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Half the Universe’s Missing Matter Has Just Been Finally Found

An anonymous reader shares a report: The missing links between galaxies have finally been found. This is the first detection of the roughly half of the normal matter in our universe — protons, neutrons and electrons — unaccounted for by previous observations of stars, galaxies and other bright objects in space. You have probably heard about the hunt for dark matter, a mysterious substance thought to permeate the universe, the effects of which we can see through its gravitational pull. But our models of the universe also say there should be about twice as much ordinary matter out there, compared with what we have observed so far. Two separate teams found the missing matter — made of particles called baryons rather than dark matter — linking galaxies together through filaments of hot, diffuse gas. “The missing baryon problem is solved, ” says Hideki Tanimura at the Institute of Space Astrophysics in Orsay, France, leader of one of the groups. The other team was led by Anna de Graaff at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Because the gas is so tenuous and not quite hot enough for X-ray telescopes to pick up, nobody had been able to see it before. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Half the Universe’s Missing Matter Has Just Been Finally Found

Here’s your full-length ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ trailer

The next Star Wars film won’t hit theaters until December 15th, but there’s a new trailer that just aired during Monday Night Football. Star Wars: The Last Jedi brings Luke Skywalker back into the story — along with the final appearance of Carrie Fisher as Leia — and should answer some of the questions that have been eating at us ever since the credits rolled on The Force Awakens two years ago. If you’re trying to come into this flick clean but just can’t resist taking a peek at the trailer, don’t worry — director Rian Johnson feels your pain . Tickets are already on sale from a number of providers ( IMAX , Fandango , Cinemark , AMC , Alamo Drafthouse , Atom Tickets , MovieTickets.com ), but check below for the trailer in case you need a little more convincing. Oh, and if you just need more time in the universe, don’t forget that EA just announced an extension to the Star Wars Battlefront II open beta . I a legitimately torn. If you want to come in clean, absolutely avoid it. But it’s gooooood….. https://t.co/Y29K5yz8i4 — Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) October 8, 2017 FWIW: I love that there are folks who want to come into a movie clean, I think that’s awesome. Me, I’m a weak man. I watch ALL THE TRAILERS — Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) October 9, 2017 Check out the brand new poster for Star Wars: #TheLastJedi and watch the trailer tonight. pic.twitter.com/A4UGpYqoeW — Star Wars (@starwars) October 10, 2017 Source: StarWars.com , Star Wars (YouTube)

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Here’s your full-length ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ trailer

NVIDIA introduces a computer for level 5 autonomous cars

At the center of many of the semi-autonomous cars currently on the road is NVIDIA hardware. Once automakers realized that GPUs could power their latest features, the chipmaker–best known for the graphics cards that make your games look outstanding–became the darling of the car world. But while automakers are still dropping level 2 and sometimes level 3 vehicles into the market, NVIDIA has announced its first AI computer, the NVIDIA Drive PX Pegasus that it says is capable of level 5 autonomy. That means no pedals, no steering wheel, no need for anyone to ever take control. The new computer delivers 320 trillion operations per second, 10 times more than its predecessor. Before you start squirreling away cash for your own self-driving car, though, NVIDIA’s senior director of automotive, Danny Shapiro, notes that it’s likely going to be robotaxis that drive us around. In fact, the company said that over 25 of its partners are already working on fully autonomous taxis. The goal with this smaller more powerful computer is to remove the huge computer arrays that sit in the prototype vehicles of OEMs, startups and any other company that’s trying to crack the autonomous car nut. NVIDIA’s announcement should make all those companies happy. The computing needed to power a self-driving car’s AI and data crunching not to mention the huge amounts of data coming from potentially dozens of cameras, LiDAR sensors , short and long-range radar is staggering and usually means there’s a small server room stored in the trunk. All that processing power sucks up a ton of power from the vehicle and as more cars are going electric, the last thing an automaker wants is a system that cuts in the range of their new car. The new NVIDIA Drive PX Pegasus AI computer is the size of a license plate and uses far less power than the current model. But it’s going to be a while before anyone gets their hands one. The new computer will be available in the second half of 2018 with next generation GPUs that NVIDIA hasn’t actually announced yet. But there’s already one institution that’s ready to go autonomous: the Deutsche Post DHL. The delivery service is looking to deploy a pilot fleet with the current Drive PX in 2018. The hope is to have the car be able to shadow its delivery persons as they drop off packages. A driver could get out of the truck or van with a few packages for a block and when they are finished, the vehicle will be waiting for them outside the last house. So the autonomous future isn’t just about delivery people, it’s also about delivering your online purchases. Source: Nvidia

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NVIDIA introduces a computer for level 5 autonomous cars

Equifax will give your salary history to anyone with your SSN and date of birth

Equifax division TALX has a product called The Work Number , where prospective employers can verify job applicants’ work history and previous salaries (it’s also used by mortgage lenders and others): you can create an account on this system in anyone’s name, provided you have their date of birth and Social Security Number. The former is a matter of public record, the latter is often available thanks to the many breaches that have dumped millions of SSNs (the latest being Equifax’s catastrophic breach of 145,000,000 Americans’ data). (more…)

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Equifax will give your salary history to anyone with your SSN and date of birth

