Comment Re:Exonomes (Score 1) 104
What causes asthma? Why has its prevalence been increasing in the US?
Comment Re:Exonomes (Score 0) 104
How do you know a virus is the root cause of your workmate's illness? I encourage you to follow this rabbit hole of scientific discovery, questioning your assumptions as you learn new things like exosomes.
Let's say this is a virus behind your workmate's illness. Why isn't it doing the same thing to everyone? One answer is obviously immunity. Another possible answer is it is unmasking another problem -- perhaps environmental.
Comment Exonomes (Score 1) 104
Perhaps because the RNA they are amplifying is from exosomes and not a virus!
Comment Two birds (Score 1) 92
Creates regulation to wipe out small innovative phone competitors and destroys our privacy in one fell swoop. Typical lawyer tactic.
Comment Great feature (Score 5, Insightful) 70
Been using that capability using a wildcard feature of PostFix for over 10 years. I can say it has been one of the best features of email I can imagine.
To give an example, after there were fraudulent purchases on my credit card, I was able to identify the vendor that leaked it because the thief used an email address to sign up for a service with my credit card that I only gave to this vendor.
I can also send specific email addresses to
Very glad to see Firefox begin to open this type of capability to the public.
Submission + - New Firefox service will generate unique email aliases to enter in online forms (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Browser maker Mozilla is working on a new service called Private Relay that generates unique aliases to hide a user's email address from advertisers and spam operators when filling in online forms.
The user can then enter these email addresses in web forms to send contact requests, subscribe to newsletters, and register new accounts. "We will forward emails from the alias to your real inbox," Mozilla says on the Firefox Private Relay website. "If any alias starts to receive emails you don't want, you can disable it or delete it completely."
The service entered testing last month and is currently in a closed beta, with a public beta currently scheduled for later this year.
The user can then enter these email addresses in web forms to send contact requests, subscribe to newsletters, and register new accounts. "We will forward emails from the alias to your real inbox," Mozilla says on the Firefox Private Relay website. "If any alias starts to receive emails you don't want, you can disable it or delete it completely."
The service entered testing last month and is currently in a closed beta, with a public beta currently scheduled for later this year.
Submission + - US Senator Wants To Know Which Federal Authorities Are Using Clearview AI (buzzfeednews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that claims to have scraped over 3 billion photos from social media to power its face-matching tool, is now facing questions from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey about recent claims that it’s developing a digital contact tracing tool for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That claimed in a recent NBC interview that the company is in talks with “federal and state” authorities about developing a tool that would use facial recognition to track where a person diagnosed with COVID-19 has traveled and whom they may have come in contact with. Clearview has not identified any of these authorities nor the length of the agreements or contracts it has signed or is seeking. It’s also unclear how Clearview’s facial recognition tools would aid in contact tracing efforts or how the company would obtain pictures of people diagnosed with the disease and track their movements at scale.
In a letter to Ton-That, Markey asked Clearview to name the government agencies it claims to be communicating with and to disclose any agreements it may have reached with them. He also asked if Clearview is planning to use real-time facial recognition to power its contact tracing tool. BuzzFeed News previously reported that Clearview had developed a sister company called Insight Camera that partnered with at least two organizations to do real-time facial recognition and surveillance. In response to a detailed list of questions, Ton-That told BuzzFeed News: “We just received the letter from Senator Markey, for whom we have great respect. We will be responding to him directly.” Asked by BuzzFeed News, Ton-That did not comment on which state or federal authorities the company is working with.
In a letter to Ton-That, Markey asked Clearview to name the government agencies it claims to be communicating with and to disclose any agreements it may have reached with them. He also asked if Clearview is planning to use real-time facial recognition to power its contact tracing tool. BuzzFeed News previously reported that Clearview had developed a sister company called Insight Camera that partnered with at least two organizations to do real-time facial recognition and surveillance. In response to a detailed list of questions, Ton-That told BuzzFeed News: “We just received the letter from Senator Markey, for whom we have great respect. We will be responding to him directly.” Asked by BuzzFeed News, Ton-That did not comment on which state or federal authorities the company is working with.
