Angelica Pereira feeds her baby Luiza, who was born with microcephaly in Brazil on 6-February 2016. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) Researchers in Brazil have detected traces of the Zika virus in the amniotic fluid of two fetuses with microcephaly, further bolstering the connection between the two. However, questions still remain. Read more…
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New Research Suggests Zika Can Cross the Placental Barrier
Motherboard carries a report that with equipment valued at about $3, 000, a group of Israeli researchers have been able to extract cryptographic keys from a laptop that is not only separated by a physical wall, but protected by an air gap. This, they say, “is the first time such an approach has been used specifically against elliptic curve cryptography running on a PC.” From the article: The method is a so-called side-channel attack: an attack that doesn’t tackle an encryption implementation head on, such as through brute force or by exploiting a weakness in the underlying algorithm, but through some other means. In this case, the attack relies on the electromagnetic outputs of the laptop that are emitted during the decryption process, which can then be used to work out the target’s key. Specifically, the researchers obtained the private key from a laptop running GnuPG, a popular implementation of OpenPGP. (The developers of GnuPG have since released countermeasures to the method. Tromer said that the changes make GnuPG âoemore resistant to side-channel attack since the sequence of high-level arithmetic operations does not depend on the secret key.â) Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Stealing Keys From a Laptop In Another Room — and Offline
Scientists have discovered eight new species of amblypygid—a special kind of arachnid with a pair of whip-like legs. This is a big deal. Amblypygids are not well-documented, which is a shame, considering we see them every evening in our nightmares. Read more…
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These Eight New Whip-Wielding Spiders Will Haunt Your Nightmares
Sea butterflies are snails that have inverted themselves. Instead of using their flesh (via a foot) to crawl on the sea floor, they turned upside down and make their protruding bodies into “wings.” When scientists studied this unusual motion, they found the sea butterflies move exactly like fruit flies and other small insects. Read more…
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A ‘Sea Butterfly’ Swims the Same Way Insects Fly
An anonymous reader writes: An IoT security research company has discovered that a DVR model manufactured by MVPower includes a backdoor-like feature in its code that takes a screenshot of your CCTV feed and sends it to an email address hosted somewhere in China. The device’s firmware is based on an open source project from GitHub that was pulled by its developer when someone confronted him about the backdoor. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Backdoor In MVPower DVR Firmware Sends CCTV Stills To an Email Address In China
Games on devices of all kinds could soon be running better because Vulkan , the successor to OpenGL, has finally been released officially. The new standard gives developers low-level access to discrete and on-chip graphics, helping them avoid the layers of hardware overhead that normally slow things down. Khronos, the open-source group behind the standard, says it also reduces CPU overhead and improves multi-threaded performance. Delayed for several months, the version 1.0 driver is based on AMD’s proprietary Mantle standard. Similar technology is used in the Xbox One and PS4 consoles to help them make the most of their relatively modest specs. On the PC side, Vulkan will support Linux and Windows 7, 8.1 and 10. So far, official drivers are available for Intel graphics and NVIDIA products. AMD has beta drivers but still hasn’t released a final conforming version, ironically. The low-level hardware support in Vulkan makes it similar to DirectX 12 , which Microsoft released in 2014. DirectX 12 will still be popular with Windows 10 game developers, but Vulkan has the advantage of working with older Windows systems. As the successor to OpenGL, it could also attract developers like Adobe, which uses OpenGL for Photoshop and other apps. For apps that don’t need maximum performance, Khronos will still support and update OpenGL. On mobile, today Qualcomm is announcing that its flagship Snapdragon 820 processor will be the first to play nice with Vulkan. More specifically, the Adreno 530 GPU inside will support both the graphics framework and compute, which means that applications that require additional processing power can tap into the GPU. The company is also pledging to add drivers for other Adrenos in the 4xx and 5xx range, and we imagine more chip-makers — not least Intel and Nvidia — will offer support soon. Apple was initially a part of the Khronos working group, but stepped away from it to develop its Metal API (it’s still a member of the Khronos consortium). Both Macs and mobile iOS devices use Metal, which offers developers a mix of low- and high-level graphics access. That said, Imagination, which designs the PowerVR cores inside the iPhone and iPad, is part of the Khronos group, so support for the standard could come at some point. The Vulkan standard is also important to Valve, who wants it to bring big performance improvements to the modest hardware in its Steam Machines . However, so far there are no Vulkan games that use Valve’s Source 2 engine, nor are there any on Unity or Unreal Engine. For now, the only Vulkan-based game to officially launch is The Talos Principal (pictured above) which should be available soon on Steam. Source: Khronos
