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How the USPS targeted a drug dealer via his IP address

A federal drug case in Massachusetts has shed new light on how the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) law enforcement unit uses something as simple as IP logs on the postal tracking website to investigate crimes. According to a December 2013 affidavit of an ongoing federal criminal case in Rockland, Massachusetts (20 miles southeast of Boston), one alleged drug dealer named Harold Bates was found out simply by his digital trail left on the USPS’ Track n’ Confirm website. The affidavit was added to the court docket in January 2015, and the case was first reported on by Motherboard . Bates was charged back in March 2014 with conspiracy to import methylone (also known as “molly”), importation of methylone, and possession with intent to distribute methylone, among other crimes. Last month, the judge in the case ruled against Bates in his attempt to supress evidence seized in those packages. Read 24 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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How the USPS targeted a drug dealer via his IP address

Cortana for all: Microsoft’s plan to put voice recognition behind anything

When Microsoft introduced the Cortana digital personal assistant last year at the company’s Build developer conference, the company already left hints of its future ambitions for the technology. Cortana was built largely on Microsoft’s Bing service, and the Cortana team indicated those services would eventually be accessible to Web and application developers. As it turns out, eventually is now. Though the most important elements are only available in a private preview, many of the machine learning capabilities behind Cortana have been released under Project Oxford, the joint effort between Microsoft Research and the Bing and Azure teams announced at Build in April. And at the conference, Ars got to dive deep on the components of Project Oxford with Ryan Gaglon, the senior program manager at Microsoft Technology and Research shepherding the project to market. The APIs make it possible to add image and speech processing to just about any application, often by using just a single Web request. “They’re all finished machine learning services in the sense that developers don’t have to create any model for them in Azure,” Gaglon told Ars. “They’re very modular.” All of the services are exposed as representational state transfer (REST) Web services based on HTTP “verbs” (such as GET, PUT, and POST), and they require an Azure API subscription key. To boot, all the API requests and responses are encrypted via HTTPS to protect their content. Read 38 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Cortana for all: Microsoft’s plan to put voice recognition behind anything

Etsy’s counterfeit problem is getting worse

News of Etsy’s battle against sellers pedaling knockoff goods on its site isn’t a recent revelation, but an analyst report this week details the extent of the problem. Investment firm Wedbush says that up to 2 million items listed on the marketplace may be counterfeit or infringe on either a copyright or trademark — items like these . That’s around 5 percent of all goods promoted there. It’s not just fashion and jewelery brands, either: products with pro sports, cartoon and comic book artwork abound on Etsy as well. The company recently went public , and as you might expect, its stock fell in response to the report. What’s more, a class action lawsuit was filed against the site for making “false and misleading statements” about the counterfeit issue. Etsy took aim at questionable merchandise in the past, banning the sale of Washington Redskins items back in September. However, if it wants to continue being the go-to place for handmade goods, it’ll need to do some spring cleaning. [Image credit: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images] Filed under: Internet Comments Source: World Trademark Review , MarketWatch

GE Is 3D Printing a Working Jet Engine

lurking_giant writes: GE Aviation’s Additive Development Center near Cincinnati has produced a number of firsts but they are now demonstrating a working 3D-printed jet engine, (OK, it’s sized for an RC model). The engine turns at 33, 000 RPM and is made from all 3D metal printed parts. They used the same EOS M270 3D printer that they use to produce the first and only FAA flight approved hardware, a T25 Pres and temp sensor for use in GE90 jumbo jet engines. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

FCC May Stop 911 Access For NSI Phones

An anonymous reader writes: It’s generally known that if you call 911 from a cell phone in the USA, you will be connected to the nearest Public Safety Access Point, whether or not the phone has an active account. This is the basis for programs that distribute donated phones for emergency-only use. However, the FCC has proposed a rule change that would eliminate the requirement for telephone companies to connect 911 calls made by NSI (non-service-initialized) phones. The main reason for the proposed rule change are the problems caused by fraudulent 911 calls made through NSI phones. Yet respondents cited by the FCC show that as may as 30% of 911 calls from NSI phones are for legitimate emergencies. The comment period for the proposed rule change ends on June 6th, 2015. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Meta analysis finds self-braking cars reduce collisions by 38 percent

