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Comment Re:Slashdot: Google's no cost PR agency (Score 2) 86

It's because today was Google I/O, Google's developer conference, so a lot of projects were announced. Still, Slashdot could have combined all these into story with links to details rather than spam us with a ton of Google stories. However, this TPU project might be the most interesting thing to come out of the conference. Not because the chips are novel (it's just the same principles as GPUs but taken to a further extreme), but because it sounds like Google's getting into low level chip manufacture. We'll have to wait and see if Google can deliver more FLOPS per dollar/watt than the leading co-processor manufacturer, NVIDIA.

Submission + - Vulnerable WordPress and Drupal Versions Contributed To Panama Papers Leak (wptavern.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Authorities have not yet identified the hacker behind the Panama Papers breach, nor have they isolated the exact attack vector. It is clear that Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm that protected the assets of the rich and powerful by setting up shell companies, had employed a dangerously loose policy towards web security and communications. The firm ran its unencrypted emails through an outdated (2009) version of Microsoft’s Outlook Web Access. Outdated open source software running the frontend of the firm’s websites is also now suspected to have provided a vector for the compromise. Forbes has identified outdated WordPress and Drupal installations as security holes that may have led to the data leak. [Editor of WP Tavern Sarah Gooding] found that the firm’s WordPress-powered site is currently running on version 4.1 (released in December 2014), based on its version of autosave.js, which is identical to the autosave.js file shipped in 4.1. The main site is also loading a number of outdated scripts and plugins. Its active theme is a three-year-old version of Twenty Eleven (1.5), which oddly resides in a directory labeled for /twentyten/. The Mossack Fonseca client portal changelog.txt file is public, showing that its Drupal installation hasn’t been updated for three years. Since the release of version 7.23, the software has received 25 security updates, which means that the version it is running includes highly critical known vulnerabilities that could have given the hacker access to the server.

Submission + - Monster black holes may lurk all around us: study (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Taco Cowboy
Taco Cowboy writes: Paris (AFP) — Astronomers have stumbled upon a supermassive black hole in an unexpected corner of the Universe, implying these galactic monsters are much more common than once thought, a study said Wednesday

The giant, with an estimated mass 17 billion times that of our Sun, was discovered in a relative desert, astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in the journal Nature

"While finding a gigantic black hole in a massive galaxy in a crowded area of the Universe is to be expected — like running across a skyscraper in Manhattan — it seemed less likely they could be found in the Universe's small towns," said a university statement

Big, star-rich galaxies where supermassive black holes had previously been found, are very rare

Smaller ones like the NGC 1600 galaxy housing the newly-discovered whopper, are much more common, but were not previously thought to be appropriate host

"So the question now is: 'Is this the tip of an iceberg?'" said study co-author Chung-Pei Ma. "Maybe there are a lot more monster black holes out there that don't live in a skyscraper in Manhattan, but in a tall building somewhere in the Midwestern plains"

The largest supermassive black hole spotted to date tipped the scales at about 21 billion solar masses, said the study authors

Submission + - Computer Created a 'New Rembrandt' After Analyzing Paintings (techienews.co.uk)

Submitted by TechnoidNash
TechnoidNash writes: Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the most influential classical painters, and the world lost his amazing talent when he died nearly four centuries ago. And yet his newest masterpiece was unveiled only yesterday. How? By scanning and analyzing Rembrandt’s works, a computer was able to create a new painting in near-perfect mimicry of Rembrandt’s style. It has been named, appropriately, ‘The Next Rembrandt’. Read more: http://www.techienews.co.uk/97...

Submission + - Nest Reminds Customers That Ownership Isn't What It Used to Be (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Nest Labs, a home automation company acquired by Google in 2014, will disable some of its customers' home automation control devices in May. This move is causing quite a stir among people who purchased the $300 Revolv Hub devices—customers who reasonably expected that the promised "lifetime" of updates would enable the hardware they paid for to actually work, only to discover the manufacturer can turn their device into a useless brick when it so chooses. This is far from the first time that customers' software and electronics have been downgraded by manufacturers. Updates can disable features the customer paid for that have fallen out of favor with the vendor, as when Google disabled privacy settings on Android or Sony took away the ability to run GNU/Linux on a Playstation 3. Manufacturers can even render a device unusable until the customer "agrees" to new terms of use, as Nintendo did with the Wii U. Other software and devices, including some video games, are designed so they simply stop working when they can no longer dial home to a server run by the vendor.

Submission + - Open-Source Vulnerability Database Shuts Down (osvdb.org)

Submitted by StonyCreekBare
StonyCreekBare writes: From the Blog at osvdb.org "As of today, a decision has been made to shut down the Open Sourced Vulnerability Database (OSVDB), and will not return. We are not looking for anyone to offer assistance at this point, and it will not be resurrected in its previous form. This was not an easy decision, and several of us struggled for well over ten years trying to make it work at great personal expense. The industry simply did not want to contribute and support such an effort."

Submission + - FCC's "nutrition labels" for broadband show speed, caps, and hidden fees (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Federal Communications Commission today unveiled new broadband labels modeled after the nutrition labels commonly seen on food products. Home Internet service providers and mobile carriers are being urged to use the labels to give consumers details such as prices (including hidden fees tacked onto the base price), data caps, overage charges, speed, latency, packet loss, and so on.

ISPs aren't required to use these labels. But they are required to make more specific disclosures as part of transparency requirements in the FCC's net neutrality order, which reclassified Internet providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act. The FCC recommends that ISPs use these labels to comply with the disclosure rules and says use of the labels will act as a "safe harbor" for demonstrating compliance. However, ISPs can come up with their own format if they still make all the required disclosures in "an accurate, understandable, and easy-to-find manner," the FCC said today.