Submission + - Predictive Text Patent Troll Tries To Shake Down Wikipedia (techdirt.com)
martiniturbide writes: WordLogic (patent troll) claims it has the rights of the concept of predictive text writing and went after the Wikimedia foundation. WordLogic offered a "discounted, lump sum fee of $30,000 in exchange for a paid-up one-time license", an easy win they thought, but Wikimedia fought back. "Wikimedia notes that (1) WordLogic's patents are invalid due to prior art, (2) that they are invalid for not covering patentable subject matter, and (3) that anyway, it doesn't even infringe on the patents if they were valid. " Now we are waiting to see what will happen, will the patent troll desist? will it push forward?
Submission + - Fairphone 3 now available with "deGoogled" Android /e/ OS (techcrunch.com)
joestar writes: Fairphone, the European manufacturer of mobile phones with a reduced environmental impact, has announced a partnership to offer /e/ OS, the most deGoogled and pro-privacy Android OS, on their latest model Fairphone 3. An interesting move that reminds the recent introduction of the Google-free Huawei Mate 30.
Submission + - Why 'Baking' Damaged Real-To-Real Tapes Renders Them Playable Again (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Reel-to-reel tapes are experiencing a resurgence of interest among audio buffs, but they are prone to degradation, which has been a topic of active research for many years. It's well known that applying heat can often reverse the damage sufficiently to enable playback, usually by baking the tapes in an oven. Now scientists at the US Library of Congress have determined precisely why this method seems to work, presenting their findings earlier this month on the American Chemical Society's SciMeetings online platform.
The primary culprit for the degradation is known as "sticky shed syndrome," in which the binders used in a magnetic tape to hold the iron oxide casing to the plastic carrier deteriorate. They form a sticky residue that can damage both the tape and playback equipment. [...] [E]xperiments showed that when a degraded reel-to-reel tape is heated, the sticky residues melt back onto the bulk polymer layer, rendering the tape playable once again. That's why 130F is the sweet spot for baking degraded tapes; it's the melting point for the residues. "If you go any lower than that, nothing is going to happen," said project leader Andrew Davis, a polymer chemist who works in the LOC's preservation research and testing division. However, he also found that there is no single component that accounts for tape degradation, and the sticky residues don't just form on the binder layer.
"This research also confirmed what we heard from audio technicians, that thermally treated tapes that were wound on reels reverted to a visibly deteriorated condition within a few weeks," said Davis. "Surprisingly, we found that when our small unwound test samples of tape were thermally treated, they appeared to be optically fine even after weeks. Clearly being wound has some effect on the tapes." That is the next stage of research, and Davis actually set up a range of samples with different treatments that he was monitoring right up until shelter-at-home policies went into effect in the Washington, DC, area. He hasn't been able to return to his lab to check on them but is hopeful that, once the lockdowns lift, there will some intriguing experimental results on that score. Beyond that, Davis hopes to extend his experiments to enclosed magnetic media, such as cassette and VHS tapes.
The primary culprit for the degradation is known as "sticky shed syndrome," in which the binders used in a magnetic tape to hold the iron oxide casing to the plastic carrier deteriorate. They form a sticky residue that can damage both the tape and playback equipment. [...] [E]xperiments showed that when a degraded reel-to-reel tape is heated, the sticky residues melt back onto the bulk polymer layer, rendering the tape playable once again. That's why 130F is the sweet spot for baking degraded tapes; it's the melting point for the residues. "If you go any lower than that, nothing is going to happen," said project leader Andrew Davis, a polymer chemist who works in the LOC's preservation research and testing division. However, he also found that there is no single component that accounts for tape degradation, and the sticky residues don't just form on the binder layer.
