Month: January 2016

‘The freeze-dried poop method’ might not sound like a weight-loss strategy that would catch on, but—as some researchers are now testing—it may be an effective way to slim down.

In a randomized, controlled clinical trial starting this year, researchers will test out such a fecal formula for the treatment of obesity. They’ll also try to glean critical details about the human microbiome and its role in our health and metabolism. The trial, led by Elaine Yu, an assistant professor and clinical researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, will involve taking fecal samples from lean, healthy donors then freeze-drying the stool, putting a gram or two into capsules, and giving them to 20 obese patients.

Such poop-packed pills, which are designed to replace a person’s intestinal microbes with those from a donor via their feces, have proven effective at treating tenacious gut infections. This has led researchers to ponder whether the transplants could remedy other health problems, including obesity and metabolic disorders. A few animal studies and some anecdotal data in humans suggests the answer is yes—and Yu hopes to get a final answer with the upcoming trial.

Broadband industry trade groups are hopping mad about a government report that says fast Internet service isn't being deployed to Americans quickly enough.

The Federal Communications Commission is required by Congress to determine annually whether broadband "is being deployed to all Americans in a reasonable and timely fashion" and to take action to encourage deployment if the answer is negative. The FCC's latest report finds that access to broadband—defined as 25Mbps downstream and 3Mbps upstream—has improved significantly but still isn't reaching the whole country.

That's not what Internet service providers wanted to hear.

An Arizona lawmaker is proposing legislation to make it a crime to get too close to the police to film them in action. The proposal from Republican state Sen. John Kavanagh, which includes penalties of a $300 fine and up to six months in jail, comes as lawmakers nationwide grapple with a new YouTube society of sorts. In light of high-profile incidents, filming the police has become a routine endeavor.

Last year, a Texas lawmaker proposed similar legislation but scrapped it following widespread opposition. Colorado and California went to other extremes, approving measures protecting the public from police retaliation for filming them. For their part, police officers across the nation are taking to body cameras to fulfill filming goals as well.

"Basically what this law says is if the officer is engaged in law enforcement activity, so he's making an arrest or he's questioning a suspicious person, you can film, but you've got to stay back 20 feet," Kavanagh told The Associated Press. "The reason being when you get closer, you become a distraction, the officer doesn't know if you're a threat, and that jeopardizes everybody's safety, including the officer."

Charter gained approval of its Time Warner Cable acquisition from New York state regulators today in exchange for providing 300Mbps speeds to all customers by 2019 and continuation of a cheap (but very slow) entry-level Internet service.

The state Public Service Commission voted 3-0 to approve the merger today, the Times Union of Albany reported. Charter's proposed $56.7 billion acquisition of TWC still needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission, but Charter had to gain approval for license transfers in states where TWC operates as well. TWC is also headquartered in New York City.

TWC already offers 300Mbps speeds in New York City and other major metro areas, and the combined company would have to offer that speed throughout its New York service area under the merger approval. TWC charges $64.99 a month for its 300Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream package in New York City, though that price is only good for the first 12 months a customer has service.

On Thursday, Uber settled with New York state authorities, paying a $20,000 fine to end investigations into two data breach incidents from 2014 and 2015.

The first was in October 2014, when Valleywag reported on Uber’s real-time "God View" map of 30 of its "notable users" at a launch party in Chicago. One of those users on the map found out he was being tracked when an attendee of the party began texting him his Uber car's exact location. The following month, an Uber executive suggested that the company begin hiring opposition research to target journalists who reported unfavorably on the company.

The second incident, from February 2015, was when the company alerted the New York Attorney General to a data breach incident from months earlier. That resulted in 50,000 driver’s license numbers and driver names being stolen.

It's almost like clockwork, the semi-annual chirping of non-news related to the never-announced, never-canceled notion of a new Half-Life video game. Instead of a vague statement or a weird, hidden file, Friday's update comes from a Valve staffer's surprisingly long response to a fan's e-mailed question.

A series fan exchanged e-mails with longtime series scribe Marc Laidlaw, and the messages were copied to reddit then confirmed by Gamasutra as legitimate. The e-mail began with a charged question: "Why can't you just publicly announce that Valve will never release the infamous Half-Life 3?" Laidlaw, a Valve designer and writer responsible for both major Half-Life games' stories, then responded with a lengthy, Q&A-styled announcement of his retirement from Valve. He led off by expressing hope that "this will explain why I cannot answer your questions."

Laidlaw's e-mail includes nine answers to a fictitious interviewer, including why he retired ("an outwardly obvious reason is that I'm old") and what he's going to do now ("I will almost certainly get back to writing stories of my own"). Of most interest to series fans is his answer to the question, "What does this mean for Half-Life?" which, admittedly, is open to wild interpretation.