Tag: journal

Unknown Language Discovered in Malaysia

Researchers have cataloged close to 7, 000 distinct human languages on Earth, per Linguistic Society of America’s latest count. That may seem like a pretty exhaustive list, but it hasn’t stopped anthropologists and linguists from continuing to encounter new languages, like one recently discovered in a village in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula. From a report: According to a press release, researchers from Lund University in Sweden discovered the language during a project called Tongues of the Semang. The documentation effort in villages of the ethnic Semang people was intended to collect data on their languages, which belong to an Austoasiatic language family called Aslian. While researchers were studying a language called Jahai in one village, they came to understand that not everyone there was speaking it. “We realized that a large part of the village spoke a different language. They used words, phonemes and grammatical structures that are not used in Jahai, ” says Joanne Yager, lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Linguist Typology. “Some of these words suggested a link with other Aslian languages spoken far away in other parts of the Malay Peninsula.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Unknown Language Discovered in Malaysia

Why Paper Jams Persist

A trivial problem reveals the limits of technology. Fascinating story from The New Yorker: Unsurprisingly, the engineers who specialize in paper jams see them differently. Engineers tend to work in narrow subspecialties, but solving a jam requires knowledge of physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, computer programming, and interface design. “It’s the ultimate challenge, ” Ruiz said. “I wouldn’t characterize it as annoying, ” Vicki Warner, who leads a team of printer engineers at Xerox, said of discovering a new kind of paper jam. “I would characterize it as almost exciting.” When she graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology, in 2006, her friends took jobs in trendy fields, such as automotive design. During her interview at Xerox, however, another engineer showed her the inside of a printing press. All Xerox printers look basically the same: a million-dollar printing press is like an office copier, but twenty-four feet long and eight feet high. Warner watched as the heavy, pale-gray double doors swung open to reveal a steampunk wonderland of gears, wheels, conveyor belts, and circuit boards. As in an office copier, green plastic handles offer access to the “paper path” — the winding route, from “feeder” to “stacker, ” along which sheets of paper are shocked and soaked, curled and decurled, vacuumed and superheated. “Printers are essentially paper torture chambers, ” Warner said, smiling behind her glasses. “I thought, This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Why Paper Jams Persist

FDA Declares Popular Alt-Medicine Kratom an Opioid

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NBC News: The Food and Drug Administration declared the popular herbal product kratom to be an opioid on Tuesday, opening a new front in its battle to get people to stop using it. New research shows kratom acts in the brain just as opioids do, FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. And he said the agency has documented 44 cases in which kratom at least helped kill people — often otherwise healthy young people. “Taken in total, the scientific evidence we’ve evaluated about kratom provides a clear picture of the biologic effect of this substance, ” Gottlieb wrote. “Kratom should not be used to treat medical conditions, nor should it be used as an alternative to prescription opioids. There is no evidence to indicate that kratom is safe or effective for any medical use.” The FDA released detailed accounts of several of the deaths. The victims often had mixed kratom with other substances, including chemicals taken out of inhalers and found in over-the-counter cold and flu drugs. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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FDA Declares Popular Alt-Medicine Kratom an Opioid

Cloudflare Terminates Service To Sci-Hub Domain Names

While Sci-Hub is praised by thousands of researchers and academics around the world, copyright holders are doing everything in their power to wipe the site from the web. From a report: Last weekend another problem appeared for Sci-Hub. This time American Chemical Society (ACS) went after CDN provider Cloudflare, which informed the site that a court order requires the company to disconnect several domain names. “Cloudflare has received the attached court order, Case 1:17-cv-OO726-LMB-JFA, ” the company writes. “Cloudflare will terminate your service for the following domains sci-hub.la, sci-hub.tv, and sci-hub.tw by disabling our authoritative DNS in 24 hours.” According to Sci-Hub’s operator, losing access to Cloudflare is not “critical, ” but it may “cause a short pause in website operation.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Cloudflare Terminates Service To Sci-Hub Domain Names

Wells Fargo Hit With ‘Unprecedented’ Punishment Over Fake Accounts

An anonymous reader quotes CNN: The Federal Reserve has dropped the hammer on Wells Fargo, [handing] down unprecedented punishment late Friday for what it called the bank’s “widespread consumer abuses, ” including its notorious creation of millions of fake customer accounts. Wells Fargo won’t be allowed to get any bigger than it was at the end of last year — $2 trillion in assets — until the Fed is satisfied that it has cleaned up its act. Under pressure from the Fed, the bank agreed to remove three people from the board of directors by April and a fourth by the end of the year. It is the first time the Federal Reserve has imposed a cap on the entire assets of a financial institution, according to a Fed official. “We cannot tolerate pervasive and persistent misconduct at any bank, ” outgoing Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen said in a statement. Friday was her last day on the job…. Wells Fargo admitted that its workers responded to wildly unrealistic sales goals by creating as many as 3.5 million fake accounts. The bank has also said it forced up to 570, 000 customers into unneeded auto insurance… About 20, 000 of those customers had their cars wrongfully repossessed in part due to these unwanted insurance charges. In August, Wells Fargo was sued by small business owners who say the bank used deceptive language to dupe mom-and-pop businesses into paying “massive early termination fees.” The company was in the headlines again in October for charging about 110, 000 mortgage borrowers undue fees. One U.S. congressman argued that the harsh penalty “demonstrates that we have the tools to rein in Wall Street — if our regulators have the guts to use them.” Wells Fargo has also spent $3.3 billion on legal bills in just the last three months of 2017. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Wells Fargo Hit With ‘Unprecedented’ Punishment Over Fake Accounts

