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Medicine

Studies Show Testosterone Offers Little Benefits To Aging Men (arstechnica.com) 138

Posted by BeauHD from the lasts-for-more-than-4-hours dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: In decades of research, scientists have found only one medical condition that's clearly and effectively treated with testosterone supplements: pathological hypogonadism -- that's low testosterone levels due to disease of the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, or testes. In a series of placebo-controlled, randomized trials, researchers tracked the effect of testosterone on the cognition, bone health, anemia, and cardiovascular health of 788 men for a year. All the men were aged 65 or older and had low testosterone levels that couldn't be explained by anything other than age. The results, reported Tuesday in JAMA and JAMA Internal Medicine, offer mixed results. Among the 493 in the trial who also had age-related memory declines, testosterone didn't have any effect on memory or cognitive abilities. In the study, 247 got testosterone and 246 got a placebo. But for cardiovascular health, there was an effect -- a bad one. Over the year, plaque buildup in the coronary artery -- which is a risk factor for heart disease -- increased in 73 men on testosterone compared with 65 on placebo. However, other studies have found mixed results on this. Longer, bigger trials will be needed to sort out the risks. In the anemia study, testosterone did seem to improve iron levels in men with mild anemia. The bone health study also showed that testosterone could improve bone density. However, it's unclear if those benefits outweigh the possible cardiovascular risks. And other drugs may be more effective at treating anemia and improving bone mass than testosterone.
Piracy

Repeat Infringers Can Be Mere Downloaders, Court Rules (torrentfreak.com) 121

Posted by msmash from the setting-records-straight dept.
A 10-year-old copyright case has prompted an interesting opinion from a US appeals court. In determining the nature of a "repeat infringer" (which service providers must terminate to retain safe harbor), the court found these could be people who simply download infringing content for personal use. The case was filed by recording labels EMI and Capitol against the since long defunct music service MP3Tunes nearly a decade ago. The site allowed, among other things, the ability to store MP3 files and then play it remotely on other devices. The site also allowed users to search for MP3 files online and add them to MP3Tunes service. This is what the recording labels had a problem with, and they sued the site and the owner. TorrentFreak adds: The case went to appeal and yesterday the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals handed down an opinion that should attract the attention of service providers and Internet users alike. The most interesting points from a wider perspective cover the parameters which define so-called 'repeat infringers.' [...] Noting that the District Court in the MP3Tunes case had also defined a 'repeat infringer' as a user who posts or uploads infringing content "to the Internet for the world to experience or copy", the Court of Appeals adds that the same court determined that a mere downloader of infringing content could not be defined as a repeat infringer "that internet services providers are obligated to ban from their websites." According to the Court of Appeal, that definition was too narrow. "We reject this definition of a 'repeat infringer,' which finds no support in the text, structure, or legislative history of the DMCA. Starting with the text, we note that the DMCA does not itself define 'repeat infringers'," the opinion reads. Noting that 'repeat' means to do something "again or repeatedly" while an 'infringer' is "[s]omeone who interferes with one of the exclusive rights of a copyright," the Court of Appeals goes on to broaden the scope significantly. [...] The notion that the term 'repeat infringer' can now be applied to anyone who knowingly (or unknowingly) downloads infringing content on multiple occasions is likely to set pulses racing. How it will play out in practical real-world scenarios will remain to be seen, but it's certainly food for thought.
IOS

Apple Releases iOS 10.1 With New Portrait Mode For iPhone 7 Plus (macrumors.com) 50

Posted by BeauHD from the blurry-background dept.
Apple has released iOS 10.1 to the public today for all iOS 10 users, and with it comes several new features, a long list of bug fixes, and various other under-the-hood improvements. One of the biggest new features introduced is a new "Portrait" mode, which uses the dual cameras in the iPhone 7 Plus to create shallow depth of field portrait photos with plenty of background bokeh. MacRumors reports: To achieve the blurred look, the image signal processor in the device uses the wide-angle camera to create a depth map while the telephoto captures an image, dissecting the different layers of the photo to decide what to blur with an artful "bokeh" effect. It works on people, pets, and objects, but it does require good lighting to achieve the proper results. The update also [...] brings Transit directions to Japan for the first time. There have been some tweets to the Messages app. It's now possible to play Bubble and Screen effects in Messages with Reduce Motion enabled, something that wasn't previously possible. There's also a new option to replay Bubble and Screen effects. It's important to the note that the "Portrait" mode is still in beta, and will not work flawlessly. Mac Rumors has a full list of the changes made to iOS 10.1 embedded in their report, which you can view here.
Security

