Month: December 2015

A plate of Staphylococcus aureus bacterial colonies growing amid white, antibiotic-emitting discs. The clear spots indicate that the antibiotic on the disc can kill the bacteria; growth around a disc means the bacteria are resistant to that emitted drug. (credit: Nathan Reading/Flickr)

Antibiotics can kick many ailments, but they don’t fight everything—like anything caused by a virus, such as the flu, and most colds. Taking antibiotics for such problems is not only useless, it’s what helps microbes develop resistance to the drugs, which in turn leads to difficult-to-treat, often-deadly infections.

Yet doctors face a daily dilemma: to be good doctors, they must only prescribe antibiotics when the drugs are needed. But to make patients think they’re good doctors, they must hand out antibiotics freely—at least according to a new nationwide healthcare survey in England.

The survey, which included nearly a million patients and 7,800 practices, found that patients were least satisfied with family doctors who were frugal with antibiotic prescriptions. In fact, the amount of antibiotic prescriptions a practice doled out was a leading predictor of its patient satisfaction ranking. The finding, published in the British Journal of General Practice, suggests that responsible use of antibiotics for the greater good may mean doctors take a hit in their patient popularity.

The fully assembled Pixel C.

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Google is back with yet another Android tablet. The latest hardware effort, the Pixel C, comes from an odd place inside Google: the Pixel team. Usually a "Pixel" is the latest, fancy high-end Chromebook, but with the Pixel C, the traditionally Chrome OS-centric team decided to make an Android tablet. It's not just a tablet, though, there's also a clip-on keyboard base making it a Surface-style convertible.

While the Pixel team brings a great all-aluminum body and minimal design, our unit had a ton of quality control issues. The touchscreen frequently failed to register taps and scrolling was unreliable. We also often had the keyboard disconnect from the tablet, which caused typing to go crazy. Many have wondered what was taking the Pixel C so long to come out, and we wonder if issues like this contributed to the late launch. While our review unit didn't come in a retail box, as far as we can tell, we tested a retail unit.

Even on paper, the Pixel C doesn't seem like a great idea. The company keeps iterating on hardware for an iPad competitor, but hardware was never really an Android tablet's big problem. The problem has always been software—mainly, the lack of tablet apps and the lack of an OS that really takes advantage of a big screen aren't fixed by new hardware. While we've seen hints of a split screen mode that would greatly help things, it's not present here. That makes the Pixel C tough to recommend when iOS and Windows are both much more capable on large screens.

(credit: Aurich Lawson)

The head of the FBI's science and technology division has admitted what no other agency official has acknowledged before—the FBI sometimes exploits zero-day vulnerabilities to catch bad guys.

The admission came in a profile published Tuesday of Amy Hess, the FBI's executive assistant director for science and technology who oversees the bureau's Operational Technology Division. Besides touching on the use of zero-days—that is, attack code that exploits vulnerabilities that remain unpatched, and in most cases are unknown by the company or organization that designs the product—Tuesday's Washington Post article also makes passing mention of another hot-button controversy: the FBI's use of stingrays. As reporter Ellen Nakashima wrote:

One area of controversy is the bureau’s use of cell site simulators, or Stingrays, which mimic cellphone towers to elicit signals from cellphones in an area, including from innocent bystanders. The FBI has long been secretive about the tool’s use, and has even made state and local law enforcement sign nondisclosure agreements.

Though the agreements typically state that the local agency “will not­ . . . disclose any information concerning” the equipment, Hess insists that the FBI has never imposed a gag on local police. For the record, she said, the bureau does not object to revealing the use of the device. It’s the “engineering schematics,” details on exactly how the tool works, that the FBI wants shielded, she said.

Another group that remains shrouded is OTD’s Remote Operations Unit. There, technicians with a warrant hack computers to identify suspects. Euphemistically called “network investigative techniques,” that activity has stirred concerns similar to those raised with the use of Stingrays.

For one thing, the warrant applications do not describe the technique’s use in detail. So judges may not really understand what they are authorizing. Hess said that agents can describe the process more fully to a judge in closed chambers. That’s if the judge knows to ask.

Privacy advocates also worry that to carry out its hacks, the FBI is using “zero-day” exploits that take advantage of software flaws that have not been disclosed to the software maker. That practice makes consumers who use the software vulnerable, they argue.

Hess acknowledged that the bureau uses zero-days—the first time an official has done so. She said the trade-off is one the bureau wrestles with. “What is the greater good—to be able to identify a person who is threatening public safety?” Or to alert software makers to bugs that, if unpatched, could leave consumers vulnerable?

“How do we balance that?” she said. “That is a constant challenge for us.”

She added that hacking computers is not a favored FBI technique. “It’s frail,” she said. As soon as a tech firm updates its software, the tool vanishes. “It clearly is not reliable” in the way a traditional wiretap is, she said.

The Post also includes counterpoint from privacy advocate and American Civil Liberties Union Principal Technologist Christopher Soghoian. He referred to Hess as the "queen of domestic surveillance" and opines: "if it's high-tech and creepy, it's happening in the Operational Technology Division."

Map of Google's fiber plans. (credit: Google)

Chicago and Los Angeles are in the running for Google Fiber deployments, with officials in both cities talking to Google about whether network construction is feasible.

"Home to a combined 6+ million people, Chicago and LA are the two largest metros we’ve engaged with to date," Google said in an announcement today.

Google Fiber is available in just three metro areas: Kansas City in Missouri and Kansas; Austin, Texas; and Provo, Utah. With the addition of Chicago and LA to the list of potential fiber cities, there are now 17 metro areas that have a good chance of getting Google's $70-per-month gigabit Internet service.

The Donald. (credit: Gage Skidmore)

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he wants to talk to Bill Gates about "closing that Internet up in some way" in order to prevent Islamic terrorist group ISIS from recruiting kids.

Speaking at a Pearl Harbor Day rally in South Carolina yesterday, Trump said, "We have kids that are watching the Internet and they want to be masterminds...  they're young, they're impressionable, they go over there, and they want to join ISIS."

Clearly, the Internet is to blame. Trump continued (see video here, Internet-related comments beginning at 22:53):