SETI has observed a “strong” signal that may originate from a Sun-like star

The star is located 95 light years from Earth and has at least one confirmed planet.

Enlarge / The RATAN-600 radio telescope, in Zelenchukskaya, Russia. (credit: Wikimedia commons)

It remains only the barest of probabilities that astronomers have just found evidence of extraterrestrial, intelligent life. Nevertheless, in the community of astronomers and other scientists who use radio telescopes to search the heavens for beacons of life there is considerable excitement about a new signal observed by a facility in Russia.

According to Paul Glister, author of the Centauri Dreams website, the Italian astronomer Claudio Maccone and other astronomers affiliated with the search for extraterrestrial intelligence have detected "a strong signal in the direction of HD164595." HD 164595 is a star of 0.99 solar masses about 95 light years from Earth, with an estimated age of 6.3 billion years. The system is known to have at least one planet, HD 164595 b, which is similar in size to Neptune and orbits its star in 40 days. Other planets may exist in the system as well.

The observation was made with the RATAN-600 radio telescope in Zelenchukskaya, in southern Russia, Glister reports. He cautioned that the evidence is very preliminary:

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How fair are your dice?

Here’s how to check if your critical failures are due to bad dice or just bad luck.

Enlarge (credit: Q Family)

We've all been there: you're at a pick-up roleplaying group at your local game shop, and that noisy munchkin to your right—who is playing some kind of half-dragon triple-multiclassed character from an out-of-print rulebook that he found a PDF of online—seems to roll more than his fair share of natural 20s. Okay, maybe we haven't all been there, but let me tell you: it's annoying when someone appears to be awfully lucky with their rolls.

The issue is slightly less pronounced with board games, where everyone tends to use the same pool of dice, but having dice regularly come up high or low can obviously affect how the game plays out.

Putting aside cases of intentional cheating, did you know that dice—particularly polyhedral dice like d20 or d8—are almost universally unbalanced? Some are more balanced than others, but as you'd expect from mass-produced objects, small flaws in manufacturing and materials nearly always push each individual die either above or below the expected average roll.

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Exploits: Treiber der Android-Hersteller verursachen Kernel-Lücken

Die Zahl der Angriffe auf den Linux-Kernel in Android wächst sehr stark. Der mit Abstand größte Teil der bekannten Sicherheitslücken findet sich dabei in den Gerätetreibern der Hersteller, die mit der Kernel-Pflege offenbar überfordert sind. (Linux-Kernel, Google)

Die Zahl der Angriffe auf den Linux-Kernel in Android wächst sehr stark. Der mit Abstand größte Teil der bekannten Sicherheitslücken findet sich dabei in den Gerätetreibern der Hersteller, die mit der Kernel-Pflege offenbar überfordert sind. (Linux-Kernel, Google)

Nike+: Social-Media-Wirrwarr statt “Just do it”

Mit Nike+ hat der Hersteller eine der erfolgreichsten Sport-Apps im Angebot. Das letzte große Update verärgert Nutzer aber mit Programmfehlern und einer umständlichen Einbindung in soziale Medien. (Nike, iTunes)

Mit Nike+ hat der Hersteller eine der erfolgreichsten Sport-Apps im Angebot. Das letzte große Update verärgert Nutzer aber mit Programmfehlern und einer umständlichen Einbindung in soziale Medien. (Nike, iTunes)

OxygenOS vs. Cyanogenmod im Test: Ein Oneplus Three, zwei Systeme

Für das Oneplus Three stehen mittlerweile erste Builds von Cyanogenmods CM 13 zur Verfügung – Three-Nutzer stehen also vor der Wahl, ob sie nicht vom ursprünglichen OxygenOS dorthin wechseln wollen. Wir haben uns zwei Threes geschnappt und die Systeme miteinander verglichen. (Oneplus Three, Smartphone)

Für das Oneplus Three stehen mittlerweile erste Builds von Cyanogenmods CM 13 zur Verfügung - Three-Nutzer stehen also vor der Wahl, ob sie nicht vom ursprünglichen OxygenOS dorthin wechseln wollen. Wir haben uns zwei Threes geschnappt und die Systeme miteinander verglichen. (Oneplus Three, Smartphone)

Raumfahrt: Juno überfliegt Jupiter in geringer Distanz

Der erste Vorbeiflug ist gelungen: Die Raumsonde Juno hat zum ersten Mal Jupiter umrundet. Es war zugleich der naheste: So dicht wird die Sonde während ihrer Primärmission an den Planeten nicht mehr herankommen. (Juno, Nasa)

Der erste Vorbeiflug ist gelungen: Die Raumsonde Juno hat zum ersten Mal Jupiter umrundet. Es war zugleich der naheste: So dicht wird die Sonde während ihrer Primärmission an den Planeten nicht mehr herankommen. (Juno, Nasa)

Kim Dotcom’s Extradition Appeal Gets Underway

Last year a District Court judge in New Zealand found that there was an “overwhelming” case for Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, to be extradited to the United States to face trial for their alleged roles in the Mega Conspiracy. Today the trio were in the High Court to mount their appeal.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

kim-courtIn 2012, Megaupload was shut down in a massive international operation. At the time the file-storage site had been one of the most-visited on the planet with around 100 million users.