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OpenGL’s successor is ready to improve gaming graphics
3D printing isn’t just for toys and models — doctors at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine announced yesterday that they’ve managed to 3D print “living” tissue and organs that functioned properly when implanted in animals. The team, led by Anthony Atala, is already renowned for printing the building blocks for human bladders. But now they’ve reached another level entirely: They say it’s possible to print structures large and strong enough for humans. They’ve printed muscle structures, bone and ear tissue so far, according to Nature . With a little more work, the technology could revolutionize the way we approach surgical replacements (and finally make plenty of sci-fi biotechnology scenarios a reality). At the heart of the discovery is the Integrated Organ and Printing System (ITOP), which is unlike any 3D printer we’ve seen so far. It uses “biodegradable, plastic-like material” to form the shape of tissues, as well as water-based ink to hold cells and a series of microchannels to allow oxygen and nutrients to flow through. The idea is to make strong tissue that effectively integrates into animals and humans. Sure, we’ve been hearing about 3D printed organs for years, but this announcement is notable for several reasons. Atala’s team used the ITOP to print human-sized ears that were implanted under the skin of mice and, over the course of two months, managed to form cartilage and blood vessels. They’ve also seen similar progress when implanting muscle tissue and skull bone in rats. At this rate, it might not be too long before we start seeing human trials. Source: Nature
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Doctors reveal they can 3D print body parts and tissue
Gamers who preorder Remedy’s upcoming Xbox One game, Quantum Break, will receive a free digital copy for Windows 10 PCs — a “crossbuy” strategy that Microsoft’s Xbox chief plans to make a “platform feature” of the gaming console. Behind the scenes, Microsoft has worked to tie its Windows 10 and Xbox One operating systems closer together, sharing features and data. The Xbox One includes versions of Skype and Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft has said that universal apps written for Windows 10 can theoretically run on the Xbox One, as well as Windows 10 PCs and Windows 10 Mobile phones. Eventually, Microsoft envisions a world where PC and Xbox One gamers will drift between platforms, and where gamers on each platform will be able to compete with one another. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Microsoft Plans To Make Windows 10, Xbox One Game "Crossbuys" A Habit
University of Rochester researchers have announced the development of a new polymer, capable of supporting 1, 000 times its own mass. Polymers that can change shape when heated have been developed in the past, yet this new polymer exhibits the rare quality of becoming flexible when exposed to body heat. This property, which can be used to change the shape of a device, could make the substance useful in medical applications. When the new polymer is removed from the heat source (such as human body), the material immediately returns to its original configuration. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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New Shape-Shifting Polymer Holds 1,000 Times Its Own Mass – Watch Out Plastic Man!
The Wikimedia Foundation has finally disclosed details of its controversial Knowledge Engine grant — and it confirms that Wikipedia is getting seriously into search, despite Jimmy Wales’ categorical denial that WMF is “doing a Google.” After a Wikipedia signpost article, and coverage at El Reg this week, the WMF caved and posted the Knight Foundation’s approval of the $250, 000 grant. The grant provides seed money for stage one of the Knowledge Engine, described as “a system for discovering reliable and trustworthy information on the Internet.” The discovery stage includes an exploration of prototypes of future versions of Wikipedia.org which are “open channels” rather than an encyclopedia, analyzing the query-to-content path, and embedding the Wikipedia Knowledge Engine “via carriers and Original Equipment Manufacturers.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Reluctant Wikipedia Lifts Lid On $2.5M Internet Search Engine Project