Author: kenmay

Scientists Found the Origin of the Ebola Outbreak

Taco Cowboy sends this report from Vox: One of the big mysteries in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is where the virus came from in the first place — and whether it’s changed in any significant ways. … In a new paper in Science (abstract), researchers reveal that they have sequenced the genomes of Ebola from 78 patients in Sierra Leone who contracted the disease in May and June. Those sequences revealed some 300 mutations specific to this outbreak. Among their findings, the researchers discovered that the current viral strains come from a related strain that left Central Africa within the past ten years. … Using genetic sequences from current and previous outbreaks, the researchers mapped out a family tree that puts a common ancestor of the recent West African outbreak some place in Central Africa roughly around 2004. This contradicts an earlier hypothesis that the virus had been hanging around West Africa for much longer than that. Researchers are also planning to study the mutations to see if any of them are affecting Ebola’s recent behavior. For example, this outbreak has had a higher transmission rate and lower death rate than others, and researchers are curious if any of these mutations are related to that. … The scientific paper on Ebola is also a sad reminder of the toll that the virus has taken on those working on the front lines. Five of the authors died of Ebola before it was published. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Found the Origin of the Ebola Outbreak

Reformatting a Machine 125 Million Miles Away

An anonymous reader writes: NASA’s Opportunity rover has been rolling around the surface of Mars for over 10 years. It’s still performing scientific observations, but the mission team has been dealing with a problem: the rover keeps rebooting. It’s happened a dozen times this month, and the process is a bit more involved than rebooting a typical computer. It takes a day or two to get back into operation every time. To try and fix this, the Opportunity team is planning a tricky operation: reformatting the flash memory from 125 million miles away. “Preparations include downloading to Earth all useful data remaining in the flash memory and switching the rover to an operating mode that does not use flash memory. Also, the team is restructuring the rover’s communication sessions to use a slower data rate, which may add resilience in case of a reset during these preparations.” The team suspects some of the flash memory cells are simply wearing out. The reformat operation is scheduled for some time in September. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Reformatting a Machine 125 Million Miles Away

Wi-Fi Router Attack Only Requires a Single PIN Guess

An anonymous reader writes: New research shows that wireless routers are still quite vulnerable to attack if they don’t use a good implementation of Wi-Fi Protected Setup. Bad implementations do a poor job of randomizing the key used to authenticate hardware PINs. Because of this, the new attack only requires a single guess at the hardware PIN to collect data necessary to break it. After a few hours to process the data, an attacker can access the router’s WPS functionality. Two major router manufacturers are affected: Broadcom, and a manufacturer to be named once they get around to fixing it. “Because many router manufacturers use the reference software implementation as the basis for their customized router software, the problems affected the final products, Bongard said. Broadcom’s reference implementation had poor randomization, while the second vendor used a special seed, or nonce, of zero, essentially eliminating any randomness.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Wi-Fi Router Attack Only Requires a Single PIN Guess

This amazing starry sky is a cave full of glowworms in New Zealand

NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day features an amazing photo by Phill Round. It looks like a frame from a Spielberg movie—an humanoid figure appearing at the base of a mountain, with the unknown starry sky of an alien world behind it. In reality, it’s a man getting into N ew Zealand’s Hollow Hill Cave. Read more…

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This amazing starry sky is a cave full of glowworms in New Zealand

Tripping through IBM’s astonishingly insane 1937 corporate songbook

The songbook of the damned—or at least of the employed. “For thirty-seven years,” reads the opening passage in the book, “the gatherings and conventions of our IBM workers have expressed in happy songs the fine spirit of loyal cooperation and good fellowship which has promoted the signal success of our great IBM Corporation in its truly International Service for the betterment of business and benefit to mankind.” That’s a hell of a mouthful, but it’s only the opening volley in the war on self-respect and decency that is the 1937 edition of Songs of the IBM , a booklet of corporate ditties first published in 1927 on the order of IBM company founder Thomas Watson, Sr. The 1937 edition of the songbook is a 54-page monument to glassey-eyed corporate inhumanity, with every page overflowing with trite praise to The Company and Its Men. The booklet reads like a terribly parody of a hymnal—one that praises not the traditional Christian trinity but the new corporate triumvirate of IBM the father, Watson the son, and American entrepreneurship as the holy spirit: Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Tripping through IBM’s astonishingly insane 1937 corporate songbook

