backdoor used in the freenode hack. It employed port knocking and crypto to provide security of the backdoor against others using it.. This seems a little more sophisticated than your average jane hacker.. Criminal? Government?

Submission + - Remote exploit vulnerability found in bash (csoonline.com)

Submitted by kdryer39
kdryer39 writes: A remotely exploitable vulnerability has been discovered by Stephane Chazelas in bash on Linux and it is unpleasant. The vulnerability has the CVE identifier CVE-2014-6271. This affects Debian as well as other Linux distributions.

The major attack vectors that have been identified in this case are HTTP requests and CGI scripts. Another attack surface is OpenSSH through the use of AcceptEnv variables. As well through TERM and SSH_ORIGINAL_COMMAND. An environmental variable with an arbitrary name can carry a nefarious function which can enable network exploitation.
Windows

Submission + - WINDOWS 8 PREVIEW REVEALS MAJOR UI METAMORPHOSIS (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
martty
martty writes: "Microsoft began its Windows 8 publicity blitz in earnest Wednesday, previewing an operating system that appears to break from the norm in more ways than one.
It has a tile interface similar to that of Windows Phone 7, it will run on PCs and tablets, and it will support both touchscreen and mouse-and-keyboard interactions."
Microsoft

Submission + - 8 rumored features in Windows 8 (networkworld.com)

Submitted by stinkymountain
stinkymountain writes: Microsoft recently allowed select OEM partners to download updated preview builds of Windows 8. Since then, there have been several leaked images of supposedly new features that you might see in the next version of Windows when it launches (perhaps in early 2012). And Microsoft showed off some features in a preview last week. Here's a compilation...
The Internet

EU Telecom Deal Finished — No Three Strikes 109

Posted by Soulskill from the infield-fly-rule-still-applies-though dept.
a_n_d_e_r_s writes "The battle was hard, but the final text of the agreement ensures that people in the EU are not disconnected from the Internet without a chance to get a fair and impartial hearing beforehand. The important part is: 'Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.' This means that if someone is accused of copyright infringement, they can't just be disconnected from Internet. It lets the accused get a chance to disagree and take it to court first. The urgency clause means that a computer can be disconnected if it is part of an ongoing DDoS attack. Next, this has to be implemented into the EU nations' own laws, so the final ruling on how this will be implemented is not out yet. But, overall, it looks like a great success in stopping informal three-strikes disconnections."
Space

Submission + - The tech aboard the International Space Station (cnet.co.uk)

Submitted by CNETNate
CNETNate writes: With its own file server for uploaded Hollywood blockbusters, a 10Mbps Internet connection to Earth and a stock of IBM ThinkPad notebooks for sending emails, the amount of consumer technology aboard the $150 billion International Space Station is impressive. Yet it's the responsibility of just two guys to maintain the uptime of the Space Station's IT, and they have given an in-depth interview with CNET to explain what tech's aboard, how it works and whether Windows viruses are a threat to the astronauts. In a related feature, the Space Station's internal network (which operates over just bandwidth of just1Mbps) and its connected array of Lenovo notebooks is explained, along with the future tech we could see aboard the traveling colony as it traverses the future.
Spam

Submission + - Facebook on Spammer Rampage (cnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Facebook is on a never before seen legal rampage against high profile internet spammers. Today Facebook was awarded yet another 9 figure settlement, this time for over $700 million dollars. Facebook also has a criminal contempt case on Wallace, which means a high likelihood of prison, a big win for the internet and a milestone in cyber law.

From the courts:
"The record demonstrates that Wallace willfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook and the thousands of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct," Fogel wrote in his judgment order, which permanently prohibits Wallace from accessing the Facebook Web site or creating a Facebook account, among other restrictions.
Software

Submission + - Software That Fixes Itself (technologyreview.com) 1

Submitted by shreshtha
shreshtha writes: Martin Rinard, a professor of computer science at MIT, is unabashed about the ultimate goal of his group's research: "delivering an immortal, invulnerable program." In work presented this month at the ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles in Big Sky, MT, his group has developed software that can find and fix certain types of software bugs within a matter of minutes.

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