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Submission + - New way to alleviate the environmental burden of discarded electronics

Submitted by jan_jes
jan_jes writes: A report published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 showed that about 152 million mobile devices are discarded every year, of which only 10 percent is recycled — a legacy of waste that consumes a tremendous amount of natural resources and produces a lot of trash made from expensive and non-biodegradable materials like highly purified silicon. Now researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have come up with a new solution to alleviate the environmental burden of discarded electronics. They have developed a new biodegradable silicon transistor based on a material derived from wood, opening the door for green, flexible, low-cost portable electronics in future. They published this research in the Applied Physics Letters.

Submission + - Artificial Neurons Could Replace Some Real Ones In Your Brain (best-meg.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The neurons in your brain are exquisitely designed to transmit signals—as many as 1 trillion bits per second, according to some estimates. The cells use chemical neurotransmitters to pass the signal from one to the next. To treat neurological disorders, scientists have only been able to hack this signal with electric stimulation or imprecise chemical changes from medications. Now a team of Swedish researchers has developed a synthetic neuron that is able to communicate chemically with organic neurons, which could change the neural pathways and better treat neurological disorders, according to a study published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

The artificial neurons work just like the neurons in your brain right now: they detect chemical signals, transmit them electrically from one end of the “cell” to another, then release chemical neurotransmitters in response. But the artificial neurons are the size of a fingertip and made of organic bioelectronic polymers. To test their device, the researchers put one end of the artificial neuron in a petri dish with chemicals that the device could detect, then used a machine to monitor the electrical changes that it generated, then determine from there how much of a chemical signal to produce on the other end.

The researchers hope that artificial neurons like these could help repair issues of neuron signal transmission in brains impaired by disease or trauma. The researchers hope to make the device smaller in the future so that it can be implanted and tested in a real brain.

Submission + - Business Insider: Iran's nuclear program has been an astronomical waste (businessinsider.com)

Submitted by Lasrick
Lasrick writes: Business Insider's Armin Rosen uses a fuel-cost calculator from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to show that Iran's nuclear program 'has been astronomically costly for the Islamic Republic.' Rosen uses calculations from this tool to hypothesize that what Iran 'interprets as the country's "rights" under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty is a diplomatic victory that justifies the outrageous expense of the nuclear program.' Great data crunching.

Submission + - Apple Loses Ebook Price Fixing Appeal, Must Pay $450 Million (reuters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A federal appeals court ruled 2-1 today that Apple indeed conspired to with publishers to increase ebook prices. The ruling puts Apple on the hook for the $450 million settlement reached in 2014 with lawyers and attorneys general from 33 states. The Justice Dept. contended that the price-fixing conspiracy raised the price of some e-books from the $10 standard set by Amazon to $13-$15. The one dissenting judge argued that Apple's efforts weren't anti-competitive because Amazon held 90% of the market at the time. Apple is unhappy with the ruling, but they haven't announced plans to take the case further. They said, "While we want to put this behind us, the case is about principles and values. We know we did nothing wrong back in 2010 and are assessing next steps."

Submission + - Is Safari the new IE? (nolanlawson.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Software developer Nolan Lawson says Apple's Safari has taken the place of Microsoft's Internet Explorer as the major browser that lags behind all the others. This comes shortly after the Edge Conference, where major players in web technologies got together to discuss the state of the industry and what's ahead. Lawson says Mozilla, Google, Opera, and Microsoft were all in attendance and willing to talk — but not Apple. "It’s hard to get insight into why Apple is behaving this way. They never send anyone to web conferences, their Surfin’ Safari blog is a shadow of its former self, and nobody knows what the next version of Safari will contain until that year’s WWDC. In a sense, Apple is like Santa Claus, descending yearly to give us some much-anticipated presents, with no forewarning about which of our wishes he’ll grant this year. And frankly, the presents have been getting smaller and smaller lately." He argues, "At this point, we in the web community need to come to terms with the fact that Safari has become the new IE. Microsoft is repentant these days, Google is pushing the web as far as it can go, and Mozilla is still being Mozilla. Apple is really the one singer in that barbershop quartet hitting all the sour notes, and it’s time we start talking about it openly instead of tiptoeing around it like we’re going to hurt somebody’s feelings."