Data Breach At Oracle's MICROS Point-of-Sale Division (krebsonsecurity.com) 33

Posted by msmash from the vulnerable-systems dept.
Brian Krebs reports: A Russian organized cybercrime group known for hacking into banks and retailers appears to have breached hundreds of computer systems at software giant Oracle Corp., KrebsOnSecurity has learned. More alarmingly, the attackers have compromised a customer support portal for companies using Oracle's MICROS point-of-sale credit card payment systems. Asked this weekend for comment on rumors of a large data breach potentially affecting customers of its retail division, Oracle acknowledged that it had "detected and addressed malicious code in certain legacy MICROS systems." It also said that it is asking all MICROS customers to reset their passwords for the MICROS online support portal. MICROS is among the top three point-of-sale vendors globally. Oracle's MICROS division sells point-of-sale systems used at more than 330,000 cash registers worldwide. When Oracle bought MICROS in 2014, the company said MICROS's systems were deployed at some 200,000+ food and beverage outlets, 100,000+ retail sites, and more than 30,000 hotels.
Japan

Japan Starts 8K TV Broadcasts In Time For Rio Olympics (pcworld.com) 154

Posted by BeauHD from the retina-display dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from PCWorld: Japan began the world's first regular 8K television broadcasts on Monday, five days ahead of the opening of the Olympic Games. 8K refers to broadcasts with a resolution of 7,680 x 4,320 pixels. That's 16 times the resolution of today's full high-definition (FHD) broadcasts and four times that of the 4K standard, which is only just emerging in many other countries. The format used by NHK, which it calls "Super Hi-Vision," also features 22.2-channel surround sound. Public broadcaster NHK launched a satellite channel that will broadcast a mix of 8K and 4K content as it prepares to launch full-scale 8K transmissions in time for the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. The channel will be on air daily from 10am until 5pm, with extended hours during the Rio Olympics. Japan's early lead in 8K broadcasting is thanks to NHK and its Science and Technology Research Laboratories in Tokyo.

Comment Re:This is what passes for innovation (Score 5, Insightful) 595

by nfras (#52363195) Attached to: Taking the Headphone Jack Off Phones Is User-Hostile and Stupid

If I had mod points I would mod you up.
My phone contract expires in about 8 weeks. With a contract renewal I will get a new phone. I have a bunch of criteria that I have around what I need but being 1mm thinner than the previous model isn't on my list. With Apple having issues with bending phones with the last release I would be tempted to think that unless they make the whole phone bendable a thinner phone will simply mean a fragile phone.
Removing the audio jack is design wank. A bunch of "creative types" has decided that they want a thinner, sleeker phone and that it would be cool not to have the audio jack. Marketing thinks it's great because they get to sell lots of Beats by Dr Dre headphones at vastly inflated prices. Customer think it's a con because they have wired headsets and are still smarting from having to replace their expensive Bose speakers because of the Lighting Connector. Change for the sake of change.
Microsoft

Microsoft Warns of ZCryptor Ransomware With Self-Propagation Features (softpedia.com) 71

Posted by BeauHD from the mind-of-its-own dept.
An anonymous reader writes from a report issued by Softpedia on May 27: Microsoft and several other security researchers have detected the first ransomware versions that appears to have self-propagation features, being able to spread to other machines on its own by copying itself to shared network drives or portable storage devices automatically. Called ZCryptor, this ransomware seems to enjoy quite the attention from crooks, who are actively distributing today via Flash malvertising and boobytrapped Office files that infect the victim if he enables macro support when opening the file. This just seems to be the latest addition to the ransomware family, one which recently received the ability to launch DDoS attacks while locking the user's computer.
Government

Former Tor Developer Created Malware To Hack Tor Users For The FBI (dailydot.com) 72

Posted by BeauHD from the insider-information dept.
Patrick O'Neill writes: Matt Edman is a cybersecurity expert who worked as a part-time employee at Tor Project, the nonprofit that builds Tor software and maintains the network, almost a decade ago. Since then, he's developed potent malware used by law enforcement to unmask Tor users. It's been wielded in multiple investigations by federal law-enforcement and U.S. intelligence agencies in several high-profile cases. The Tor Project has confirmed this report in a statement after being contacted by the Daily Dot, "It has come to out attention that Matt Edman, who worked with the Tor Project until 2009, subsequently was employed by a defense contractor working for the FBI to develop anti-Tor malware." Maybe Tor users will now be less likely to anonymously check Facebook each month...
Stats

Research Suggests 'CS For All' May Mean Lower Pay For All 310

Posted by timothy from the what-factors-control? dept.
theodp writes: The NY Times reports that new research suggests as women take over a male-dominated field, the pay drops. "A striking example," writes Claire Cain Miller, "is to be found in the field of recreation — working in parks or leading camps — which went from predominantly male to female from 1950 to 2000. Median hourly wages in this field declined 57 percentage points, accounting for the change in the value of the dollar, according to a complex formula used by Professor Levanon. The job of ticket agent also went from mainly male to female during this period, and wages dropped 43 percentage points. The same thing happened when women in large numbers became designers (wages fell 34 percentage points), housekeepers (wages fell 21 percentage points) and biologists (wages fell 18 percentage points). The reverse was true when a job attracted more men. Computer programming, for instance, used to be a relatively menial role done by women. But when male programmers began to outnumber female ones, the job began paying more and gained prestige." Addressing concerns raised about gender pay equity in tech, Amazon recently told the SEC to get off its case, explaining that it's working with organizations such as Code.org, the Anita Borg Institute and Girls Who Code to increase women's involvement in the technology industry. But even if such efforts achieve pay parity, will CS for All result in lower pay for all?
AT&T

