Month: January 2016

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On a fateful day in October 2015, Pedro—an IT contractor living in Ireland—was surfing Amazon.de for a specialised textbook he needed for a new extracurricular art class. He found the book, ordered it, but was disappointed when it arrived. The listing had said that the book was the current edition, but Amazon sent Pedro the previous edition.

Pedro got in touch with customer service to see about getting the proper version. A few days later, Amazon told Pedro that it had ultimately failed to find the right version of the textbook and that he should instead return the book for a full refund.

Pedro, who by this point had spent a long time looking for the correct version of the book and then more time waiting while Amazon looked for the book in its warehouse, wasn't happy with the overall shopping experience. He made his displeasure known by providing negative feedback on a customer satisfaction survey, and he figured that was the end of it.

(credit: Rainer Ebert)

The Dutch government has released a statement in which it says that "it is currently not desirable to take restricting legal measures concerning the development, availability and use of encryption within the Netherlands." It also notes that forcing companies to add backdoors to their products and services would have "undesirable consequences for the security of communicated and stored information," since "digital systems can become vulnerable to criminals, terrorists and foreign intelligence services."

The Dutch government's declaration, translated by Matthijs R. Koot, looks at both sides of encryption—the benefits it provides by allowing sensitive information to be protected, and the issues it raises for the police and security services. It recognises that crypto "enables everyone to ensure the confidentiality and integrity of communication, and defend against, for instance, espionage and cyber crime. Fundamental rights and freedoms as well as security interests and economic interests benefit from this."

But it also acknowledges that the use of encryption by criminals "complicates, delays, or makes it impossible to gain (timely) insight in communication for the purpose of protecting national security and the purpose of prosecuting criminal offenses. Furthermore, court hearings and the providing of evidence in court for a conviction can be severely hindered."

An actual product you can buy... or at least pre-order. (credit: Oculus Shop)

[Update: More details on ship date, Oculus Ready PCs, and exclusive games are now in the below story]

After dozens of trade-show demos, two publicly available development kits, a $2 billion buyout, and nearly four years of speculation, Oculus has finally locked down the release details for the first consumer version of the Rift virtual reality headset. The $599 VR unit is now available for preorder ahead of expected shipments starting in March (though the shop page had some major loading problems right after pre-orders went live). Oculus says the headset will be available at "limited retail locations" starting in April.

That price will get users the headset, a head-tracking camera, an Xbox One controller, the media-focused "Oculus remote," connection cables, a carrying case, and two included games: space shooter Eve Valkyrie and third-person platform game Lucky's Tale. It does not include tax, roughly $30 in shipping, or the promising Oculus Touch hand-tracking controllers, which were recently delayed to the second half of 2016. Oculus founder Palmer Luckey tweeted yesterday that those who preorder the Rift would also be first in line to preorder the Touch controllers later in the year.

(credit: Gerald Lau/Flickr)

A plague of drug violence in Mexico stands to undo gains in life expectancy from the last century, according to new research published in Health Affairs.

Life expectancy crept upward during most of the 20^th century, largely thanks to improved access to health care and quality of life. But from 2005 to 2010, the trend reversed for men and slowed for women as the number of homicides spiked.

In that time frame, the country’s homicide rate more than doubled, from 9.5 deaths in 100,000 people during 2005 to 22 in 100,000 by 2010. That cropped life expectancy of men in all 31 Mexican states and the Federal District. Across the country, average life spans dropped from 72.5 years to about 72 years in the time frame. But areas more hard-hit by drug violence saw larger drops in life expectancy. In the northern states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Durango, for instance, life expectancy fell by up to three years. For women country-wide, the upward trend in life expectancy merely slowed from 2005 to 2010. But drug violence in the northern states stunted life expectancy for women by several months.