Month: February 2016

The Bennet sisters stash swords under their gowns for a reason. (credit: Jay Maidment/Sony)

This review contains minor spoilers to the film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

There are a few reasons a person might decide to watch the film Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. You might be a fan of Jane Austen and absorb anything to do with the 19th-Century author. You might be a fan of zombie films—even the bad ones—and will sign up to see any brains eaten by the undead. Or, maybe you want to watch Games of Thrones’ Lena Headey fight zombies while sporting an eyepatch throughout an entire film.

These are all valid reasons to walk into a theater to see a parody film based on a parody book based on an essential book. But while Pride and Prejudice and Zombies does include some awesomely bloody zombie fight scenes—we can confirm, Headey is definitely some kind of zombie warrior—it’s not a very good film. In fact, that’s being generous. This film is a mess. It takes the main characters and the rough outline of the plot from Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, mixes in some zombies, and then develops a whole new weird plot about zombie rights.

(credit: nerissa's ring)

BPA-free labels, blazoned on baby toys and beverage holders, are supposed to allay fears about the notorious chemical, previously used in sturdy plastics and epoxy resins. After all, bisphenol A (BPA) has been shown to impersonate hormones such as estrogen, and it is associated—though not definitely linked—to a broad range of health problems, including cancers and cardiovascular disease.

But the "BPA-free" label may simply be a meaningless marketing ploy.

A growing number of studies suggest that manufactures are swapping BPA for chemical cousins that have the same troubling activities in humans and animals. In a new study in Endocrinology, for instance, researchers found that a common BPA stand-in, bisphenol S (BPS), has nearly identical hormone-mimicking effects as BPA in zebrafish, a model organism used to study genetics and development. In the study, researchers found that BPS, like BPA, altered nerve cell development, changed the activity level of genes involved in developing the reproductive system, and caused early hatching (the fish equivalent of premature birth).

It sounds like a scene from an absurdist play or a companion to the old tale of dogs and cats living together in harmony, but it has now been confirmed. Servers distributing the notorious Dridex banking trojan were instead circulating clean copies of the freely available Avira antivirus program.

Avira researchers still don't know how the mixup happened, but their chief theory is that a whitehat hacker compromised some of the Dridex distribution channels and replaced the normal malicious executables with a digitally signed Avira installer. As a result, when targets opened attachments contained in spam e-mails sent by Dridex servers, the would-be marks were instead prompted to run a program designed to protect computers from the very likes of the Dridex threat.

"We still don't know exactly who is doing this with our installer and why—but we have some theories," a blog post published Friday quoted Avira malware expert Moritz Kroll saying. "This is certainly not something we are doing ourselves."

Staff at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) received an unpleasant e-mail when they came to work Thursday morning, one that outlined some specifics of long-awaited restructuring plans. The gist of the message? You've done such a good job, we have to let you go.

CSIRO’s CEO Larry Marshall's lengthy message stated, “Our climate models are among the best in the world and our measurements honed those models to prove global climate change. That question has been answered, and the new question is what do we do about it, and how can we find solutions for the climate we will be living with?”

The Sydney Morning Herald reported that about 110 of the 135 people in CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere division will be cut, and there will be a similar reduction in the Land and Water division. Smaller cuts are also planned for the Manufacturing and Data61 digital technology divisions. The remaining positions in Oceans and Atmosphere will be shifted away from climate science and toward mitigation of and adaptation to climate change.

T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere. (credit: T-Mobile)

A T-Mobile USA executive yesterday urged the Federal Communications Commission not to take any action against the carrier's "Binge On" program, which throttles nearly all video content and exempts certain video services from data caps.

"I think the commission has to tread lightly—and certainly more lightly than it would in the wired world—in the wireless space when there is so much experimentation happening, so much differentiation happening, and a lot of it customers responding to," T-Mobile Senior VP of Government Affairs Kathleen Ham said at an event in Washington, DC. "We do have to be transparent about it, we do have to make sure that the customer has choices, but I think it's wise to tread lightly in this environment when there's so much going on that I think customers are benefiting from."

Yesterday's event on zero-rating and net neutrality was hosted by the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute (see video here). The Hill also has a report on the panel discussion.

(credit: Christopher Paul)

A new study says the obvious: suspects' brains are briefly scrambled when they are on the receiving end of a Taser stun gun and its 50,000-volt delivery. But the study, "TASER Exposure and Cognitive Impairment: Implications for Valid Miranda Waivers and the Timing of Police Custodial Interrogations," (PDF) questions whether suspects who were just shocked have the mental capacity to validly waive their Miranda rights and submit to police questioning.

"TASER-exposed participants resembled patients with mild cognitive impairment, which suggests that not only might our participants be more likely to waive their Miranda rights directly after TASER exposure, but also they would be more likely to give inaccurate information to investigators," reads the study, which appears in the journal Criminology & Public Policy. "Thus, part of our findings implicates a suspect’s ability to issue a valid waiver, whereas another part implicates the accuracy of information he or she might give investigators during a custodial interrogation (e.g., false confessions or statements)."

The paper said that police departments might want to wait to question a suspect for about an hour, the amount of time for brain functioning to return to normal after a suspect is shocked. The Drexel University and Arizona State University researchers said innocent suspects may not appear so innocent right after being shocked:

On Friday, Volkswagen Group said it would be delaying its annual earnings meeting, originally scheduled for March 10, due to "remaining open questions… relating to the diesel emissions issue.” The annual general meeting of shareholders, scheduled for April, will also be postponed.

The New York Times calls the move “highly unusual” but understandable given that the German automaker could potentially owe “tens of billions” in fines, not including the cost of fixing or buying back the nearly 600,000 diesel vehicles in the US alone that were equipped with emissions-system-cheating software. Worldwide, the number of diesel Volkswagens with so-called “defeat device” software rises to about 11 million.

According to a press release from the company, Volkswagen decided to delay the financial meetings to achieve a "transparent and reliable outcome for its shareholders and stakeholders.” It promised to release the new scheduled meeting dates as soon as possible.

iRobot

The iRobot 710 Kobra. This is the company's biggest military bot. With a gripper arm attachment like this, it can lift 330 pounds.

8 more images in gallery

iRobot is most famous for its Roomba robotic vacuum line, but the company also has a sizable "Defense and Security" division, which makes robots for the US Armed Forces and various police forces. Or at least it used to—iRobot has announced that the military division will be sold off and formed into a separate company.

The press release says that Arlington Capital Partners will buy the division for "up to $45 million in total consideration." The new company will be fully dedicated to military and police robots, and it will be led by the existing Defense and Security management team. There's no name for the new company yet—that will be saved for when the transaction closes in the next 90 days.

iRobot's military robots all followed the same basic formula. They're driven by a pair of continuous tracks with a second set of tracks attached to the front. The front tracks could be actuated, lifting up off the ground and allowing the robot to climb obstacles like stairs and rocks. The body of the robots were platforms that iRobot outfitted with various capabilities, usually robotic arms with cameras or gripper arms. That basic design came in a few different sizes, ranging from something you could throw through a window to a robot that would fit in a backpack or a heavy-duty bot weighing as much as 500 pounds.