London’s amazing underground infrastructure revealed in vintage cutaway maps

Londonist’s roundup of cutaway maps — many from the outstanding Transport Museum in Covent Garden — combines the nerdy excitement of hidden tunnels with the aesthetic pleasure of isomorophic cutaway art, along with some interesting commentary on both the development of subterranean tunnels and works and the history of representing the built environment underground in two-dimension artwork. (more…)

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London’s amazing underground infrastructure revealed in vintage cutaway maps

Cyberstalking Suspect Arrested After VPN Providers Shared Logs With the FBI

An anonymous reader writes: “VPN providers often advertise their products as a method of surfing the web anonymously, claiming they never store logs of user activity, ” writes Bleeping Computer, “but a recent criminal case shows that at least some do store user activity logs.” According to the FBI, VPN providers played a key role in identifying an aggressive cyberstalker by providing detailed logs to authorities, even if they claimed in their privacy policies that they don’t. The suspect is a 24-year-old man that hacked his roommate, published her private journal, made sexually explicit collages, sent threats to schools in the victim’s name, and registered accounts on adult portals, sending men to the victim’s house… FBI agents also obtained Google records on their suspect, according to a 29-page affidavit which, ironically, includes the text of one of his tweets warning people that VPN providers do in fact keep activity logs. “If they can limit your connections or track bandwidth usage, they keep logs.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cyberstalking Suspect Arrested After VPN Providers Shared Logs With the FBI

Massive 70-Mile-Wide Butterfly Swarm Shows Up On Denver Radar System

dryriver shares a report from BBC: A colorful, shimmering spectacle detected by weather radar over the U.S. state of Colorado has been identified as swarms of migrating butterflies. Scientists at the National Weather Service (NWS) first mistook the orange radar blob for birds and had asked the public to help identifying the species. They later established that the 70-mile wide (110km) mass was a kaleidoscope of Painted Lady butterflies. Forecasters say it is uncommon for flying insects to be detected by radar. “We hadn’t seen a signature like that in a while, ” said NWS meteorologist Paul Schlatter, who first spotted the radar blip. “We detect migrating birds all the time, but they were flying north to south, ” he told CBS News, explaining that this direction of travel would be unusual for migratory birds for the time of year. So he put the question to Twitter, asking for help determining the bird species. Almost every response he received was the same: “Butterflies.” Namely the three-inch long Painted Lady butterfly, which has descended in clouds on the Denver area in recent weeks. The species, commonly mistaken for monarch butterflies, are found across the continental United States, and travel to northern Mexico and the U.S. southwest during colder months. They are known to follow wind patterns, and can glide hundreds of miles each day. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Massive 70-Mile-Wide Butterfly Swarm Shows Up On Denver Radar System

Germans are doing deep scans of ancient instruments to uncover their secrets

 I don’t know if you’re into baroque music, but I can tell you that Germans sure are. So it’s no surprise that German R&D outfit Fraunhofer has turned its considerable resources towards learning about and conserving every little detail of the instruments for which the likes of Bach and Handel composed their music. Specifically, they’re putting them into an enormous… Read More

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Germans are doing deep scans of ancient instruments to uncover their secrets

Discord makes video chat and screen sharing available to all

As promised, Discord is rolling out video chat and screen share to its entire user base. Some of you may recall that the Slack-style gaming chat app began testing the highly-requested features in August. During the trial run, they were available to around 5 percent of members. Now, anyone can take advantage of video chat in one-to-one calls, or with up to ten people in a direct messaging group. You also have the option to switch between your webcam video and screen share. And, the update includes picture-in-picture support, allowing you to video chat while checking out other stuff (like servers or DMs). With 45 million users and counting, the latest changes should see Discord swipe more gamers from Skype and TeamSpeak. Back when the test phase was announced , Discord revealed users could experience a drop in quality when video chatting in groups of more than five. But we’re assuming it ironed out those issues ahead of the proper launch. Aside from the video chat rollout, it’s also fixed a bunch of bugs that were affecting things like text, emoji, and the mute option. You can browse the details for yourself here . Source: Discord (Medium)

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Discord makes video chat and screen sharing available to all

Uber’s iOS App Had Secret Permissions That Allowed It to Copy Your Phone Screen, Researchers Say

To improve functionality between Uber’s app and the Apple Watch, Apple allowed Uber to use a powerful tool that could record a user’s iPhone screen, even if Uber’s app was only running in the background, security researchers told news outlet Gizmodo. From a report: After the researchers discovered the tool, Uber said it is no longer in use and will be removed from the app. The screen recording capability comes from what’s called an “entitlement” — a bit of code that app developers can use for anything from setting up push notifications to interacting with Apple systems like iCloud or Apple Pay. This particular entitlement, however, was intended to improve memory management for the Apple Watch. The entitlement isn’t common and would require Apple’s explicit permission to use, the researchers explained. Will Strafach, a security researcher and CEO of Sudo Security Group, said he couldn’t find any other apps with the entitlement live on the App Store. “It looks like no other third-party developer has been able to get Apple to grant them a private sensitive entitlement of this nature, ” Strafach said. “Considering Uber’s past privacy issues I am very curious how they convinced Apple to allow this.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Uber’s iOS App Had Secret Permissions That Allowed It to Copy Your Phone Screen, Researchers Say