Tag: events

VLC Media Player Previews 360-degree Video Support

VideoLAN has released a technical preview of VLC Media Player 3.0 with 360-degree video support. The new build handles videos following the Spatial Video format, and photos and panoramas following the Spherical spec (the official test page has sample files). From an article on SoftwareCrew:The files play back just like any other video, but you can now left-click and drag within the screen or use the numeric keypad arrows to look around. VideoLAN says there are multiple display modes — Zoom, Little Planet and Reverse Little Planet — although we couldn’t immediately see how they were activated. This initial release is only available for Windows and Mac, but eventually 360-degree support will arrive for Android, iOS and Xbox One, with VR headset support likely to arrive in 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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VLC Media Player Previews 360-degree Video Support

For the First Time, Living Cells Have Formed Carbon-Silicon Bonds

From a ScienceDaily alert: Scientists have managed to coax living cells into making carbon-silicon bonds, demonstrating for the first time that nature can incorporate silicon — one of the most abundant elements on Earth — into the building blocks of life. While chemists have achieved carbon-silicon bonds before — they’re found in everything from paints and semiconductors to computer and TV screens — they’ve so far never been found in nature, and these new cells could help us understand more about the possibility of silicon-based life elsewhere in the Universe. After oxygen, silicon is the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust, and yet it has nothing to do with biological life. Why silicon has never be incorporated into any kind of biochemistry on Earth has been a long-standing puzzle for scientists, because, in theory, it would have been just as easy for silicon-based lifeforms to have evolved on our planet as the carbon-based ones we know and love. Not only are carbon and silicon both extremely abundant in Earth’s crust – they’re also very similar in their chemical make-up. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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For the First Time, Living Cells Have Formed Carbon-Silicon Bonds

Reddit CEO Caught Secretly Editing User Comments, Chatlogs Leaked [Update]

Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman has been caught editing comments of users of the infamous pro-Trump subreddit The_Donald. For a site which prides itself on “authentic” conversation, the ability of site administrators to secretly alter content has drastic implications. Read more…

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Reddit CEO Caught Secretly Editing User Comments, Chatlogs Leaked [Update]

Commuters Get Free Rides After Hackers Target San Francisco Public Transit

A cyber attack oddly gave San Franciscans something to be thankful for this weekend when officials responded to a hack of the city’s transit system by giving away free rides . Read more…

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Commuters Get Free Rides After Hackers Target San Francisco Public Transit

FBI Hacked Over 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries Based on One Warrant

Joseph Cox, reporting for Motherboard: In January, Motherboard reported on the FBI’s “unprecedented” hacking operation, in which the agency, using a single warrant, deployed malware to over one thousand alleged visitors of a dark web child pornography site. Now, it has emerged that the campaign was actually several orders of magnitude larger. In all, the FBI obtained over 8, 000 IP addresses, and hacked computers in 120 different countries, according to a transcript from a recent evidentiary hearing in a related case. The figures illustrate the largest ever known law enforcement hacking campaign to date, and starkly demonstrate what the future of policing crime on the dark web may look like. This news comes as the US is preparing to usher in changes that would allow magistrate judges to authorize the mass hacking of computers, wherever in the world they may be located. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FBI Hacked Over 8,000 Computers In 120 Countries Based on One Warrant

The Disgustingly Awesome World of the ‘Double Dare’ Obstacle Course

Our friends at The A.V. Club just published an insanely awesome oral history of the obstacle course from Nickelodeon’s classic game show Double Dare,   and it’s chock-full of icky, messy fun. This look behind-the-scenes comes is timed right: Nickelodeon is airing a one-night only   Double Dare special on Wednesday to… Read more…

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The Disgustingly Awesome World of the ‘Double Dare’ Obstacle Course

No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS

From a Bloomberg report:The aloe vera gel many Americans buy to soothe damaged skin contains no evidence of aloe vera at all. Samples of store-brand aloe gel purchased at national retailers Wal-Mart, Target and CVS showed no indication of the plant in various lab tests. The products all listed aloe barbadensis leaf juice — another name for aloe vera — as either the No. 1 ingredient or No. 2 after water. There’s no watchdog assuring that aloe products are what they say they are. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t approve cosmetics before they’re sold and has never levied a fine for selling fake aloe. That means suppliers are on an honor system, even as the total U.S. market for aloe products, including drinks and vitamins, has grown 11 percent in the past year to $146 million, according to Chicago-based market researcher SPINS LLC. “You have to be very careful when you select and use aloe products, ” said Tod Cooperman, president of White Plains, New York-based ConsumerLab.com, which has done aloe testing. Aloe’s three chemical markers — acemannan, malic acid and glucose — were absent in the tests for Wal-Mart, Target and CVS products conducted by a lab hired by Bloomberg News. The three samples contained a cheaper element called maltodextrin, a sugar sometimes used to imitate aloe. The gel that’s sold at another retailer, Walgreens, contained one marker, malic acid, but not the other two. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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No Evidence of Aloe Vera Found in the Aloe Vera at Wal-Mart, CVS

Second Chinese Firm In a Week Found Hiding a Backdoor In Android Firmware

An anonymous reader quotes Bleeping Computer: Security researchers have discovered that third-party firmware included with over 2.8 million low-end Android smartphones allows attackers to compromise Over-the-Air (OTA) update operations and execute commands on the target’s phone with root privileges. This is the second issue of its kind that came to light this week after researchers from Kryptowire discovered a similar secret backdoor in the firmware of Chinese firm Shanghai Adups Technology Co. Ltd.. This time around, the problem affected Android firmware created by another Chinese company named Ragentek Group. It apparently affects more than 55 low-end/burner phones from BLU, Infinix Mobility, DOOGEE, LEAGOO, IKU Mobile, Beeline, and XOLO. According to the article, the binary performing the insecure updates “also includes code to hide its presence from the Android OS, along with two other binaries and their processes… Without SSL protection, this OTA system is an open backdoor for anyone looking to take control of it.” Even worse, three domains were hard-coded into the binaries, two of which were unregistered, according to the researchers. “If an adversary had noticed this, and registered these two domains, they would’ve instantly had access to perform arbitrary attacks on almost 3, 000, 000 devices without the need to perform a Man-in-the-Middle attack.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Second Chinese Firm In a Week Found Hiding a Backdoor In Android Firmware

Feeding Seaweed To Cows Eliminates Methane Emissions

Dave Knott writes: A Canadian farmer has “helped lead to a researcher’s discovery of an unlikely weapon in the battle against global warming: a seaweed that nearly eliminates the destructive methane content of cow burps and farts, ” reports the CBC. “Joe Dorgan began feeding his cattle seaweed from nearby beaches more than a decade ago as a way to cut costs… Then researcher Rob Kinley of Dalhousie University caught wind of it.” He tested Dorgan’s seaweed mix, discovering that it reduced the methane in the cows’ burps and farts by about 20 per cent. “Kinley knew he was on to something, so he did further testing with 30 to 40 other seaweeds. That led him to a red seaweed Asparagopsis taxiformis he says reduces methane in cows burps and farts to almost nothing.” “Ruminant animals are responsible for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, so it’s not a small number, ” said Kinley, an agricultural research scientist now working at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Queensland, Australia. “We’re talking numbers equivalent to hundreds of millions of cars.” The researcher predicts a seaweed-based cow feed could be on the market within three to five years, according to the article. “He says the biggest challenge will be growing enough seaweed.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Feeding Seaweed To Cows Eliminates Methane Emissions