Tag: digest-golf

170-year-old champagne provides clues to past winemaking

Divers discovered bottles in a shipwreck off the Finnish Aland archipelago in the Baltic Sea in 2010. After tasting the bottles on site, the divers realized they were likely drinking century-old champagne. Soon after, 168 unlabeled bottles were retrieved and were identified as champagnes from the Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin (VCP), Heidsieck, and Juglar (known as Jacquesson since 1832) champagne houses. A few of the recovered bottles had been lying horizontal in close-to-perfect slow aging conditions. Discovery of these wines, likely the oldest ever tasted, unleashed a flood of questions. When were these wines produced? What winemaking processes were in use at the time? Where was the wine going when the shipwreck occurred? An analytic approach A team of scientists gathered to search for the answers through the application of current analytical techniques, an approach called archaeochemistry. Using a combination of targeted and nontargeted modern chemical analytic approaches, the researchers aimed to uncover aspects of the winemaking practices. Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
170-year-old champagne provides clues to past winemaking

Microsoft’s Office 365 “lockbox” gives customers last word on data access

One of the concerns that keeps many companies from adopting software-as-a-service for e-mail and other collaboration services has been the issue of who has control over the security of the content. Today at the RSA Conference, Microsoft is announcing changes to its Office 365 service that will allay some of those concerns, giving customers greater visibility into the security of their applications and control over what happens with them. At the same time, it will potentially be harder for government agencies and law enforcement to secretly subpoena the contents of an organization’s e-mail. In an interview with Ars, Microsoft’s general manager for Office 365 Julia White outlined the three new features, which are being announced in a blog post from Office 365 team Corporate Vice President Rajesh Jha today . Office 365 will now include a “Customer Lockbox” feature that puts customer organizations in control of when Microsoft employees can gain access to their data, requiring explicit permission from a customer before systems can be accessed to perform any sort of service on their Office 365 services. The capability will be turned on by the end of 2015 for e-mail and for SharePoint by the end of the first quarter of 2016. “We have automated everything we can to prevent the need for our people having to touch customer data,” White told Ars. “It’s almost zero—there are very rare instances when a Microsoft engineer has to log in to a customers’ services. Now we’re going to, in those rare instances, make customer approval mandatory to do so.” That would also apply to law enforcement requests for access, White acknowledged. “When the customer opts into the Lockbox, all requests would go into that process. So it’s a customer assurance of transparency. We want to systematically look at what kind of control and transparency customers want and provide it to them,” White said. Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Original post:
Microsoft’s Office 365 “lockbox” gives customers last word on data access

Verizon’s new “Custom TV” is small step toward a la carte pricing

The dreaded pay-TV bundles that result in US homes watching only about 10 percent of the channels they pay for aren’t going away any time soon, but Verizon’s FiOS TV service is taking a small step in the right direction. Starting Sunday, new and existing FiOS customers will be able to choose from new “Custom TV” bundles that offer more flexibility and could (depending on one’s interests) save subscribers a bit of money. Verizon’s new Custom TV pricing, available beginning Sunday. 6 more images in gallery “It’s a simple way for customers to choose the types of channels they want without paying for those they don’t,” Verizon said in a description of the new pricing system that was e-mailed to reporters. Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read this article:
Verizon’s new “Custom TV” is small step toward a la carte pricing

Faked Flash-based ads on HuffPo, other sites downloaded extortionware

Google’s DoubleClick advertising network is the lifeblood of many websites driven by ad revenue—and it’s also a potential path of attack for criminals trying to spread extortionware and other malware. Some Huffington Post readers fell victim to malicious advertisements spread through Google’s DoubleClick network early this week, but another simultaneous attack may have reached an even bigger audience. Two ad network merchants became an unwitting accomplice to attackers with similar Flash-based ads, displaying them on multiple legitimate sites. The Huffington Post advertisement—a fraudulent Hugo Boss ad which also appeared on other major legitimate sites (including the real estate site Zillow.com)—was spread through DoubleClick via the ad network AdButler, according to Malwarebytes, which tracked the attack . That attack attempted to download Cryptowall ransomware to victims’ PCs. The second attack came to DoubleClick through Merchanta, an ad network that serves up 28 billion advertisement impressions a month in the US alone. There is no estimate of how many people were exposed to the attack, but it likely cast a worldwide net and could have infected thousands of PCs with malware. Malwarebytes did not collect the malware payload of the Merchanta attack, but Malwarebytes Lab’s Jérôme Segura wrote in a post on the attack  that the Flash exploit used in both attacks was identical, using the same Flash exploit kit. “It is worth noting that this malicious SWF (Flash file) had zero detection on VirusTotal when it was first submitted,” Segura said. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read this article:
Faked Flash-based ads on HuffPo, other sites downloaded extortionware

AMD abandons the microserver market, takes $75 million hit

As part of its 1Q 2015 earnings release, AMD has announced that it is leaving the high density microserver market, effective immediately. AMD bought SeaMicro in 2012 for $334 million to get a foothold into the microserver business. At the time, SeaMicro built systems containing dozens of Intel Atom and Xeon processors connected to a shared storage and network fabric. Since the acquisition, AMD has only released a single new SeaMicro system, the SM15000. This could use either AMD Opteron systems (using the Piledriver core) or Intel Xeons (using the Ivy Bridge core). With today’s announcement, it’s clear that system will also be the last new SeaMicro system to be released. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View post:
AMD abandons the microserver market, takes $75 million hit