U.S. authorities subsequently claimed that Megaupload illegally generated more than US$175 million and cost copyright owners more than $0.5bn in lost business.

The former operators of Megaupload – Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk – insist that their business was a completely legal cloud storage platform so any infringement carried out by their users was not their responsibility. They are all fighting their cases from New Zealand where they are residents.

Last December, after almost ten weeks of hearings, District Court Judge Nevin Dawson found there was an “overwhelming” case for Kim Dotcom, Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk, to be extradited to the United States. There they face decades in jail on various charges including copyright infringement, money laundering, and racketeering.

Today, around a dozen lawyers were present in New Zealand’s High Court as Dotcom and his former colleagues mounted a formal appeal of last year’s extradition decision. The trio say that Judge Nevin Dawson didn’t give them a fair hearing.

The appeal is expected to last six to eight weeks but it began without Dotcom in attendance. He arrived after the hearing began and sat at the back with girlfriend Elizabeth Donelly. NZ’s Radio Live reported that the Megaupload founder appeared “relaxed”.

While Dotcom was not presenting argument today his lawyer Ron Mansfield told the court that due to the unprecedented issues involved and the international interest in the case, the hearing should be live streamed.

Mansfield said that a complex case of this nature is unlikely to receive balanced reporting so a live stream could ensure that all information is made available for public scrutiny. That could be done via YouTube, he said, with a 10-minute delay to ensure any sensitive material could be withheld.

A decision on that request wasn’t made right away, however. Judge Murray Gilbert said that the streaming request had been submitted late so he wanted to give representatives from the media time to consider the request and make their submissions. As previously reported, the United States government is objecting to the application.

Public interest in the case is undoubtedly high. Dotcom has become somewhat of a celebrity locally in New Zealand and he has a huge profile online as a serial entrepreneur, privacy activist, and video gamer. Unsurprisingly the public gallery in the High Court was full, with one man reportedly standing outside waving a banner claiming that Dotcom’s persecution is part of a CIA conspiracy.

With Dotcom not expected to speak until later next week, the hearing began with representation from Grant Illingworth QC, the lawyer representing Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk.

Illingworth said that the hearing had been unfair since the United States had denied the defendants the opportunity to hire specialist US-based technology experts who could help to support their defense.

He said that the case against the former Megaupload operators “had gone off the rails” and their extradition should be halted since the District Court had shown “extraordinary disinterest” in their arguments at the earlier hearing.

“It’s like ships passing in the night with no radar — the judge simply did not engage with the arguments in a meaningful way,” Illingworth said.

Pointing to alleged breaches of conduct by U.S. authorities, Illingworth
said that a situation of urgency had been manufactured in order to achieve procedural shortcuts.

There had been a “covering up” of unlawful activities preceding the arrests in 2012 and “downstream attempts to cover that up including a police officer giving incorrect information to this court, [and] unlawfully sending clones of hard drives overseas.”

Arguments for Mathias Ortmann and Bram van der Kolk are expected to take around eight days but the whole process is forecast to be a drawn-out affair. In the District Court the extradition hearing was supposed to take four weeks but actually took ten.

This time around the actions of the District Court will be picked over in fine detail, concentrating closely on numerous matters of law.

The United States Department of Justice isn’t expected to begin its arguments for another three weeks or so.

The hearing continues tomorrow but it’s unlikely that any final decision will arrive even this year. Dotcom and his rivals in the US both seem prepared to take this battle all the way to the Supreme Court in New Zealand if necessary. That could take years.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Epic Loot: Ubisoft schließt vier größere Free-to-Play-Spiele

Einen Ableger von Might & Magic, das mit großem Aufwand produzierte The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot und zwei weitere Free-to-Play-Titel will Ubisoft in den kommenden Wochen schließen. Entschädigungen für Restguthaben oder virtuelle Gegenstände gibt es nicht. (Ubisoft, Games)

Einen Ableger von Might & Magic, das mit großem Aufwand produzierte The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot und zwei weitere Free-to-Play-Titel will Ubisoft in den kommenden Wochen schließen. Entschädigungen für Restguthaben oder virtuelle Gegenstände gibt es nicht. (Ubisoft, Games)

Smart Home: Philips-Hue-Bewegungsmelder und neue Leuchten angekündigt

Philips bringt zur Ifa 2016 einen Bewegungsmelder für das Hue-System. Er erlaubt personalisierbare Einstellungen für schwächeres Licht in der Nacht und kann beliebige Lichtstimmungen in unterschiedlichen Räumen aktivieren. Außerdem werden 26 neue Leuchten vorgestellt. (Philips Hue, Hausautomation)

Philips bringt zur Ifa 2016 einen Bewegungsmelder für das Hue-System. Er erlaubt personalisierbare Einstellungen für schwächeres Licht in der Nacht und kann beliebige Lichtstimmungen in unterschiedlichen Räumen aktivieren. Außerdem werden 26 neue Leuchten vorgestellt. (Philips Hue, Hausautomation)