Five Major Credit Cards Are Now Blocking Cryptocurrency Purchases

An anonymous reader quotes CNBC: J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup said Friday they are no longer allowing customers to buy cryptocurrencies using credit cards. “At this time, we are not processing cryptocurrency purchases using credit cards, due to the volatility and risk involved, ” a J.P. Morgan Chase spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. “We will review the issue as the market evolves.” A Bank of America spokesperson also said in an email that the bank has decided to decline credit card purchases of cryptocurrencies. Citigroup said in a statement that it has “made the decision to no longer permit credit card purchases of cryptocurrency. We will continue to review our policy as this market evolves.” Earlier in January, Capital One Financial said it has decided to ban cryptocurrency purchases with its cards. Discover Financial Services has effectively prohibited cryptocurrency purchases with its credit cards since 2015. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Five Major Credit Cards Are Now Blocking Cryptocurrency Purchases

Are Music CDs Dying? Best Buy Stops Selling CDs

An anonymous reader quotes Complex magazine: The future of physical music isn’t looking good. According to Billboard, consumer electronics company Best Buy will no longer carry physical CDs and Target may be following suit in the near future. Best Buy notified music suppliers that they will cease selling CDs at stores beginning July 1. The move is sure to hurt the already declining sales of CDs as consumers are switching to streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal in large numbers. CD sales have already dropped by a sizable 18.5 percent in the past year, Billboard reports. Billboard also reports Target has given an “ultimatum” to music and video suppliers. “Currently, Target takes the inventory risk by agreeing to pay for any goods it is shipped within 60 days, and must pay to ship back unsold CDs for credit… Target has demanded to music suppliers that it wants CDs to be sold on what amounts to a consignment basis…” “If the majors don’t play ball and give in to the new sale terms, it could considerably hasten the phase down of the CD format.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Are Music CDs Dying? Best Buy Stops Selling CDs

Microsoft Office 2019 Will Only Work on Windows 10

Microsoft on Thursday provided an update on Office 2019, in which it revealed that the apps will only run on Windows 10. From a report: In a support article for service and support of Windows and Office, Microsoft has revealed you’ll need to upgrade to Windows 10 if you want the latest version of Office without subscribing to the company’s Office 365 service. It’s a move that’s clearly designed to push businesses that are holding off on Office 365 into subscriptions, as the standalone Office 2019 software will only be supported on Windows 10 and not Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 machines. Microsoft is also altering the support lifecycle for Office 2019, so it will receive 5 years of mainstream support and then “approximately 2 years of extended support.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Microsoft Office 2019 Will Only Work on Windows 10

California Senate Defies FCC, Approves Net Neutrality Law

The California State Senate yesterday approved a bill to impose net neutrality restrictions on Internet service providers, challenging the Federal Communications Commission attempt to preempt such rules. From a report: The FCC’s repeal of its own net neutrality rules included a provision to preempt state and municipal governments from enforcing similar rules at the local level. But the governors of Montana and New York have signed executive orders to enforce net neutrality and several states are considering net neutrality legislation. The FCC is already being sued by t21 states and the District of Columbia, which are trying to reverse the net neutrality repeal and the preemption of state laws. Attempts to enforce net neutrality rules at the state or local level could end up being challenged in separate lawsuits. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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California Senate Defies FCC, Approves Net Neutrality Law

Amateur Astronomer Discovers Long-Dead NASA Satellite Has Come Back To Life

schwit1 shares a report from Behind The Black: In his hunt to locate Zuma, an amateur astronomer has discovered that a long-dead NASA satellite, designed to study the magnetosphere, has come back to life. IMAGE went dead in 2005, and though NASA thought it might come back to life after experiencing a total eclipse in 2007 that would force a reboot, no evidence of life was seen then. It now appears that the satellite came to life sometime between then and 2018, and was chattering away at Earth waiting for a response. NASA is now looking at what it must do to take control of the spacecraft and resume science operations. Zuma is the secret U.S. government payload that was launched by SpaceX earlier this month and reportedly lost. As for why Scott Tilley — the amateur radio astronomer — decided to have a look for the present of secret military satellites, Ars Technica reports that he apparently does this semi-regularly as a hobby and, in this case, was inspired by the Zuma satellite. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Amateur Astronomer Discovers Long-Dead NASA Satellite Has Come Back To Life