AT&T Defeats Class Action In Unlimited Data Throttling Case (arstechnica.com) 63

Posted by BeauHD from the limited-by-restrictions dept.
An anonymous reader writes from an Ars Technica article: Customers who sued ATT over its practice of throttling unlimited data plans will not be able to pursue a class-action lawsuit against the company. ATT argued that the customers could not only have their complaints heard individually in arbitration, and Judge Edward Chen of US District Court in Northern California has sided with the cellular company. Chen accepted ATT's argument, noting that the Supreme Court previously upheld ATT's arbitration provision in a 2011 decision. In the 2011 case, ATT Mobility v. Concepcion, the Supreme Court found that the Federal Arbitration Act preempted a California state law that limited the power of companies to force customers into arbitration. [Chen's ruling granting ATT's motion to compel arbitration was issued on February 29 and highlighted in a MediaPost article Friday.] "Plaintiffs argue that the Concepcion Court never addressed the specific issues now raised -- i.e., that enforcement of the arbitration agreements would violate their rights as protected by the Petition Clause of the First Amendment," Chen wrote. "Because there is no state action in the instant case, Plaintiffs lack a viable First Amendment challenge to the arbitration agreements. As Plaintiffs have not challenged the arbitration agreements on any other bases, the Court grants ATT's motion to compel arbitration."
ATT is still being punished by the FCC and FTC. Ars Technica writes, "The FCC last year proposed a $100 million fine to punish ATT for throttling the wireless Internet connections of customers with unlimited data plans without adequately notifying the customers about the reduced speeds. Separately, the FTC sued ATT in an attempt to gain millions of dollars worth of refunds for customers who paid for unlimited data and had their speeds throttled."
AMD

Air-Cooled AMD Radeon R9 Fury Arrives For $100 Less With Fury X-Like Performance 77

Posted by timothy from the time-value-of-money dept.
MojoKid writes: When AMD launched the liquid-cooled Radeon Fury X, it was obvious the was company willing to commit to new architecture and bleeding edge technologies (Fiji and High-Bandwidth Memory, respectively). However, it fell shy of the mark that enthusiasts hoped it would achieve, unable to quite deliver a definitive victory against NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 980 Ti. However, AMD just launched their Radeon R9 Fury (no "X" and sometimes referred to as "Fury Air"), a graphics card that brings a more compelling value proposition to the table. It's the Fury release that should give AMD a competitive edge against NVIDIA in the $500+ graphics card bracket. AMD's Radeon R9 Fury's basic specs are mostly identical to the liquid-cooled flagship Fury X, except for two important distinctions. There's a 50MHz reduction in GPU clock speed to 1000MHz, and 512 fewer stream processors for a total of 3584, versus what Fury X has on board. Here's the interesting news which the benchmark results demonstrate: In price the Fury veers closer to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980, but in performance it sneaks in awfully close to the GTX 980 Ti.
Privacy

Snoopers' Charter Could Mean Trouble For UK Users of Encryption-Capable Apps 174

Posted by timothy from the for-the-likes-of-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes with a story at IB Times that speculates instant messaging apps which enable encrypted communications (including Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and iMessage) could be banned in the UK under the so-called Snooper's Charter now under consideration. The extent of the powers that the government would claim under the legislation is not yet clear, but as the linked article says, it "would allow security services like the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, and MI5, or Military Intelligence Section 5, to access instant messages sent between people to and from the country," and evidently "would give the government right to ban instant messaging apps that use end-to-end encryption." That might sound outlandish, but reflects a popular and politically safe sentiment: "'In our country, do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read? My answer to that question is: "No, we must not,"' [Prime Minister] Cameron said earlier this year following the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris."
Verizon

Verizon Tells Customer He Needs 75Mbps For Smoother Netflix Video 170

Posted by Soulskill from the selling-your-grandma-upgrades dept.
An anonymous reader writes: Verizon recently told a customer that upgrading his 50Mbps service to 75Mbps would result in smoother streaming of Netflix video. Of course, that's not true — Netflix streams at a rate of about 3.5 Mbps on average for Verizon's fiber service, so there's more than enough headroom either way. But this customer was an analyst for the online video industry, so he did some testing and snapped some screenshots for evidence. He fired up 10 concurrent streams of a Game of Thrones episode and found only 29Mbps of connection being used. This guy was savvy enough to see through Verizon's BS, but I'm sure there are millions of customers who wouldn't bat an eye at the statements they were making. The analyst "believes that the sales pitch he received is not just an isolated incident, since he got the same pitch from three sales reps over the phone and one online."

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