data – Page 5 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Rare example of lost language found on stone hidden 2500 years ago

Mugello Valley Project The ancient Etruscan stele was recycled 2500 years ago for use inside the foundation of a temple, which suggests that it is quite old. The stone is about 4 feet tall, and would once have stood as part of a sacred display. 3 more images in gallery The ancient Etruscan civilization, whose great cities dotted the west coast of Italy between 2800 and 2400 years ago, was in many ways the model for ancient Greece and Rome. Etruscans lived in city states with sumptuous palaces, beautiful art, and a complicated social structure. But we know almost nothing about their daily lives, in part because most of their writing was recorded on perishable objects like cloth or wax tablets. For that reason, a new discovery made by the Mugello Valley Archaeological Project could be revolutionary. At a dig outside Florence, a group of researchers have unearthed a massive stone tablet, known as a stele, covered in Etruscan writing. The 500-pound stone is 4 feet high and was once part of a sacred temple display. But 2500 years ago it was torn down and used as a foundation stone in a much larger temple. Hidden away for thousands of years, the sandstone stab has been preserved remarkably well. Though it’s chipped, and possibly burned on one side, the stele contains 70 legible letters and punctuation marks. That makes it one of the longest examples of Etruscan writing known in the modern world. Scientists believe it will be full of words and concepts they’ve never encountered before. Almost all the writing we have from Etruscan civilization is from necropolises, massive tombs that the wealthy elites used to bury their dynastic families for generations. So a lot of the vocabulary we’ve gleaned comes from what are essentially gravestones, covered in rote phrases and praise for the dead. This new stele could reveal a lot about Etruscan religion, and possibly the names of the god or goddesses worshipped at the city. Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Rare example of lost language found on stone hidden 2500 years ago

AT&T boosts data caps for home Internet and steps up enforcement

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. (credit: AT&T) AT&T today announced that it will increase its data caps—and expand enforcement—on home Internet service. As a result, more customers will have to pay $10 overage charges for each 50GB they use beyond their monthly limit, similar to Comcast’s data cap system. AT&T will also let customers upgrade to unlimited data for an extra $30 a month. This is only necessary for Internet-only customers. People who purchase both AT&T Internet and TV in a bundle will get unlimited home Internet data at no extra charge. That applies to bundles with either DirecTV satellite or AT&T’s wireline U-verse TV system. Previously, AT&T enforced a 150GB monthly cap on its DSL network. On May 23, AT&T will expand enforcement of caps to U-verse Internet service, which brings fiber closer to the home to boost speeds, and to “Gigapower,” its all-fiber service. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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AT&T boosts data caps for home Internet and steps up enforcement

Texas cops joke on Facebook about Ebola-tainted meth and net one arrest

A Central Texas police department issued a “breaking news alert” on Facebook, cautioning residents that meth and heroin in the Granite Shoals area “could be contaminated with the life-threatening disease Ebola .” Last week’s fake Facebook alert urged the public “NOT” to ingest those illicit drugs “until it has been properly checked for possible Ebola contamination” by the police department. The ploy netted one arrest, the Granite Shoals Police Department (GSPD) reported on Facebook. A woman allegedly brought in her meth so the police department could analyze it for Ebola: This morning, we had our first concerned citizen notify the Granite Shoals Police Department (GSPD) that they believed their methamphetamine may be tainted. Our officers gladly took the item for further testing. Results and booking photos are pending. Please continue to report any possibly tainted methamphetamine or other narcotics to the Granite Shoals Police Department. Public health and safety continue to remain our #1 priority. ‪#‎notkidding‬ For the uninitiated, there are no Ebola-contaminated drugs. The alert was a hoax played on the citizens of Granite Shoals, a town of about 5,000 northwest of Austin. But the arrest of 29-year-old Chastity Eugina Hopson is not a joke. She was accused of possessing under a gram of a controlled substance. The police department described Hopson’s arrest as “the winner of the Facebook post challenge.” Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Texas cops joke on Facebook about Ebola-tainted meth and net one arrest

