privacy-rights – Page 5 – Tech Today w/ Ken May

Using synthetic nervous system, paralyzed man is first to move again

(credit: Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center/ Batelle ) With a paralyzing spinal cord injury, the biological wiring that hooks up our controlling brains to our useful limbs gets snipped, leading to permanent loss of sensation and control and usually a lifetime of extra health care. Researchers have spent years working to repair those lost connections, allowing paralyzed patients to sip coffee and enjoy a beer with robotic limbs controlled by just their minds. Now, researchers have gone a step further, allowing a paralyzed person to control his own hand with just his mind. In a study published Wednesday in Nature, researchers report using a “ neural bypass ” that reconnects a patient’s mental commands for movement to responsive muscles in his limbs, creating somewhat of a synthetic nervous system. The pioneering patient, Ian Burkhart, a 24-year-old man left with quadriplegia after a diving accident almost six years ago, can once again move his hand. In the pilot study he could control movement of individual fingers, grasp big and small objects, swipe a credit card, and play Guitar Hero . The advance may open the door to restorative treatments for paralyzed individuals, allowing them to have independent movement—and lives. Read 10 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Continue Reading:
Using synthetic nervous system, paralyzed man is first to move again

Nation-wide radio station hack airs hours of vulgar “furry sex” ramblings

(credit: TJJSvdM ) Some Tuesday morning listeners of KIFT, a Top 40 radio station located in Breckenridge, Colorado, were treated to a radically different programming menu. Instead of the normal fare from Taylor Swift, The Chainsmokers, or other pop stars, a hack by an unknown party caused one of the station’s signals to broadcast a sexually explicit podcast related to the erotic attraction to furry characters . The unauthorized broadcast lasted for about 90 minutes . KIFT wasn’t the only station to be hit by the hack. On the same day, Livingston, Texas-based country music station KXAX also broadcast raunchy furry-themed audio . And according to an article posted Wednesday by radio industry news site RadioInsight.com, the unauthorized broadcasts from a hobbyist group called FurCast were also forced on an unnamed station in Denver and an unidentified national syndicator. “All in all the FurCast aired for an hour, possibly two,” Jason Mclelland, owner and general manager of the KXAX Radio Group, wrote in an e-mail. “During that time they talked about sex with two guys and a girl in explicit details and rambled on with vulgar language not really having much of a point to the podcast. I’m assuming there was no real reason for this hack.” Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Originally posted here:
Nation-wide radio station hack airs hours of vulgar “furry sex” ramblings

Why Microsoft needed to make Windows run Linux software

It’s bash, it’s Windows, it’s not a virtual machine. Perhaps the biggest surprise to come from Microsoft’s Build developer conference last week was the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). The system will ship as part of this summer’s Anniversary Update for Windows 10. WSL has two parts; there’s the core subsystem, which is already included in Insider Preview builds of the operating system , and then a package of software that Canonical will provide. The core subsystem is what provides the Linux API on Windows, including the ability to natively load Linux executables and libraries. Canonical will provide bash and all the other command-line tools that are expected in a Linux environment. Microsoft is positioning WSL strictly as a tool for developers, with a particular view to supporting Web developers and the open source software stacks that they depend on. Many developers are very familiar with the bash shell, with building software using make and gcc , and editing text in vi or emacs . WSL will give these developers versions of these tools that are equal in just about every regard to the ones you get on Linux, because they’ll be the ones you get on Linux running unmodified on Windows. Read 22 remaining paragraphs | Comments

More:
Why Microsoft needed to make Windows run Linux software

Frontier customers still have problems three days after Verizon changeover

Former Verizon customers who were switched over to Frontier Communications on Friday are still reporting outages and other problems today. Verizon sold its FiOS and DSL networks in California, Florida, and Texas to Frontier, but the transition has not been smooth. On Friday, Frontier acknowledged a “technical issue” involving the integration of systems, but the company said it had been fixed by 9:30am ET that morning. That assurance seems to have been premature, with customers still reporting problems on DownDetector and Twitter throughout the weekend and today. “Onto the 4th day without Internet or any working account…any timeframe guys? This is getting really crazy!” one California customer complained today. Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See more here:
Frontier customers still have problems three days after Verizon changeover

Reddit removes “warrant canary” from its latest transparency report

(credit: Cyrus Farivar) Reddit has removed the warrant canary posted on its website, suggesting that the company may have been served with some sort of secret court order or document for user information. At the bottom of its 2014 transparency report , the company wrote: “As of January 29, 2015, reddit has never received a National Security Letter, an order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or any other classified request for user information. If we ever receive such a request, we would seek to let the public know it existed.” That language was conspicuously missing from the 2015 transparency report that was published Thursday morning. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments

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

View post:
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

More here:
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

Follow this link:
Texas cops joke on Facebook about Ebola-tainted meth and net one arrest

Off-switch for overeating and obesity found in the brain

Littermates were injected with either a control virus (right) or a virus that knocked out O-GlcNAcTransferase (OGT) (left) in a subpopulation of cells in the hypothalamus in the brain. OGT knock out made the mouse eat twice as much as its sibling. This photo was taken about five weeks after virus injection. (credit: Olof Lagerlof ) After tediously tracking calories and willfully shunning cravings, many a dieter has likely dreamt of simple switch that, when thrown, could shut down hunger and melt away pounds—and scientists may have just found it. When researchers knocked down a single enzyme in the brains of mice, the rodents seemed to lose the ability to tell when they were full. They ate more than twice their usual amount of food at meal times and tripled their body fat within three weeks. And—most strikingly—when the researchers reversed the experiment, the mice just quickly stopped eating so much . Data on the enzymatic switch, published Thursday in Science , suggests a possible target for future drugs to treat obesity in humans. The enzyme is O-GlcNAc transferase, or OGT, which is known to work in a chemical pathway controlled by nutrients and metabolic hormones, particularly insulin. That pathway has long been linked with obesity. But researchers knew almost nothing about the how the pathway linked to the metabolic disorder or OGT’s specific role. Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

See the original article here:
Off-switch for overeating and obesity found in the brain

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