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Submission + - New Technology allows Computers To Process and Remember - More Like Human Brains

Submitted by the gmr
the gmr writes: According to a recent article published in the journal Nature, Researchers at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering have developed a "memtransistor," a device that both stores information in memory and processes information, reported an article on Futurism. The combined transistor and memory resistor works more like a neuron and purports to make computing more brain-like. The new "memtransistor" would use less energy than digital computers and eliminate the need to run memory and processing as separate functions while also being more brain-like.

Lead researcher Mark C. Hersam clarified the brain-like efficacy of the memtransistor:

in the brain, we don’t usually have one neuron connected to only one other neuron. Instead, one neuron is connected to multiple other neurons to form a network. Our device structure allows multiple contacts, which is similar to the multiple synapses in neurons... [but] making dozens of devices, as we have done in our paper, is different than making a billion.

Hersam reported no barriers to scaling up to billions of devices. This new technology would make smart devices more capable and possibly more seemingly-human. The devices may also promote advances in neural networks and brain-computer interfaces, new technologies also recently reported at Futurism.

Submission + - Bigelow Launching New Company to Sell Private Space Stations (popularmechanics.com)

Submitted by hyperclocker
hyperclocker writes: The future of spacecraft in lower Earth orbit (LEO) looks to be an increasingly commercial affair. Bigelow Aerospace, a Las Vegas-based company that builds livable space habitats, has now created a spinoff company known as Bigelow Space Operations (BSO). BSO will market and operate any space habitats that Bigelow sells.

The creation of BSO signals that Bigelow is preparing for a future of commercial space living. Recently leaked NASA documents show that the Trump Administration wants to convert the International Space Station into a commercial venture, and BSO is betting that businesses including private scientific ventures and hotels will be interested in creating a profit above the Earth.

Submission + - Salon Magazine Mines Monero On Your Computer If You Use An Adblocker (bbc.com)

Submitted by dryriver
dryriver writes: The BBC reports: News organisations have tried many novel ways to make readers pay — but this idea is possibly the most audacious yet. If a reader chooses to block its advertising, US publication Salon will use that person's computer to mine for Monero, a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin. Creating new tokens of a cryptocurrency typically requires complex calculations that use up a lot of computing power. Salon told readers: "We intend to use a small percentage of your spare processing power to contribute to the advancement of technological discovery, evolution and innovation." The site is making use of CoinHive, a controversial mining tool that was recently used in an attack involving government websites in the UK, US and elsewhere. However, unlike that incident, where hackers took control of visitors' computers to mine cryptocurrency, Salon notifies users and requires them to agree before the tool begins mining.

Submission + - SPAM: Learning to Program is Getting Harder

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: While Google suggests that parents and educators are to blame for why kids can't code, Allen Downey argues that learning to program is getting harder. Downey writes: "The fundamental problem is that the barrier between using a computer and programming a computer is getting higher. When I got a Commodore 64 (in 1982, I think) this barrier was non-existent. When you turned on the computer, it loaded and ran a software development environment (SDE). In order to do anything, you had to type at least one line of code, even if all it did was another program (like Archon). Since then, three changes have made it incrementally harder for users to become programmers: 1) Computer retailers stopped installing development environments by default. As a result, anyone learning to program has to start by installing an SDE — and that's a bigger barrier than you might expect. Many users have never installed anything, don't know how to, or might not be allowed to. Installing software is easier now than it used to be, but it is still error prone and can be frustrating. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn system administration first. 2) User interfaces shifted from command-line interfaces (CLIs) to graphical user interfaces (GUIs). GUIs are generally easier to use, but they hide information from users about what's really happening. When users really don't need to know, hiding information can be a good thing. The problem is that GUIs hide a lot of information programmers need to know. So when a user decides to become a programmer, they are suddenly confronted with all the information that's been hidden from them. If someone just wants to learn to program, they shouldn't have to learn operating system concepts first. 3) Cloud computing has taken information hiding to a whole new level. People using web applications often have only a vague idea of where their data is stored and what applications they can use to access it. Many users, especially on mobile devices, don't distinguish between operating systems, applications, web browsers, and web applications. When they upload and download data, they are often confused about where is it coming from and where it is going. When they install something, they are often confused about what is being installed where. For someone who grew up with a Commodore 64, learning to program was hard enough. For someone growing up with a cloud-connected mobile device, it is much harder." So, with the Feds budgeting $200 million a year for K-12 CS at the behest of U.S. tech leaders, can't the tech giants at least put a BASIC on every phone/tablet/laptop for kids?

Comment Re:Seems Unlikely (Score 1) 236

If I leave the window open at home, some flies might get in and annoy me. If someone makes even a tiny, little mistake on the ISS, everyone may die. Astronauts train for years and have safety drilled into them. Wealthy tourists will surely resist being told what to do.

Submission + - SPAM: Researchers discover efficient and sustainable way to filter salt from sea water

Submitted by schwit1
schwit1 writes: It all comes down to metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), an amazing next generation material that have the largest internal surface area of any known substance. The sponge like crystals can be used to capture, store and release chemical compounds. In this case, the salt and ions in sea water.

Dr Huacheng Zhang, Professor Huanting Wang and Associate Professor Zhe Liu and their team in the Faculty of Engineering at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, in collaboration with Dr Anita Hill of CSIRO and Professor Benny Freeman of the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, have recently discovered that MOF membranes can mimic the filtering function, or 'ion selectivity', of organic cell membranes.

With further development, these membranes have significant potential to perform the dual functions of removing salts from seawater and separating metal ions in a highly efficient and cost effective manner, offering a revolutionary new technological approach for the water and mining industries.

