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Submission + - FinCEN doesn't have Heartbleed, but they can't get their certificates right!

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, are the guys that you have to report your foreign bank accounts to every year. They recently made E-filing mandatory. Mandatory E-filing of the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts or FBAR (don't ask) form started on June 30th last year.

They really want you to know that they don't suffer from Heartbleed (warning PDF link) but they can't seem to get their SSL certificates in order. Retrieving their web site results in a certificate error because the issuer of their certificate is not trusted. An SSL checker site (the first one that came up in a DuckDuckGo search) says they are missing an intermediate certificate

Why can't I just mail them a dead tree?
The Almighty Buck

IRS Can Now Seize Your Tax Refund To Pay a Relative's Debt 632

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the dead-...-beat-relatives? dept.
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Just in time for the April 15 IRS filing deadline comes news from the Washington Post that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers expecting refunds are instead getting letters informing them of tax debts they never knew about: often a debt incurred by their parents. The government is confiscating their checks, sometimes over debts 20—30 years old. For example, when Mary Grice was 4 (in 1960), her father died ... 'Until the kids turned 18, her mother received survivor benefits from Social Security ... Now, Social Security claims it overpaid someone in the Grice family in 1977. ... Four years after Sadie Grice died, the government is coming after her daughter. ... "It was a shock," says Grice, 58. "What incenses me is the way they went about this. They gave me no notice, they can't prove that I received any overpayment, and they use intimidation tactics, threatening to report this to the credit bureaus."' The Treasury Department has intercepted ... $75 million from debts delinquent for more than 10 years according to the department's debt management service. 'The aggressive effort to collect old debts started three years ago — the result of a single sentence tucked into the farm bill lifting the 10-year statute of limitations on old debts to Uncle Sam.'"

Submission + - Quixter will let you pay with a palm reading (cnet.com)

Submitted by RileyWalz
RileyWalz writes: A new Swedish startup, "Quixter", lets you quickly pay on the go with a new idea. All you have to do is press your palm into the scanning device, and enter the last four digits of your cell phone number and your payment will be submitted. The device takes only about five seconds to read the movement of blood vessels in your palm, and determine who you are. The founder, Fredrik Leifland, says "We had to connect all the players ourselves, which was quite complex: the vein-scanning terminals, the banks, the stores and the customers. The next step was finding ways of packaging it into a solution that was user friendly." You can find more information on this start-up by visiting the company's website at quixter.se

Submission + - Humans Are Taking Jobs From Robots in Japan

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Bloomberg reports that humans are taking the place of machines in plants across Japan so workers can develop new skills and figure out ways to improve production lines and the car-building process. “We need to become more solid and get back to basics, to sharpen our manual skills and further develop them,” says Mitsuru Kawai, a half century-long company veteran tapped by President Akio Toyoda to promote craftsmanship at Toyota’s plants. “When I was a novice, experienced masters used to be called gods (Kami-sama in Japanese), and they could make anything.”

According to Kawai, learning how to make car parts from scratch gives younger workers insights they otherwise wouldn’t get from picking parts from bins and conveyor belts, or pressing buttons on machines. At about 100 manual-intensive workspaces introduced over the last three years across Toyota’s factories in Japan, these lessons can then be applied to reprogram machines to cut down on waste and improve processes. In an area Kawai directly supervises at the forging division of Toyota’s Honsha plant, workers twist, turn and hammer metal into crankshafts instead of using the typically automated process. Experiences there have led to innovations in reducing levels of scrap and shortening the production line and Kawai also credits manual labor for helping workers improve production of axle beams and cut the costs of making chassis parts. “We cannot simply depend on the machines that only repeat the same task over and over again,” says Kawai. “To be the master of the machine, you have to have the knowledge and the skills to teach the machine.”
Earth

Climate Scientist: Climate Engineering Might Be the Answer To Warming 343

Posted by samzenpus from the warm-up-the-cloud-gun dept.
Lasrick (2629253) writes "Tom Wigley is one of the world's top climate scientists, and in this interview he explains his outspoken support for both nuclear energy and research into climate engineering. Wigley was one of the first scientists to break the taboo on public discussion of climate engineering as a possible response to global warming; in a 2006 paper in the journal Science, he proposed a combined geoengineering-mitigation strategy that would address the problem of increasing ocean acidity, as well as the problem of climate change. In this interview, he argues that renewable energy alone will not be sufficient to address the climate challenge, because it cannot be scaled up quickly and cheaply enough, and that opposition to nuclear power 'threatens humanity's ability to avoid dangerous climate change.'"

