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Submission + - Federal Agency Data Breaches More Than Double Since 2009

Submitted by JCHerbsleb
JCHerbsleb writes: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports via the Weekly Standard that Federal Data Breaches of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) have more than doubled since 2009. Given the increased quantity of data the government is holding both through new health care initiatives (Healthcare.Gov, Healthcare Data Hub, etc.) and through various NSA spying programs, this may spell greater risk to both individuals and businesses. Yahoo News confirms that not only have data breaches occured, but they have been handled poorly.

Submission + - Exposure to Morning Sunlight Helps Managing Weight

Submitted by jones_supa
jones_supa writes: A new Northwestern Medicine study reports the timing, intensity and duration of your light exposure during the day is linked to your weight — the first time this has been shown. People who had most of their daily exposure to even moderately bright light in the morning had a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) than those who had most of their light exposure later in the day, the study found. It accounted for about 20 percent of a person’s BMI and was independent of an individual’s physical activity level, caloric intake, sleep timing, age or season. About 20 to 30 minutes of morning light is enough to affect BMI. The senior author Phyllis C. Zee rationalizes this by saying that light is the most potent agent to synchronize your internal body clock that regulates circadian rhythms, which in turn also regulate energy balance. The study was small and short. It included 54 participants (26 males, 28 females), an average age of 30. They wore a wrist actigraphy monitor that measured their light exposure and sleep parameters for seven days in normal-living conditions. Their caloric intake was determined from seven days of food logs. The study was published April 2 in the journal PLOS ONE. Giovanni Santostasi, a research fellow in neurology at Feinberg, is a co-lead author.

Submission + - Reversible USB Cables That Will Make Life Easier: First Pictures (ibtimes.co.uk)

Submitted by concertina226
concertina226 writes: The USB Implementers Forum, which oversees the Universal Serial Bus specification, announced plans to develop a new USB standard in December to replace the current microUSB standard, almost universally used to power smartphones and tablets today.

"The specification is anticipated to be completed in July 2014. We could see products with the new cable by end of year," the USB IF told CNET at the Intel Develop Forum conference in Shenzhen, China.

The new Type-C cables will run on the USB 3.1 standard, which supports 10Gbps transfer rates, although the USB prong itself will measure 8.3mm x 2.5 mm, which is slightly smaller than the common USB cable ports in PCs but slightly larger than the microUSB cables used to connect mobile phones.

Submission + - USB Reversable Cable Images Emerge (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: A presentation released today by Intel revealed images of the USB 3.1 Type-C cable and connectors, which is symmetrical and will no longer require a user to correctly orient the plug. Initially, the USB 3.1 Type-C specification will support up to 10Gbps data transfer speeds. The Type-C connectors resemble those of Apple's Thunderbolt cabling in that they are much smaller than today's USB SuperSpeed connectors. The receptacle opening is 8.3mm x 2.5mm.The first iteration will have a 5 volt power transfer rate, but it is expected to deliver up to 100 watts for higher power applications in the future.

Submission + - NASA Can't Ethically Send Astronauts on One-Way Missions to Deep Space (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: If NASA is serious about deep space missions, it’s going to have to change its safety guidelines, because there’s no conceivable way that, within the next few years, our engineering capabilities or understanding of things like radiation exposure in space are going to advance far enough for a mission to Mars to be acceptably “safe” for NASA. So, instead, the agency commissioned the National Academies Institute of Medicine to take a look at how it can ethically go about changing those standards.

The answer? It likely can't.

In a report released today, the National Academies said that there are essentially three ways NASA can go about doing this, besides completely abandoning deep space forever: It can completely liberalize its health standards, it can establish more permissive “long duration and exploration health standards,” or it can create a process by which certain missions are exempt from its safety standards. The team, led by Johns Hopkins University professor Jeffrey Kahn, concluded that only the third option is remotely acceptable.

Submission + - Researchers Cracked How to Make 'Invisibility Cloaks' the Size of a Fighter Jet (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: For all the disparate ongoing attempts to perfect stealth technology, it's still not possible to fully cloak an object from the naked eye.

Part of the problem, up until recently, has simply been a matter of scale. Scientists have known for years that metamaterials made from synthetic textiles can be used to to control the propagation of light. The artificial material bends light around an object, rendering it invisible to certain wavelengths. But, they could only fabricate the stuff in microscopic sizes.

Now, a team of researchers at the University of Central Florida, led by Debashis Chanda, have perfected a nanotransfer printing technique that makes it possible to create larger swaths of the metamaterial—about four by four inch squares. From there, multiple pieces can be stitched together with an automated tool to create a very large area of coverage, Chanda explained in an email.

Comment Re:Stop signs and lights everywhere. (Score 1) 364

by Ichijo (#46639219) Attached to: Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit the Next Green Light

Besides reducing or eliminating the need to stop at intersections, roundabouts are much safer and often take up less space on the streets approaching the intersection than traffic signals or 4-way stops.

So we already have the technology to "save fuel and lower emissions without any physical changes to the car."

Submission + - The POW Who Blinked 'Torture' In Morse Code

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: The LA Times reports on the passing of Jeremiah Denton, the US Navy pilot held by the Viet Cong, who let the world know in a TV interview that POWs were being tortured by blinking out the word "torture" in Morse code. From 1965 to 1973, Denton was held at the "Hanoi Hilton" and several other infamous Vietnamese prisons and was held in isolation for lengthy periods totaling about four years. At points, he was in a pitch-black cell, a cramped hole crawling with rats and roaches. His beatings opened wounds that festered in pools of sewage. Frustrated that Denton would not confess to alleged American war crimes or reveal even basic details of US military operations, jailers subjected him to horrific abuse. Taking command of fellow POWs he usually could not see, Denton fashioned a secret prison communication system using the sound of coughs, hacks, scratching, spitting and throat-clearing keyed to letters of the alphabet. "When you think you've reached the limit of your endurance, give them harmless and inaccurate information that you can remember, and repeat it if tortured again," he told his men. "We will die before we give them classified military information." Thinking they'd broken him, Denton's captors allowed a Japanese TV reporter to interview him on May 2, 1966. "The blinding floodlights made me blink and suddenly I realized that they were playing right into my hands," he wrote. "I looked directly into the camera and blinked my eyes once, slowly, then three more times, slowly. A dash and three more dashes. A quick blink, slow blink, quick blink ." While his impromptu blinks silently told the world that prisoners were being tortured, he was unabashed in the interview, which was later broadcast around the world, in his denial of American wrongdoing. "Whatever the position of my government is, I believe in it — yes, sir," said Denton. "I'm a member of that government and it is my job to support it, and I will as long as I live."

Submission + - OpenBSD documentation now in DocBook (gmane.org)

Submitted by api
api writes: With the release of docbook2mdoc, mandoc maintainer Ingo Schwarze has moved the OpenBSD documentation repository to DocBook format. Theo de Raadt added that this move opens the door to a more streamlined approach such as: ssh-keygen -? -> usage2pod -> pod2mdoc -> doclifter -> docbook2mdoc -> man

Submission + - Morse code test requirement to be reinstated for Amateur Radio License (kb6nu.com) 1

Submitted by H0ek
H0ek writes: One of the standards of excellence required to possess an Amateur Radio License was to pass a test of Morse Code sending and receiving capabilities. At the beginning of 1991 this requirement was removed for Technician Class licenses, and finally in 2007 this requirement was removed for General and Amateur Extra Classes. This will now be reversed and all new applicants will be required to submit to the Morse Code test again. Also, all previous no-code licensees will have a specific length of time to renew their license with the new code test requirements. This can either been seen as restoring a badge of honor to the venerable amateur radio license system, or the death knell for a crotchety old system fading away in a world of community-wide wifi and mobile communications.

Submission + - Your Car Will Tell You How To Hit The Next Green Light

Submitted by cartechboy
cartechboy writes: Hitting that red light sucks. We've all been there, and you know what I'm talking about. But what if your car could tell you the ideal speed to maintain to hit the next green light? That's exactly what's going to happen in the near future thanks to car-to-car technology. Many automakers are already working on this new tech, and Honda's the latest to trial such systems. This is all part of what's known as Universal Traffic Management System which will eventually provide feedback on car-to-car and infrastructure systems before they go into practical use. The system will also be able to tell the driver if a red light is likely to show before reaching an intersection so the driver can slow down, or notify the driver when that red light will turn green. All of this may seem like something that's supposed to benefit the driver's temper, but in reality it's to help save fuel and lower emissions without any physical changes to the car. This is the future, and your vehicle will talk to other vehicles whether you like it or not.

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