Tim Berners-Lee Working on Decentralized Apps and Data Storage
September 29th, 2018Via: Fast Company:
On his screen, there is a simple-looking web page with tabs across the top: Tim’s to-do list, his calendar, chats, address book. He built this app–one of the first on Solid–for his personal use. It is simple, spare. In fact, it’s so plain that, at first glance, it’s hard to see its significance. But to Berners-Lee, this is where the revolution begins. The app, using Solid’s decentralized technology, allows Berners-Lee to access all of his data seamlessly–his calendar, his music library, videos, chat, research. It’s like a mashup of Google Drive, Microsoft Outlook, Slack, Spotify, and WhatsApp.
The difference here is that, on Solid, all the information is under his control. Every bit of data he creates or adds on Solid exists within a Solid pod–which is an acronym for personal online data store. These pods are what give Solid users control over their applications and information on the web. Anyone using the platform will get a Solid identity and Solid pod. This is how people, Berners-Lee says, will take back the power of the web from corporations.
For example, one idea Berners-Lee is currently working on is a way to create a decentralized version of Alexa, Amazon’s increasingly ubiquitous digital assistant. He calls it Charlie. Unlike with Alexa, on Charlie people would own all their data. That means they could trust Charlie with, for example, health records, children’s school events, or financial records. That is the kind of machine Berners-Lee hopes will spring up all over Solid to flip the power dynamics of the web from corporation to individuals.
Bizarre, High Energy Particles Flying Out of Antarctica’s Ice
September 27th, 2018Via: LiveScience:
There’s something mysterious coming up from the frozen ground in Antarctica, and it could break physics as we know it.
Physicists don’t know what it is exactly. But they do know it’s some sort of cosmic ray — a high-energy particle that’s blasted its way through space, into the Earth, and back out again. But the particles physicists know about — the collection of particles that make up what scientists call the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics — shouldn’t be able to do that. Sure, there are low-energy neutrinos that can pierce through miles upon miles of rock unaffected. But high-energy neutrinos, as well as other high-energy particles, have “large cross-sections.” That means that they’ll almost always crash into something soon after zipping into the Earth and never make it out the other side.
And yet, since March 2016, researchers have been puzzling over two events in Antarctica where cosmic rays did burst out from the Earth, and were detected by NASA’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) — a balloon-borne antenna drifting over the southern continent.
ANITA is designed to hunt cosmic rays from outer space, so the high-energy neutrino community was buzzing with excitement when the instrument detected particles that seemed to be blasting up from Earth instead of zooming down from space. Because cosmic rays shouldn’t do that, scientists began to wonder whether these mysterious beams are made of particles never seen before.
SEC Sues Elon Musk, Seeks to Ban Him from Running Tesla or Any Public Company
September 27th, 2018Via: Mercury News:
In a blockbuster move Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud charges against Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk, and is seeking to ban the electric-car maker’s high-profile boss from running any publicly traded company.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the charges are related to Musk’s August announcement that he wanted to take Tesla private for $420 a share. Musk dropped the bombshell idea in an August 7 tweet in which he said he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private, but provided no financing details at that time.
“Neither celebrity status, nor reputation as a technological innovator, provide an exemption from the federal securities laws,” said Stephanie Avakian, co-director of enforcement for the SEC, during a press conference Thursday.
Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin to Supply Engines for Boeing-Lockheed Rocket Venture
September 27th, 2018Via: Wall Street Journal:
Blue Origin LLC, the space-transportation company run by Jeff Bezos, has won a contract to provide engines for a potential rival’s next-generation rocket, according to people familiar with the matter, vaulting Mr. Bezos into the lucrative market for Pentagon satellite launches.
United Launch Alliance LLC—a joint venture between Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. that launches U.S. military and spy satellites into orbit—is set to announce Thursday it has picked Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine for its Vulcan rocket, these people said. United Launch declined to comment.
The long-term, potentially multibillion-dollar agreement could provide a boost to Blue Origin’s eventual goal of becoming a major military launch provider itself. The company plans to use the same engines to power its own heavy-lift launcher, called New Glenn, which is currently under development.
Insiders Selling at Record Pace
September 26th, 2018Via: CBS:
Corporate insiders are dumping stock in their companies at a rate not seen in 10 years.
With September not yet over, stock sales by company executives reached $5.7 billion, according to data from TrimTabs Investment Research — the highest September in a decade. August’s $10.3 billion in insider sales also reached a 10-year record.
At the same time, stock buybacks are roaring ahead, pumping up U.S. share prices to new heights. Companies this year have announced $827 billion in spending to purchase their own shares — well above the buybacks that took place during all of 2007, which set the previous annual record.
“Insiders have been committing lots of money for stock buybacks, and they’re not doing buybacks because they think stocks are cheap. They’re doing to it to pump up the stock so they can sell it,” said David Santschi, director of liquidity research at TrimTabs.