While we’re still some way off seeing full-blown, self-driving cars winding their way across continental Europe, a more modest autonomous technology has found approval with safety bods. Research conducted by the European road safety research organisation Euro NCAP concluded that having a car automatically slam on the brakes to avoid low-speed accidents leads to a 38 percent reduction in rear-end crashes. The notable statistic was the result of a meta-analysis of various Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) cars, comparing them to cars without the technology in accidents where the car either struck a car in front, or was being struck from behind. Euro NCAP, with support of Australian safety organisation ANCAP, pooled data from five European countries and Australia using a standard analysis format, as well as a prospective meta-analysis approach. In non-AEB cars, the split between striking and being struck was close to 50/50, improving significantly for cars with AEB. However, despite the apparent success of the study, the researchers noted that in order to get the best results out of the technology, widespread adoption was required; slamming on the brakes to avoid an accident requires following traffic to be alert enough to react to the situation and not cause a cascade. They also noted that AEB cars might be more likely to be struck from behind, as an unintended consequence of AEB’s better reaction time, compared to a human driver. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Meta analysis finds self-braking cars reduce collisions by 38 percent

Shipments of ‘white box’ tablets overtake iPads

The hottest-selling tablets aren’t likely to be iPads or Galaxy Tabs these days — if anything, they’re the cut-rate slabs you see in the back of the drug store . Strategy Analytics estimates that shipments of generic “white box” tablets (which typically run Android) overtook iPads in the first quarter of this year, claiming 28.4 percent of the market versus Apple’s 24.3. The analysts largely chalk this up to consistently tepid iPad sales , but they also suggest that small, budget-minded tablet makers are having a field day. That’s not totally surprising. Low-cost Android gear also dominates the smartphone market , and a lot of these tiny outfits operate in China, where price is more of a concern. You don’t need a $500 slate just to watch video in bed, after all. That shift is partly borne out by what’s happening with other big-name competitors. Cost-conscious Chinese brands like Huawei and Lenovo are thriving, while higher-end rivals that don’t do so well in China (such as ASUS and Samsung) are struggling. If these relative outsiders are going to come back, they may need to either compete more on price or give buyers a reason to pony up. There are signs that this is happening (see Samsung’s Galaxy Tab A and rumors of a giant iPad ), but you may not see the results of these efforts until later in the year. [Image credit: AP Photo/Koji Sasahara] Filed under: Tablets , Apple , Samsung , ASUS , Lenovo Comments Source: Strategy Analytics

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Shipments of ‘white box’ tablets overtake iPads

The Most Extreme Body Hacks That Actually Change Your Physical Abilities

Biohacking is one of those buzzy blanket terms used to describe a whole spectrum of ways that people modify or improve their bodies, from fairly tame experiments like drinking nasty butter coffee to more intense modifications like growing extra ears out of their arms . Read more…

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The Most Extreme Body Hacks That Actually Change Your Physical Abilities

Microsoft Hyperlapse Builds Time-Lapse Highlight Reels from Long Videos

Windows/Windows Phone/Android: Microsoft Hyperlapse gives you the power to shoot tons of video and then combine, condense, and edit it all into a short, time-lapse highlight reel on your PC, Windows Phone, or Android device, for free. Read more…

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Microsoft Hyperlapse Builds Time-Lapse Highlight Reels from Long Videos

The Himalayas Dropped 3 Feet After the Nepal Earthquake

The earthquake in Nepal was so violent it moved mountains. Satellite imagery shows that the parts of the Himalayas sank three feet—and the area around it as much as five feet—as tectonic plates snapped under extreme pressure. But the mountains will regain their height, slowly but surely, thanks to the geologic forces at work. Read more…

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The Himalayas Dropped 3 Feet After the Nepal Earthquake

Ken May

Author: kenmay