"This research also confirmed what we heard from audio technicians, that thermally treated tapes that were wound on reels reverted to a visibly deteriorated condition within a few weeks," said Davis. "Surprisingly, we found that when our small unwound test samples of tape were thermally treated, they appeared to be optically fine even after weeks. Clearly being wound has some effect on the tapes." That is the next stage of research, and Davis actually set up a range of samples with different treatments that he was monitoring right up until shelter-at-home policies went into effect in the Washington, DC, area. He hasn't been able to return to his lab to check on them but is hopeful that, once the lockdowns lift, there will some intriguing experimental results on that score. Beyond that, Davis hopes to extend his experiments to enclosed magnetic media, such as cassette and VHS tapes.
Submission + - SPAM: Chinese Arrests internet users who uploaded coronavirus memories to GitHub 1
schwit1 writes: A group of volunteers in China who worked to prevent digital records of the coronavirus outbreak from being scrubbed by censors are now targets of a crackdown.
Cai Wei, a Beijing-based man who participated in one such project on GitHub, the software development website, was arrested together with his girlfriend by Beijing police on April 19. The couple were accused of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a commonly used charge against dissidents in China, according to Chen Kun, the brother of Chen Mei, another volunteer involved with the project. Chen Mei has been missing since that same day. On April 24, the couple’s families received a police notice that informed them of the charge, and said the two have been put under “residential surveillance at a designated place.” There is still no information about Chen Mei, said his brother. . . .
Chinese citizens had been turning to Microsoft-owned GitHub after the outbreak began, as it remains one of the few major foreign websites that can still be accessed in China. Now, volunteers linked to these GitHub pages are facing the growing risk of reprisals from authorities. Another GitHub page, #2020 nCov memory, which was initiated by seven volunteers around the world to chronicle personal accounts and news stories of the outbreak, is no longer publicly available. In an email (link in Chinese), the team behind the page said that its members decided to make the page private to avoid “potential risks,” according to a screenshot of the email shared on social network Weibo.
In addition to the GitHub volunteers, three journalists have also disappeared since February while reporting from Wuhan, the city where the outbreak was first discovered. Among them, only Li Zehua, a former employee of the state broadcaster, recently resurfaced, and said in a video that he had been detained and placed under quarantine by police for “disrupting public order,” but also praised the actions of the police. The whereabouts of citizen journalists Chen Qiushi and Fan Bin remain unknown.
Link to Original Source
Cai Wei, a Beijing-based man who participated in one such project on GitHub, the software development website, was arrested together with his girlfriend by Beijing police on April 19. The couple were accused of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a commonly used charge against dissidents in China, according to Chen Kun, the brother of Chen Mei, another volunteer involved with the project. Chen Mei has been missing since that same day. On April 24, the couple’s families received a police notice that informed them of the charge, and said the two have been put under “residential surveillance at a designated place.” There is still no information about Chen Mei, said his brother. . . .
Chinese citizens had been turning to Microsoft-owned GitHub after the outbreak began, as it remains one of the few major foreign websites that can still be accessed in China. Now, volunteers linked to these GitHub pages are facing the growing risk of reprisals from authorities. Another GitHub page, #2020 nCov memory, which was initiated by seven volunteers around the world to chronicle personal accounts and news stories of the outbreak, is no longer publicly available. In an email (link in Chinese), the team behind the page said that its members decided to make the page private to avoid “potential risks,” according to a screenshot of the email shared on social network Weibo.
In addition to the GitHub volunteers, three journalists have also disappeared since February while reporting from Wuhan, the city where the outbreak was first discovered. Among them, only Li Zehua, a former employee of the state broadcaster, recently resurfaced, and said in a video that he had been detained and placed under quarantine by police for “disrupting public order,” but also praised the actions of the police. The whereabouts of citizen journalists Chen Qiushi and Fan Bin remain unknown.
Link to Original Source
Comment DIY Solar (Score 2) 120
I prefer DIY Solar.
https://diysolarforum.com/
Submission + - SPAM: Supreme Court Agrees to Decide, What is Hacking?
schwit1 writes:
Link to Original Source
The fundamental question in the case is what Congress did when it criminalized unauthorized access to a computer. In particular, what makes an access to a computer unauthorized? Do the terms of service control? Does there need to be some sort of technical restriction on access that is breached?