Submission + - Intel Integrated Iris Pro Graphics Closes The Performance Gap Vs. AMD (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: Over the years, Intel's integrated graphics engine in their Core series processor haven't exactly been known to be very robust. Before Intel's Haswell series processors arrived, it could be argued that Intel integrated graphics weren't good for much more than some video rendering and maybe some low resolution, entry-level gaming at best. However, with Intel's recent Haswell release with Iris Pro 5200 Graphics on board, the company appears to have dramatically closed the gaming and graphics performance gap between their solutions and competitive integrated solutions from AMD and even entry level discrete graphics performance. In the benchmarks with the new Gigabyte BRIX Pro small form factor system, Intel's Core i7-4770R with Iris Pro 5200 Graphics on board, is actually able to maintain very playable frame rates in recent DX11 titles, right up to 1080p resolution, even with a bit of AA turned on. It will be interesting to see what Intel's follow-on Broadwell chip can do at 14nm. If Intel can maintain consistent driver updates the future looks bright for Intel integrated graphics.
Medicine

Carpenter Who Cut Off His Fingers Makes "Robohand" With 3-D Printer 91

Posted by samzenpus from the finger-jam dept.
mpicpp (3454017) writes with the ultimate DIY story about a carpenter in South Africa who lost his fingers in an accident, and now runs a company that makes mechanical prosthetics with 3D printing technology. "'I was in a position to see exactly what happens in the human hand. I got the basics of what it's all about and thought yeah, I'll make my own.' Richard van As is recalling the moment in May 2011 when he sat in a Johannesburg hospital waiting to hear if his fingers could be stitched back on. Just an hour earlier, he had been in his carpentry workshop sawing wood when the saw slipped and ripped diagonally through the four fingers on his right hand....After days of scouring the Internet he couldn't find anywhere to buy a functional prosthetic finger and he was astonished at the cost of prosthetic hands and limbs which began in the tens of thousands of dollars. But his online surfing paid off as it brought him to an amateur video posted by a mechanical effects artist in Washington State, by the name of Ivan Owen. Together, the pair developed a mechanical finger for van As, but their partnership has also gone on to benefit countless hand and arm amputees around the globe, through the birth of the company "Robohand." Officially launched in January 2012, Robohand creates affordable mechanical prosthetics through the use of 3D printers. Not only that, but it has made its designs open source, so that anyone with access to such printers can print out fingers, hands and now arms as well.'"

Submission + - The FAA Thinks It Can Regulate Paper Planes and Baseballs (vice.com)

Submitted by Daniel_Stuckey
Daniel_Stuckey writes: Ever throw a baseball? Or a paper plane? Watch out—the Federal Aviation Administration thinks that anything that flies through the air might be aircraft that it can regulate.

That’s a bit hyperbolic, but not by much. Last month, a federal judge ruled that the Federal Aviation Administration didn’t correctly regulate drones, so anyone could fly them legally. In that case, the judge decided two things: The FAA never made drone regulations and standard aircraft regulations the FAA has do not apply to drones because they aren’t “aircraft” in the traditional sense (at least as far as the FAA has traditionally defined them). In their original argument, the FAA said that it has the right to regular anything that flies through the air—and, in an appeal to that decision, they’ve decided to double down on the whole thing.

We’ve covered that case plenty, so if you need anything more than a quick primer, you can check out the specifics here. Basically what happened was, a couple years ago, a drone pilot named Raphael Pirker flew his 5 pound, styrofoam drone around the University of Virginia, and got paid to do it. That angered the FAA, who has been trying to keep commercial drone flights grounded. But, because they never actually made regulations, they went after Pirker for the “reckless operation of an aircraft,” which turned out to be a really bad idea, because the FAA has always specifically referenced “model aircraft” when it wants to talk about RC aircraft or drones. Furthermore, the statute they tried to get Pirker on references things like pilots walking around the cabin and flight attendants being distracting—clearly not something you can do on a foam drone.
Space

Using Supercomputers To Predict Signs of Black Holes Swallowing Stars 31

Posted by samzenpus from the hungry-hungry-black-holes dept.
aarondubrow (1866212) writes "A 'tidal disruption' occurs when a star orbits too close to a black hole and gets sucked in. The phenomenon is accompanied by a bright flare with a unique signature that changes over time. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using Stampede and other NSF-supported supercomputers to simulate tidal disruptions in order to better understand the dynamics of the process. Doing so helps astronomers find many more possible candidates of tidal disruptions in sky surveys and will reveal details of how stars and black holes interact."