Ex-Google Employee Warns of ‘Disturbing’ China Plans
September 26th, 2018Via: BBC:
A former Google employee has warned of the firm’s “disturbing” plans in China, in a letter to US lawmakers.
Jack Poulson, who had been a senior researcher at the company until resigning in August, wrote that he was fearful of Google’s ambitions.
His letter alleges Google’s work on a Chinese product – codenamed Dragonfly – would aid Beijing’s efforts to censor and monitor its citizens online.
…
The letter alleges Google is working on:
A prototype interface designed to allow a Chinese joint venture company to search for a given user’s search queries based on their phone number
An extensive censorship blacklist developed in accordance with Chinese government demands. Among others, it contained the English term “human rights”, the Mandarin terms for ‘student protest’ and ‘Nobel prize’, and very large numbers of phrases involving ‘Xi Jinping’ and other members of the CCP
Explicit code to ensure only Chinese government-approved air quality data would be returned in response to Chinese users’ search
Mr Poulson said the sum of these efforts amounted to a “catastrophic failure” of Google’s internal policies on privacy – as well as going against assurances made to the US trade regulator regarding data protection measures in its products.
“Dragonfly is part of a broad pattern of unaccountable decision making across the tech industry,” Mr Poulson wrote.
Mr Poulson’s letter follows a joint statement signed by hundreds of current Google employees against Dragonfly sent last month.
Kristinn Hrafnsson Replaces Julian Assange as WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief
September 26th, 2018Via: The Daily Dot:
Icelandic investigative journalist and former WikiLeaks spokesperson Kristinn Hrafnsson is set to become the whistleblowing organization’s new editor-in-chief, replacing isolated founder Julian Assange in the role.
The announcement was made late Wednesday in a statement issued through the WikiLeaks’ official Twitter account.
Meet the People Falling for Scripted Robots
September 26th, 2018Is this actually contributing to Japan’s declining population?
I had assumed that work related stress in Japan was simply too much to handle for a growing number of people, and that the bizarre digital escapism was a symptom of that. Would the otaku-as-pathology phenomenon be happening if work-life balance existed in Japan?
In my opinion, the fact that this sickness is spreading beyond Japan demonstrates declining work-life balance issues in other countries.
And if you think that falling in love with some NPC in a video game is bad, be sitting down for phase 2: Robot Brothels:
A Toronto company’s plan to open a sex service in Houston offering “adult love dolls” available “to rent before you buy” has sparked opposition from city leaders and an online campaign to keep so-called robot brothels out of the city.
Via: Guardian:
This genre of game – often referred to as dating simulations or dating sims for short – emerged in the 1980s in Japan, where they were popular with a predominantly male audience. But since the rise of mobile and online gaming, dating sims have become popular outside Japan and with more diverse demographics.
…
These games were seen as an escape, a last resort for nerdy men who needed virtual girls to substitute for real, healthy heterosexual relationships. Along with anime and manga, dating sims were blamed for the low fertility rates in Japan, and the young men who played these games were sometimes described as “herbivores”, as if lacking in carnal desire. This attitude was shared by western media, too, where Japanese dating sims were seen as a curious, almost alien pathology. Following the widely reported story of Nene Anegasaki – the man who married his favorite character from the dating sim Love Plus – an article in the New York Times Magazine described these games as a last resort for men who needed virtual women as a “substitute for real, monogamous romance”.
With the popularity of dating sims now growing outside Japan, similar concerns have once again emerged. In China, where a dating sim called Love and Producer was downloaded more than 7m times in its first month, media reports about the game have been mostly negative, if not alarmist. One Chinese commentator argued that the only reason young people were drawn to dating sims was because their real lives are “brutally lacking” in real love. “The simplicity, consumerism, and hypocrisy of romantic simulation games,” he wrote, “reflect the love-free disease that belongs to this era.”
Steve1989MREInfo
September 26th, 2018I thought, “I’ll just watch one…”
Via: Steve1989MREInfo:
W. Virginia’s Decision to Allow Smartphone Voting for Midterms Raises Serious Security Concerns
September 25th, 2018Give me a fucking break.
Via: PJ Media:
For the first time in our nation’s history, voters in 24 counties in W. Virginia will be able to vote using their mobile phones. While some are hailing the decision because it will make voting easier for members of the military deployed overseas, experts are warning of possible security breaches.
“After researching previously available options, the Secretary’s team identified that most electronic ballot delivery technology required access to a desktop computer, printer and scanner, all of which present significant barriers to overseas voters, especially those in combat zones or engaged in covert operations,” the W. Virginia Secretary of State’s office explained in a press release this week. The state is partnering with a Boston, Massachusetts-based company called Voatz, Inc.
“Voatz has developed a secure mobile voting application that allows voters to receive, vote, and return their ballots electronically,” the press release claims. “The application also utilizes blockchain technology to store electronically submitted ballots until election night, and requires a heightened standard of identity verification for users than traditional absentee ballot processes. This project is unprecedented in United States history, being the first mobile voting application and first use of blockchain technology in a federal election.”