Smart lightbulb features a HD speaker for music and room-to-room chat

Add / Remove This is part of a series of articles that looks at entrepreneurs hoping to get their ideas off the ground through crowdfunding. At the time of writing, each of these innovations is currently seeking funding. Smart lightbulbs aren’t a new concept — we wrote about the smartphone controlled NXP system back in 2011 — but so far, they’ve mostly been limited to the task of illuminating a space. Recognizing that smart capabilities can enable devices to do much more than their original function, LightFreq has created a bulb that offers intelligent audio features on top of smartphone-controlled lighting. Currently seeking funding via Kickstarter, the LightFreq device is no larger than the average incandescent lightbulb, yet includes a built-in high definition 5W speaker and Bluetooth and wifi connectivity. Along with standard smart bulb features such as remote control, timer functions and color-changing capabilities, the device can also stream music into any room in the house. Users can choose where they want the music to play through the app, which allows them to name each LightFreq according to the room it’s in and selecting it. Alternatively, the bulbs can be set to track the location of mobile devices in the house, so that the audio follows users as they move from room to room. With more than one LightFreq bulb installed, the devices can be used as an intercom system since each bulb also has a built-in mic. Watch the video below to learn more about the smart lightbulb: LightFreq fits into any standard light fitting and is currently available to pre-order through Kickstarter for USD 70 each. The campaign runs until 4 September. Are there other ways to combine intelligent home functions into a single device? Kickstarter: www.kck.st/1miDXgv Website: www.lightfreq.com Contact: www.twitter.com/golightfreq

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Smart lightbulb features a HD speaker for music and room-to-room chat

A rock so fantastically beautiful that it’s hard to believe is real

This looks like some 3D rendering of a fantastic alien matter that can’t possibly exist on Earth. But, being the amazing planet we live in, it is actually a real thing: “A bismuth crystal illustrating the many iridescent refraction hues of its oxide surface.” We live in a wonderful world, people. Read more…

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A rock so fantastically beautiful that it’s hard to believe is real

Los Angeles cops do not need to hand over license plate reader data, judge finds

This LAPD patrol car is equipped with a LPR unit, mounted just in front of the light bar on the roof of the vehicle. Steve Devol A Los Angeles Superior Court judge will not force local law enforcement to release a week’s worth of all captured automated license plate reader (ALPR, also known as LPR) data to two activist groups that had sued for the release of the information, according to a decision issued on Thursday. In May 2013, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Electronic Frontier Foundation sued the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department (LASD) in an attempt to compel the agencies to release a week’s worth of LPR data from a certain week in August 2012. The organizations have not determined yet whether they will file an appeal. The organizations had claimed that these agencies were required to disclose the data under the California Public Records Act . In late July 2012, the ACLU and its affiliates sent requests to local police departments and state agencies across 38 states to request information on how LPRs are used. Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Los Angeles cops do not need to hand over license plate reader data, judge finds

Insane $2 Million Naturalistic Feature-Packed Swimming Pool

Animal Planet calls Anthony Archer-Willis “the best in the world for what he does—designing and delivering the ultimate swimming experience.” That’s why they gave Archer-Willis, a British landscape architect with a specialization in swimming pool and water garden design, his own show. In ” The Poolmaster , ” he designs dream swimming pools for a handful of lucky clients. While the TV show will reveal Archer-Willis’ own creations, in the following video he shows you his appreciation for another pool designer’s work. An unnamed family in Utah commissioned this absolutely insane, mammoth $2-million-dollar swimming pool, which was designed to look all-natural. With five waterfalls, a grotto, a waterslide, hidden passageways, an integrated indoor kitchen/bathroom/showering facility, a scuba diving practice area and more, this is not the average swimming pool that most of us Americans will be hitting up this holiday weekend. Watch and be amazed: (more…)

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Insane $2 Million Naturalistic Feature-Packed Swimming Pool