Los Angeles school district demands multi-million dollar refund from Apple

On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) told Apple that it would not accept any further deliveries of Pearson curriculum, which Apple has been providing as part of a $1.6 billion plan to give every student in the nation’s second-largest school district an iPad. LAUSD also asked for a “multi-millon dollar refund” for software that had already been delivered,  according to local public radio station KPCC . In 2013 the school district signed an initial $30 million deal with Apple in a program that was supposed to cost up to $1.3 billion. As part of the program, LAUSD said it would buy iPads from Apple at $768 each , and then Pearson, a subcontractor with Apple, would provide math and science curriculum for the tablets at an additional $200 per unit. Not a month after the pilot program launched, students were found disabling app and browser limitations on their tablets. A month after that, LAUSD reported that a third of the 2,100 iPads distributed during the pilot program had gone missing . A year later, media investigations revealed possible malfeasance in securing the contract with Apple and Pearson by LAUSD superintendent John Deasy. While Deasy has denied wrongdoing , he recently stepped down from his position and his successor, Ramon C. Cortines, has said he will scrap the program . Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Read More:
Los Angeles school district demands multi-million dollar refund from Apple

Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are a rare type of cancer cell that are found in the blood stream of patients with localized tumors. Successful separation of CTCs from blood could serve as a liquid biopsy to help diagnose cancer and monitor treatment progress. A deeper understanding of CTCs could also lead to a better understanding of the most deadly cancer process: metastasis, where cancer cells leave established tumors and migrate to other locations in the body. Currently, CTC separation methods rely on features that distinguish CTCs from other cells—antibodies that stick to them, cell size, deformability, or even electrical properties. Scientists have also explored using sound waves to separate CTCs. Acoustic-based separation provides excellent biocompatibility and safety; it preserves the viability, function, phenotype, and genotype of cells. It also allow cells to be separated without modification. As a result, sound-based separation methods enable CTCs to be maintained in their native state throughout the separation process while avoiding invasive biopsies. Unfortunately, previous sound-based separations technologies haven’t managed to separate CTCs from clinical samples due to insufficient throughput and long-term operational instability. Recently, a team of scientists has developed an acoustic-based microfluidic device that separates CTCs from peripheral blood samples of cancer patients in a high-throughput manner. This method relies on something called tilted-angle standing surface sound waves. These standing waves contain points that “stand still,” called nodes, around which the wave oscillates. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
Sound waves separate rare cancer cells from blood

Google Fiber plans expansion, then TWC makes speeds six times faster

With Google Fiber preparing an expansion into Charlotte, North Carolina, incumbent cable operator Time Warner Cable is trying to hold onto customers by dramatically increasing Internet speeds at no extra charge. “The Internet transformation will begin this summer and will include speed increases on TWC residential Internet plans at no additional cost, with customers experiencing increases up to six times faster, depending on their current level of Internet service,” Time Warner Cable announced last week . “For example, customers who subscribe to Standard, formerly up to 15Mbps, will now receive up to 50Mbps, customers who subscribe to Extreme, formerly up to 30Mbps, will now receive up to 200Mbps; and customers who subscribe to Ultimate, formerly up to 50Mbps, will receive up to 300Mbps, at no extra charge.” Google announced plans to enter Charlotte and a few other metro areas in January and is working with local officials to finalize the network design so that construction can begin. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View post:
Google Fiber plans expansion, then TWC makes speeds six times faster

Quitting + failures + a microscope in the living room = Nobel Prize

Murray Hill, NJ—When the Nobel Prizes were handed out last year, there was clearly an interesting story behind Eric Betzig, who won in chemistry for his work in developing a microscope that could image well beyond the diffraction limit. Betzig, it was noted, took time out of his scientific career to work in his father’s machine tool business for a number of years. That break occurred after he left Bell Labs in New Jersey. Yesterday, his former home had him back in order to honor him, along with its seven other Nobel winners. Betzig got a prime speaking slot, and he used it to fill in the details of his long odyssey. Although his time at Bell Labs ended with him quitting science, it was clear that his time there was essential to his career’s eventual resurrection. Betzig started at Bell Labs after finishing his PhD at Cornell (the person who hired him, Hosrt Störmer, went on to win a Nobel as well). At the time, he was working on what’s termed “near field” microscopy, where, as he described it, a lens with a tiny aperture is jabbed right up against a sample; images are built by scanning the imaging tip across the sample. To make these tips, he’d been coating glass pipettes with aluminum; once at Bell Labs, he switched to something that was in easy supply there: optical fibers. Read 12 remaining paragraphs | Comments

View original post here:
Quitting + failures + a microscope in the living room = Nobel Prize

US, European police take down highly elusive botnet known as Beebone

US and European police have shut down a botnet that provided a captive audience of backdoored PCs to criminals who were looking for an easy way to quickly install malware on large numbers of computers. The takedown of the Beebone botnet is something of a coup because the underlying malware was so resistant to detection. Polymorphic downloader software at the heart of the malicious program updated itself as many as 19 times a day. Beebone also relied on a pair of programs that re-downloaded each other, acting as an insurance policy should one of them be removed, authorities told the Associated Press . “From a techie’s perspective, they made it as difficult as they possibly could for us,” a Europol advisory told the news organization. The takedown was a joint operation that involved the US FBI, Europol’s European Cybercrime Center, and private security groups including Kaspersky Lab, Shadowserver, and McAfee. Read 4 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
US, European police take down highly elusive botnet known as Beebone