To put the question in colloquial terms, the question is, what is the crime of hacking?
Link to Original Source
Submission + - Uber Argues 'Fraud' Absolves It From Paying Star Engineer's $179 Million Fine (techcrunch.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: Uber argued in a recent court filing that former employee Anthony Levandowski committed fraud, an action that frees the company from any obligation to pay his legal bills, including a judgment ordering the star engineer to pay Google $179 million. Uber’s fraud claim was part of its response to Levandowski’s motion to compel the ride-hailing company into arbitration in the hopes that his former employee will have to shoulder the cost of the $179 million judgment against him. The motion to compel arbitration, and now Uber’s response, is part of Levandowski’s bankruptcy proceedings. It’s the latest chapter in a legal saga that has entangled Uber and Waymo, the former Google self-driving project that is now a business under Alphabet.
In this latest court filing, Uber has agreed to arbitration. However, Uber also pushed back against Levandowski’s primary aim to force the company to stand by an indemnity agreement. Uber signed an indemnity agreement in 2016 when it acquired Levandowski’s self-driving truck startup Otto. Under the agreement, Uber said it would indemnify — or compensate — Levandowski against claims brought by his former employer, Google. Uber said it rescinded the indemnification agreement several months prior to the inception of Levandowski’s bankruptcy case “because it was procured by his fraud,” according to the court filing. Uber revoked the indemnification agreement after Levandowski was indicted by a federal grand jury with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets while working at Google, where he was an engineer and one of the founding members of the group that worked on Google’s self-driving car project.
In this latest court filing, Uber has agreed to arbitration. However, Uber also pushed back against Levandowski’s primary aim to force the company to stand by an indemnity agreement. Uber signed an indemnity agreement in 2016 when it acquired Levandowski’s self-driving truck startup Otto. Under the agreement, Uber said it would indemnify — or compensate — Levandowski against claims brought by his former employer, Google. Uber said it rescinded the indemnification agreement several months prior to the inception of Levandowski’s bankruptcy case “because it was procured by his fraud,” according to the court filing. Uber revoked the indemnification agreement after Levandowski was indicted by a federal grand jury with 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets while working at Google, where he was an engineer and one of the founding members of the group that worked on Google’s self-driving car project.
Submission + - 2 Billion Phones Cannot Use Google and Apple Contact-Tracing Tech (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: As many as a billion mobile phone owners around the world will be unable to use the smartphone-based system proposed by Apple and Google to track whether they have come into contact with people infected with the coronavirus, industry researchers estimate. The figure includes many poorer and older people—who are also among the most vulnerable to COVID-19—demonstrating a “digital divide” within a system that the two tech firms have designed to reach the largest possible number of people while also protecting individuals’ privacy.
The particular kind of Bluetooth “low energy” chips that are used to detect proximity between devices without running down the phone’s battery are absent from a quarter of smartphones in active use globally today, according to analysts at Counterpoint Research. A further 1.5 billion people still use basic or “feature” phones that do not run iOS or Android at all. “In all, close to 2 billion [mobile users] will not be benefiting from this initiative globally,” said Neil Shah, analyst at Counterpoint. “And most of these users with the incompatible devices hail from the lower-income segment or from the senior segment which actually are more vulnerable to the virus.”
The particular kind of Bluetooth “low energy” chips that are used to detect proximity between devices without running down the phone’s battery are absent from a quarter of smartphones in active use globally today, according to analysts at Counterpoint Research. A further 1.5 billion people still use basic or “feature” phones that do not run iOS or Android at all. “In all, close to 2 billion [mobile users] will not be benefiting from this initiative globally,” said Neil Shah, analyst at Counterpoint. “And most of these users with the incompatible devices hail from the lower-income segment or from the senior segment which actually are more vulnerable to the virus.”
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