Submission + - FTC Warns Android App Developers About Use of Audio Tracking Code

Submitted by Trailrunner7
Trailrunner7 writes: The Federal Trade Commission is warning a dozen developers about some code they’ve included in their apps that can surreptitiously listen to unique audio signals from TVs in the background and build detailed profiles of what consumers are watching. The technology, produced by a company called SilverPush, is used to track users across devices and the FTC warned the developers that if they don’t disclose the use of the code to consumers, they could be violating the FTC Act.

The commission sent the letter to 12 app developers whose apps are in the Google Play store, and warned them that not disclosing the use of SilverPush’s Unique Audio Beacon could be a problem.

“For example, the code is configured to access the device’s microphone to collect audio information even when the application is not in use. Moreover, your application requires permission to access the mobile device’s microphone prior to install, despite no evident functionality in the application that would require such access,” the letter says.

Submission + - U.S. Govt. Pushed Tech Firms to Hand Over Source Code (zdnet.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The US government has made numerous attempts to obtain source code from tech companies in an effort to find security flaws that could be used for surveillance or investigations. The government has demanded source code in civil cases filed under seal but also by seeking clandestine rulings authorized under the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a person with direct knowledge of these demands told ZDNet. We're not naming the person as they relayed information that is likely classified. The Justice Dept. wanted to draw outrage, painting Apple as the criminal. With these hearings held in secret and away from the public gaze, the person said that the tech companies hit by these demands are losing "most of the time."

Submission + - Science can now link climate change with some extreme weather events (phys.org)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Extreme weather events like floods, heat waves and droughts can devastate communities and populations worldwide. Recent scientific advances have enabled researchers to confidently say that the increased intensity and frequency of some, but not all, of these extreme weather events is influenced by human-induced climate change, according to an international National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine report released today (March 11).

"In the past, many scientists have been cautious of attributing specific extreme weather events to climate change. People frequently ask questions such as, 'Did climate change cause Hurricane Sandy?' Science can't answer that because there are so many relevant factors for hurricanes. What this report is saying is that we can attribute an increased magnitude or frequency of some extreme weather events to climate change," said David Titley, professor of practice in Penn State's Department of Meteorology and founding director of Penn State's Center for Solutions to Weather and Climate Risk, who chaired the committee that wrote the report.

The committee found that scientists can now confidently attribute some heat waves and cold events, and to a lesser degree droughts and extreme rainfall, to human-caused climate change. Even a decade ago, many scientists argued that research could not confidently tie any specific weather events to climate change, which the committee reports ... is no longer true today.

Submission + - Plastic-eating bacteria could help clean up waste (inhabitat.com)

Submitted by Kristine Lofgren
Kristine Lofgren writes: Scientists have discovered a microorganism that literally devours ocean-clogging plastic. The bacterium Ideonella sakaiensis can completely break down polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a super common plastic used in bottles and containers that makes up a huge part of all the plastic waste in the world. Now scientists just need to figure out how to harness the hungry little bug to recycle plastic and reduce pollution.

Submission + - Mystery NOT solved: repeating fast radio bursts deepen the mystery

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Last week, it was reported that the mystery of fast radio bursts were solved, and that they were due to the merger of a neutron star with another collapsed object, well outside of our galaxy. However, not only was that analysis fundamentally flawed, but a new paper out today identifies fast radio bursts that repeat, a dealbreaker for the merger scenario. Instead, it's thought that these events come from the evolution of young neutron stars, as the data show an extragalactic but non-transient origin for these bursts. Planned follow-up observations plan on identifying the source locations as well as their true nature, and discerning whether all fast radio bursts have the same origin, or whether there are multiple different classes.

Submission + - South Korea Breaks Filibuster Record Fighting New Surveillance Bill (thestack.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Lawmakers in South Korea's National Assembly have broken the global collective filibuster record in its determination to defeat a new anti-terrorism bill which they believe threatens personal privacy for the country’s citizens. 38 liberal members of the National Assembly spoke for a total of 193 hours in a collective effort which began on February 23rd and ended today, with the passing of the bill by 160 parliament members, with one ‘no’ and apparent abstention from the filibusters.

Submission + - Robots May Soon Put Surgery Into The Hands of Non-Surgeons (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: By 2020, surgical robotics sales are expected to almost double to $6.4 billion, at the same time robots are becoming easier to use. One new robot is so easy to use that even med students can achieve proficiency with a few tries, according to Umamaheswar Duvvuri, director of head and neck surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The robot, a snake-like endoscope that can be directed into any shape through the relative orientations of its linkages, requires only one incision, reducing the number from several involved in typical laparoscopic procedures. Older, and more popular surgical robotic systems, such as the da Vinci Surgical System, are now being tested by physicians who are at controls more than 1,000 miles away. Since the Affordable Care Act of 2010 created both the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program and a new pay-for-performance system based on quality of care — not the number of procedures — robots could not only help healthcare facilities purchasing the $1 million-plus systems could achieve compliance faster and attain a return on their investment within two years.

Submission + - DoD Announces "Hack the Pentagon" Bug Bounty Program (npr.org)

Submitted by Quince alPillan
Quince alPillan writes: Announcing what it calls "the first cyber bug bounty program in the history of the federal government," the Department of Defense says it's inviting vetted hackers to test the security of its web pages and networks. Vetted hackers will need to pass a background check and will be attacking a predetermined system that's not a part of critical operations. This program is being put together by the Digital Defense Service, launched last fall.

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