Submission + - Is Crimea In Russia? Internet Companies Have Different Answers (techweekeurope.co.uk)

Submitted by judgecorp
judgecorp writes: Three weeks after Russia asserted that Crimea is part of its territory, the social networks have a problem: how to categories their users from the region? Facebook and the largest Russian social network Vkontakte still Say Crimeans are located in Ukraine, while other Russian social networks say they are Russians. Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, an edit war has resulted in Crimea being part of Russia, but shaded a different colour to signify the territory is disputed. Search engine Yandex is trying to cover both angles: its maps service gives a different answer, depending on which location you send your query from.
Twitter

44% of Twitter Users Have Never Tweeted 121

Posted by samzenpus from the 140-characters-to-go dept.
First time accepted submitter RileyWalz (3614865) writes "Twopcharts (a third party website that records and monitors activity on Twitter) is reporting that about 44 percent of all 947 million accounts on Twitter have never posted a single tweet. Of the 550 million users who have tweeted before, 43 percent posted their last tweet over a year ago. And only about 13.3 percent have tweeted in the last 30 days. This could be a sign of many users just signing up and forgetting about their account, or they just prefer reading other's posts. Twitter is not commenting on this data, saying that they do not talk about third-party information related to its service."
Transportation

First Glow-In-the-Dark Road Debuts In Netherlands 187

Posted by samzenpus from the shine-on dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A 500 meter (0.3 mile) stretch of road in the Netherlands has opened without the standard crop of streetlights lining its perimeter. The streetlights are believed to be unnecessary since the road markings were painted on with a mix of photo-luminescent powder, which absorbs sunlight during the day and radiates a portion of that energy back at night. Whether the modified road paint can withstand harsh weather or even provide sufficient lighting given insufficient exposure to sunlight during the day remains to be seen. The project was orchestrated by Studio Roosegaarde, which in the future plans to implement weather-sensitive road markings that would inform drivers when outside temperatures drop or rise above certain levels."
Education

Is Germany Raising a Generation of Illiterates? 431

Posted by samzenpus from the me-write-pretty-one-day dept.
StartsWithABang (3485481) writes "Over at Starts With A Bang, the weekly question comes in from Germany, where we're informed: 'In Germany, many teachers have adopted a new way of teaching children to write properly. The way is called "Writing by Reading" and essentially says: Write as you wish, you're not bound by any rules. Recently, this way of teaching has been heavily criticized [link in German], but not before it has been "tested" on several years of school children.' The reading wars have been going on in the US, too, but will this wind up having a negative outcome? Or, as this piece argues, is it likely to be a wash?"
Encryption

Obama Says He May Or May Not Let the NSA Exploit the Next Heartbleed 134

Posted by Soulskill from the thanks-for-providing-zero-clarity dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The White House has joined the public debate about Heartbleed. The administration denied any prior knowledge of Heartbleed, and said the NSA should reveal such flaws once discovered. Unfortunately, this statement was hedged. The NSA should reveal these flaws unless 'a clear national security or law enforcement need' exists. Since that can be construed to apply to virtually any situation, we're left with the same dilemma as before: do we take them at their word or not? The use of such an exploit is certainly not without precedent: 'The NSA made use of four "zero day" vulnerabilities in its attack on Iran's nuclear enrichment sites. That operation, code-named "Olympic Games," managed to damage roughly 1,000 Iranian centrifuges, and by some accounts helped drive the country to the negotiating table.' A senior White House official is quoted saying, 'I can't imagine the president — any president — entirely giving up a technology that might enable him some day to take a covert action that could avoid a shooting war.'" Side note: CloudFlare has named several winners in its challenge to prove it was possible to steal private keys using the Heartbleed exploit.

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