Cops: Lottery terminal hack allowed suspects to print more winning tickets

Six people have been charged in what prosecutors say was a scheme to hack Connecticut state lottery terminals so they produced more winning tickets and fewer losing ones. At least two of the suspects have been charged with felonies, including first-degree larceny, first-degree computer crimes, and rigging a game, according to an article published by The Hartford Courant . The suspects allegedly owned or worked at retail stores that produced winning tickets in numbers that were much higher than the state average. Of tickets generated at one liquor store, for instance, 76 percent were instant winners in one sample and 59 percent in another sample. The state-wide average, meanwhile, was just 24 percent. After manipulating the terminals, the suspects cashed the tickets and took the proceeds, prosecutors alleged. The charges come several months after lottery officials suspended a game called the 5 Card Cash after they noticed it was generating more winning tickets than its parameters should have allowed. The game remains suspended. Investigators say more arrests may be made in the future. Almost a year ago, prosecutors in Iowa presented evidence indicating the former head of computer security for the state’s lottery association tampered with lottery computers prior to buying a ticket that won a $14.3 million jackpot. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Cops: Lottery terminal hack allowed suspects to print more winning tickets

Minimalist genome—only 473 genes—synthesized and used to boot up a cell

The bacteria that acted as the raw material for this experiment. Life is a rather difficult thing to define, but there are a few aspects that most biologists would agree on: it has to maintain genetic material and be able to make copies of itself. Both of these require energy, so it also must host some sort of minimal metabolism. In large, complex cells, each of these requirements takes hundreds of genes. Even in the simplified genomes of some bacteria, the numbers are still over a hundred. But does this represent the minimum number of genes that life can get away with? About a decade ago, researchers started to develop the technology to synthesize a genome from scratch and then put it in charge of a living cell. Now, five years after their initial successes, researchers used this model to try to figure out the genetic minimum for life itself. At first, the project seemed to be progressing well. In 2008, the team described the tools it had developed that could build the entire genome of a bacterium. (The team used a parasitic bacteria called Mycoplasma genitalium that started with only 525 genes.) Two years after that, they managed to get a genome synthesized using this method to boot up bacteria , taking the place of the normal genome. Read 15 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Minimalist genome—only 473 genes—synthesized and used to boot up a cell

Rage-quit: Coder unpublished 17 lines of JavaScript and “broke the Internet”

(credit: Photo illustration by Aurich Lawson) It all started with a request from the developers of a messaging application to an open-source developer to change the name of a library. It ended with JavaScript developers around the world crying out in frustration as hundreds of projects suddenly stopped working—their code failing because of broken dependencies on modules that a developer removed from the repository over a policy dispute. At the center of it all is npm, Inc. , the Oakland startup behind the largest registry and repository of JavaScript tools and modules. Isaac Schlueter, npm’s creator, said that the way the whole thing shook out was a testament to how well open source works—the missing link was replaced by another developer quickly. But many developers are less than elated by the fact that code they’ve become dependent on can be pulled out from under them without any notice. The disruption caused by the wholesale unpublishing of code modules by their author, Azer Koçulu, was repaired in two hours, Schlueter told Ars, as other developers filled in the holes in the repository. The incident is, however, prompting Schlueter and the team at nmp Inc. to take a look at how to prevent one developer from causing so much collateral damage. Read 21 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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Rage-quit: Coder unpublished 17 lines of JavaScript and “broke the Internet”