Submission + - Quebec government to force ISPs to block gambling websites

Submitted by ottawanker
ottawanker writes: In order to drive more customers to their own online gambling website, the Quebec government and Loto-Quebec (the provincial organization in charge of gaming and lotteries) are thinking about forcing the province's ISPs to block all other online gambling websites. The list of websites to be blocked will be maintained by Loto-Quebec, and the government believes that the blocking will increase government revenue by up to $27 million (CAD) per year.

Comment Re:take from the aircraft/drone world (Score 1) 195

by ceoyoyo (#50020071) Attached to: Study Suggests That HUD Tech May Actually Reduce Driving Safety

Passenger jets didn't have HUDs for a long time (maybe most still don't). Fighter jets got them pretty much as soon as the technology was practical. HUDs were designed for providing information in circumstances where the pilot is very much in control, and under a heavy workload.

I remember reading about HUDs in the nineties though, and the design was critical. What you presented, and how, made the difference between a valuable tool and a worse than useless distraction.

Comment Re:Obvious (Score 1) 195

by ceoyoyo (#50020017) Attached to: Study Suggests That HUD Tech May Actually Reduce Driving Safety

I teach sailing. I've noticed that almost all students are nearly incapable of switching their attention among multiple things. They fixate on what they're doing with the throttle when backing out of a slip and forget about watching where the boat is. Or they remember to watch off the stern and forget about the bow. Actually sailing, they watch their heading and forget about the wind, or vice versa. If they get distracted, it all goes to hell. But, with practice and a teacher reminding them, they learn. Sometimes we chat so they get practice having a conversation (and more importantly, ignoring a conversation when necessary) and sailing at the same time.

I remember my driving instructor doing the same thing. Do you know what's behind you? When was the last time you checked your mirrors? How fast are you going? What did that sign say?

You can learn to deal with distractions, but you have to specifically practice, and it doesn't hurt to have a teacher.

Submission + - Test Pilot Admits the F-35 Can't Dogfight (medium.com)

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: A test pilot has some very, very bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The pricey new stealth jet can't turn or climb fast enough to hit an enemy plane during a dogfight or to dodge the enemy's own gunfire, the pilot reported following a day of mock air battles back in January.

And to add insult to injury, the JSF flier discovered he couldn't even comfortably move his head inside the radar-evading jet's cramped cockpit. "The helmet was too large for the space inside the canopy to adequately see behind the aircraft." That allowed the F-16 to sneak up on him.

The test pilot's report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history's most expensive weapon.

Your tax dollars at work.

Submission + - Whitehouse Lures Mudge From Google to launch a UL for Cyber (securityledger.com)

Submitted by chicksdaddy
chicksdaddy writes: The Obama Whitehouse has tapped famed hacker Peiter Zatko (aka “Mudge”) to head up a new project aimed at developing an “underwriters’ lab” for cyber security, The Security Ledger reports. (https://securityledger.com/2015/06/whitehouse-taps-google-advanced-projects-lead-for-software-safety-lab/)

Zatko announced the new initiative on Monday via Twitter (https://twitter.com/dotmudge). “The White House asked if I would kindly create a #CyberUL, so here goes,” he wrote.

The new organization would function as an independent, non-profit entity designed to assess the security strengths and weaknesses of products and publishing the results of its tests.

Zatko is a famed hacker and security luminary, who cut his teeth with the Boston-based hacker collective The L0pht in the 1990s before moving on to work in private industry and, then, to become a program manager at the DARPA in 2010. Though known for keeping a low profile, his scruffy visage (circa 1998) graced the pages of the Washington Post in a recent piece that remembered testimony that Mudge and other L0pht members gave to Congress about the dangers posed by insecure software.(http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/06/22/net-of-insecurity-part-3/)

Since leaving DARPA, Zatko has served as Deputy Director of Google's Advanced Technology and Projects division. He did not respond to requests for comment prior to publication.

Underwriters Lab — or "UL" — was founded in 1894 as a private firm dedicated to developing testing and safety standards for everything from fire extinguishers to lithium batteries to heating and cooling equipment and trash cans. UL has developed safety and performance standards for evaluating quality of information technology equipment, as well, but does not make a practice of testing software security or quality.

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