Currently, reverse osmosis membranes are responsible for more than half of the world's desalination capacity, and the last stage of most water treatment processes, yet these membranes have room for improvement by a factor of 2 to 3 in energy consumption. They do not operate on the principles of dehydration of ions, or selective ion transport in biological channels.
Link to Original Source

Submission + - SPAM: LKRG: Linux to Get a Loadable Kernel Module for Runtime Integrity Checking

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Members of the open source community are working on a new security-focused project for the Linux kernel. Named Linux Kernel Runtime Guard (LKRG), this is a loadable kernel module that will perform runtime integrity checking of the Linux kernel. Its purpose is to detect exploitation attempts for known security vulnerabilities against the Linux kernel and attempt to block attacks. LKRG will also detect privilege escalation for running processes, and kill the running process before the exploit code runs. While LKRG will remain an open source project, LKRG maintainers also have plans for an LKRG Pro version that will include distro-specific LKRG builds and support for the detection of specific exploits, such as container escapes. The team plans to use the funds from LKRG Pro to fund the rest of the project.

The first public version of LKRG —LKRG v0.0— is now live and available for download on this page. A wiki is also available here, and a Patreon page for supporting the project has also been set up. LKRG kernel modules are currently available for main Linux distros such as RHEL7, OpenVZ 7, Virtuozzo 7, and Ubuntu 16.04 to latest mainlines.
Link to Original Source

Comment Re:Who else hacked the Ruskies for proof? Jamaica? (Score 1) 358

by Earthquake Retrofit (#56020637) Attached to: Dutch Intelligence Agents Watched Russia Hack the DNC
For example, Evan Mecham's 'trial' in the Arizona's Republic party controlled legislature was a joke and a circus. Everybody hated him and for good reason, but they found no 'misdemeanors.'
From Wikipedia: "Mecham was removed from office following conviction in his impeachment trial of charges of the obstruction of justice and the misuse of government funds – funds that Mecham maintained were private. A later criminal trial acquitted Mecham of related charges."
Yet, the Republics got rid of him because they wanted too.

Comment Re:Mueller (Score 1) 229

Now looky here, everybody knows Hillary Hussein Clinton is the one who's to fault for the plutonium-210 pizzagate poisoning. But that whole Benghazi investigation was just a Republic party plot to distract Fox news's excellent infestigative reporters from the real conspiracy: the Wall Street branch of the Youth International Party's (Yippie$) involvement in the Iraq-Contra affair. You thought Jerry Rubin was dead? Not exactly fool, just more fake news. In a rare instance of cooperation between the Wall Street and Haight Street branches of the increasingly misnamed party, we uncovered Donald 'The John' Trump's actual Nicaraguan birth certificate and used it as leverage to blackmail him into running for president. Ever since then, Jerry has been controlling him and I've been getting free Ganja from the Sandinistas

Comment No more being stuck in a job you hate. (Score 1) 314

As a person who's experienced my job being superseded by machinery I also would welcome this. Robots will do all the work eventually anyway. Everything would be free, so Bill's money would be worthless too. Need or want something? Just tell the robot to get it. Humans being what they are, we would, of course, still need a government but one thing at a time...

Submission + - What are the FLOSS community's answers to Siri and AI? (upon2020.com)

Submitted by jernst
jernst writes: A decade ago, we in the free and open-source community could build our own versions of pretty much any proprietary software system out there, and we did. Publishing, collaboration, commerce, you name it. Some apps were worse, some were better than closed alternatives, but much of it was clearly good enough to use every day.

But is this still true? For example, voice control is clearly going to be a primary way we interact with our gadgets in the future. Speaking to an Amazon Echo-like device while sitting on my couch makes a lot more sense than using a web browser. Will we ever be able to do that without going through somebody’s proprietary silo like Amazon’s or Apple’s? Where are the free and/or open-source versions of Siri, Alexa and so forth?

The trouble, of course, is not so much the code, but in the training. The best speech recognition code isn’t going to be competitive unless it has been trained with about as many millions of hours of example speech as the closed engines from Apple, Google and so forth have been. How can we do that?

The same problem exists with AI. There’s plenty of open-source AI code, but how good is it unless it gets training and retraining with gigantic data sets? We don’t have those in the FLOSS world, and even if we did, would we have the money to run gigantic graphics card farms 24×7? Will we ever see truly open AI that is not black-box machinery guarded closely by some overlord company, but something that “we can study how it works, change it so it does our computing as we wish” and all the other values embodied in the Free Software Definition?

Who has a plan, and where can I sign up to it?

Submission + - mechanics of the rejection of science (theguardian.com) 2

Submitted by Layzej
Layzej writes: Science strives for coherence. For example, the findings from climate science form a highly coherent body of knowledge that is supported by many independent lines of evidence. Those who reject climate science often rely on several mutually contradictory ideas. Hence, claims that the globe “is cooling” can coexist with claims that the “observed warming is natural” and that “the human influence does not matter because warming is good for us.” A recent study examines this behavior at the aggregate level, but gives many examples where contradictory ideas are held by the same individual, and sometimes are presented within a single publication.

The common denominator among contrarian positions is the conviction that climate change either does not exist or is not human caused, and that either way it does not present a risk (or if it does, then adaptation will deal with the problem). In a nutshell, the opposition to GHG emission cuts is the unifying and coherent position underlying all manifestations of climate science denial. Climate science denial is therefore perhaps best understood as a rational activity that replaces a coherent body of science with an incoherent and conspiracist body of pseudo-science for political reasons and with considerable political coherence and effectiveness.

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