London to NYC in just 3.4 hours? A roundtrip will set you back $5,000

An artist’s conception of the Boom aircraft at London’s Heathrow Airport. (credit: Boom) After more than a decade of dormancy commercial supersonic flight may soon return to the skies. The Soviet Tupolev supersonic aircraft flew just a few dozen flights back in 1977, and the Concorde, flown by British Airways and Air France, retired in 2003 after a fatal accident three years earlier that compounded economic problems. But now Richard Branson and his Virgin empire are ready to try it again. According to The Guardian , Branson has signed a deal with an American firm to bring commercial supersonic travel to the airways, beginning with trans-Atlantic flights between London and New York City. The agreement brings Branson’s Virgin Galactic into a partnership with Colorado-based Boom, founded by Amazon executive Blake Scholl. Virgin Galactic, according to a company spokeswoman, will provide engineering, design, operations, and manufacturing services, along with flight tests at Virgin’s base in Mojave, Calif. It will then have an option to buy the first 10 airframes from Boom. Read 8 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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London to NYC in just 3.4 hours? A roundtrip will set you back $5,000

9.7-inch iPad Pro and iPhone SE both have 2GB of RAM

Enlarge / The 9.7-inch iPad Pro isn’t quite the equal of the 12.9-inch version. (credit: Andrew Cunningham) Apple has started distributing both the iPhone SE and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro to journalists, and one of the first things to come to light has been the amount of RAM in each device. Memory in iDevices has a big impact on performance and general usability, but Apple almost never actually talks about it so we need to have hardware in hand before we can get the full story. The good news is that the iPhone SE has the same 2GB of RAM as the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus despite its smaller size and lower price. The not as good news is that the 9.7-inch iPad Pro has the same 2GB of RAM as the iPad Air 2, not the 4GB of RAM on offer in the 12.7-inch version. RAM doesn’t have quite the same effect in an iOS device as it does in laptops and desktops—iOS was originally designed for low RAM devices and even though current iPhones and iPads have much more RAM than the 128MB in the first iPhone, the OS is still aggressive about ejecting apps from memory. Giving an iPhone or iPad more RAM doesn’t necessarily speed up general performance, but it does mean that apps and browser tabs need to be ejected from memory less often. Today this is particularly beneficial in Safari, which needs to reload tabs when they’re ejected from RAM—at best this process adds a couple extra seconds to what ought to be a simple tab switch, and at worst you don’t have connectivity and so can’t see the tab you’re trying to open. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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9.7-inch iPad Pro and iPhone SE both have 2GB of RAM

10 more OEMs pledge to make auto-braking standard in new cars

(credit: Ford) The number of car makers committed to making automatic emergency braking a standard feature on all new cars has doubled this week. On Thursday the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety announced that 20 manufacturers are now onboard with the plan, which will see AEB systems installed throughout their model range by 2022. In September of last year, we reported that 10 OEMs had already made the pledge. In the past, government mandates were needed to spread advanced driver safety aids like airbags or electronic stability control systems beyond the luxury cars in which they first appeared. In this case, the auto industry has gotten ahead of possible NHTSA regulation and looks set to implement AEB itself. Speaking at an event last Fall , NHTSA Administrator Mark Rosekind said that NHTSA wanted to see OEMs implement AEB as quickly as possible. “Safety,” he said, “should not be a luxury item. Its an obligation for all of us.” Whether 2022 qualifies as “quickly” may be a matter of opinion, but may be reasonable given the long product development lifecycles of new vehicles. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

LAX to SFO flights from United Airlines move to biofuel blend

(credit: United) On Friday, United Airlines announced that its flights between Los Angeles International Airport and San Francisco International Airport will now be partly powered by a biofuel mix supplied by an LA-based company called AltAir Fuels. United runs four or five flights between LAX and SFO every day, and it will fill these planes up with a combination of 30 percent biofuel and 70 percent traditional jet fuel, according to the Washington Post . The biofuel portion of the mix will be made with a range of biological source materials “from used cooking oil to algae,” the Post writes; it was developed with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The airline has agreed to purchase 15 million gallons of the mix over the next three years from AltAir. Still, the Los Angeles Times points out that United burned through 3.2 billion gallons of traditional jet fuel last year, so that 15 million gallons is just a proverbial drop in the jet fuel barrel. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments